Fabric connecting method and fabric having stylish joins

Abstract: In the knitting of a garment for example, where parts of the garment are knitted separately on a flat knitting machine having at least one pair of needle beds, and where a part of the item on one side is moved and connected to a part of the item on the other side, stitch loops on the outermost boundary side of said one-side part are overlapped (at 51 to 61) with stitch loops of one of the second to fourth wales from the boundary side of said other-side part. The stitch loops of said one-side part are moved by racking of two to four needles.

Description: The present invention relates to methods of connecting parts of a knitted item which are carried out by using a flat knitting machine, as well as to knitted items produced by such connecting methods and having stylish joins. Parts such as sleeves and the body which constitute an article of clothing can be knitted using a flat knitting machine. The parts thus knitted then go through a sewing process and thereby result in a clothing product. However, with a view to simplifying or omitting the sewing process, an improvement which is strongly to be recommended in terms of working efficiency, the parts of an article of clothing are connected together during knitting on a flat knitting machine to save the labour of the sewing which follows the knitting, and thus to obtain a clothing product of higher quality. More particularly, sleeve and body portions are knitted up to an armpit, using needles implanted in needle beds of a flat knitting machine, and then the knitting of the body portion is allowed to proceed, while for the sleeve portion the course ratio is changed suitably according to the length ratio of wristband to side and wristband to shoulder. While both parts are formed in this way, stitch loops of the sleeve portion are moved by transfer so as to overlap the stitch loops positioned on the outermost side of the body portion adjacent thereto, thereby successively forming a shoulder line along the join, and at the same time the knitting operation is allowed to proceed. In this conventional method however, at the time of connecting the separately knitted parts together, the stitch loops of the outermost wales adjacent to each other are overlapped together by transfer, resulting in the stitch loops of this portion being bent oppositely to each other, and thereby spoiling the appearance of the shoulder line which is formed. Thus, although one saves the labour of sewing, and the productivity is improved, it is difficult to achieve an attractive finished product. US-A-3824810 describes a method of making a blank for a sleeved knitted garment, in which, in the completed blank, parts of the garment are joined together to constitute a single integral piece of knitting. US-A-3636733 also describes the making of a sleeved knitted garment in which the amount of "making up" required to finish the garment is reduced, by the sleeves being joined to the body during the knitting of the garment. It is an object of the present invention to obtain an attractive finished knitted product of high quality wherein the stitch loops of a connection are not bent oppositely to each other. It is a further object to provide a method for producing such a product. According to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a knitted item comprising a first part and a second part, characterised in that the last stitch loop of each wale in said first part is overlapped with a corresponding stitch loop of one of the second to fourth wales from the boundary side of said second part. Also in accordance with the invention there is provided a method of connecting parts of a knitted item wherein the parts constituting the item are knitted separately on a flat knitting machine having at least one pair of opposed needle beds (I, II) of inverted V shape in section, at least one of these beds being adapted for racking movement relative to the other or others, which comprises moving a first part of the item from one needle bed to a second part of the item on another needle bed to overlap stitches (51 to 61), feeding yarn to the needles of the second part including the thus-overlapped stitches to perform knitting, thereby releasing the overlapped stitches from the needles, and repeating said steps to connect the parts, characterised in that the last stitch loops of each wale in the first part are moved by racking of two to four needles to overlap with the stitch loops of one of the second to fourth wales of the second part adjacent to said first part. A connection is positioned inside by one to three wales from the outermost wale, and in the stitch loops of the said connection there are present a series of stitches formed by the same course which is adjacent outside, so the stitch loops of the connection in an overlapped state of the stitches are prevented from being bent while retaining their loop shape. In the connection, therefore, there is no sense of incongruity in appearance, and, since stitches are not overlapped at the outermost wale, no bad influence is exerted on the stitch loop shape, that is, the appearance is not spoiled. In order that the invention may be fully understood, a preferred embodiment will now be described by way of example and with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: Fig. 1 shows an article of clothing made according to the present invention; Fig. 2 is a loop diagram of a connection; and Figs. 3a to 3h together constitute a knitting diagram of the connection. A knitting method according to the present invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings. In this embodiment there is shown a method for connecting two pieces of knitting, namely a body portion and a left-hand sleeve portion, which are both clothing parts, using a flat knitting machine having a pair of needle beds, one in the front and one in the rear, the rear needle bed being provided with a racking mechanism. According to this method, at the time of moving the sleeve portion to the body portion, the stitch loops positioned on the outermost side of the sleeve portion are overlapped with stitch loops located in the second wale position from the boundary side of the body portion adjacent thereto. An explanation will be given below using part of a related design (loop diagram) and a related knitting diagram (block diagram). As for the simultaneous knitting and connection of three clothing parts, e.g. right-side and left-side sleeve portions and a body portion, the method for this will be omitted in the following description because it can be carried out easily by simple extension of the method of connecting two parts together. Also, as to the size (number of needles) of the body portion and the size of the sleeve portion, these are kept small in the following description for clarity and ease of explanation. Fig. 1 illustrates the composition of an article of clothing, and in Fig. 3 there are shown needles ABC ... XYZ implanted in a front needle bed I and needles abc ... xyz implanted in a rear needle bed II. A sleeve portion is knitted with the needles ABC ... KLM of the front needle bed, while a body portion is knitted with the needles OPQ ... XYZ. By means of yarn feeders 100 and 200 the sleeve and body portions have already been subjected to setting-up and knitting of their principal portions according to known methods and the knitting has reached an armpit portion, though not shown in the knitting diagram. In blocks 1 and 2, yarn is fed to course knitting needles ZYX ... PON for the body portion which follows the armpit portion, by means of the yarn feeder 200, and after knitting a course 1, yarn is fed again to the needles NOP ... XYZ to knit a course 2. Then, the feeder 200 returns to its original position. In block 3, stitches of a course 50 retained by the needles ABC ... KLM of the sleeve portion are moved to the opposed needles abc ... klm of the rear needle bed. Then, in block 4 which follows, the rear needle bed is racked to the right by two needles to move the stitch at needle m to needle O on the front needle bed in order to overlap stitches. The overlapped stitches are indicated at 51 in Fig. 2. Then, in block 5, the rear needle bed is racked to the left by one needle from the state of block 4; that is, racking is made to the right by one needle from a reference position in which needles ABC ... XYZ and abc ... xyz of the front and rear needle beds are opposed to each other, thereby causing the stitches at needles abc ... jkl to move to empty needles BCD ... KLM which are opposed thereto. In blocks 6 and 7, like blocks 1 and 2, the knitting of the body portion is performed to form courses 6 and 7. In block 8, the stitches of the sleeve portion at needles BCD ... KLM are moved to needles bcd ... klm of the rear needle bed; then in block 9 which follows, the rear needle bed is racked to the right by two needles, thereby causing the stitch at needle m to move to needle O on the front needle bed and allowing stitches to overlap each other. The overlapped stitches are indicated at 52 in Fig. 2. Further, in block 10, racking is made to the right by one needle from the reference position to move the stitches at needles bcd ... jkl to empty needles CDE ... KLM which are opposed thereto. In blocks 11 and 12, there is performed knitting of the body portion to form courses 11 and 12. In block 13, the stitches of the sleeve portion at needles CDE ... KLM are moved to the needles cde ... klm of the rear needle bed; then in block 14 which follows, the rear needle bed is racked to the right by two needles to move the stitch at needle m to needle O on the front needle bed, thereby overlapping stitches. The overlapped stitches are indicated at 53 in Fig. 2. In block 15, racking is made to the right by one needle from the reference position to move the stitches at needles cde ... jkl to empty needles DEF ... KLM which are opposed thereto. In blocks 16 and 17 there is performed knitting of the body portion to form courses 16 and 17. Then, in block 18, the yarn feeder 100 is moved from left to right by means of a carriage (not shown) to feed yarn to needles DEF ... KLM, thereby forming a course 18 of the sleeve portion, whereupon it stops. In block 19, the loops retained by the needles DEF ... KLM are moved to needles def ... klm of the rear needle bed. In block 20, the rear needle bed is racked to the right by two needles to move the stitch at needle m to needle O on the front needle bed, thereby overlapping stitches, as indicated at 54 in Fig. 2. Then, in block 21, racking is made to the right by one needle from the reference position to move the stitches at needles def ... jkl to empty needles EFG ... KLM which are opposed thereto. In block 22, yarn is fed to needles EFG ... KLM by the yarn feeder 100 to form a course 22 of the sleeve portion, and at the same time a tuck joint is applied to the loop of the body portion retained by the needle O to prevent the formation of a hole in the boundary between the sleeve portion and the body portion. In blocks 23 and 24, yarn is fed to needles NOP ... XYZ to perform knitting of the body portion, thereby forming courses 23 and 24. By repeating knitting operations similar to those in the above blocks 3 to 24 the sleeve portion and the body portion are connected together while the former is moved to the latter to form overlapped stitches 55, 56, 57 and 58 which are shown in Fig.2. In block 25, the loops retained by the needles IJKLM are moved to the needles ijklm of the rear needle bed. In block 26, the rear needle bed is racked to the right by two needles to move the stitch at needle m to needle O on the front needle bed, thereby overlapping stitches as indicated at 59 in Fig. 2. Then, in block 27, racking is made to the right by one needle from the reference position to move the stitches at needles kl to empty needles JKLM which are opposed thereto. In blocks 28 and 29 there is performed knitting of the body portion to form courses 28 and 29. In block 30, the stitches of the sleeve portion at needles JKLM are moved to the needles jklm on the rear needle bed, and in block 31, which follows, the rear needle bed is racked to the right by two needles to move the stitch at needle m to needle O on the front needle bed, thereby overlapping stitches, as indicated at 60 in Fig. 2. Then, in block 32, racking is made to the right by one needle from the reference position to move the stitches at needles jkl to empty needles KLM which are opposed thereto. In blocks 33 and 34, there is performed knitting of the body portion to form courses 33 and 34. In block 35, the stitches of the sleeve portion at needles KLM are moved to needles klm on the rear needle bed, and in block 36, which follows, the rear needle bed is racked to the right by two needles to move the stitch at needle m to needle O on the front needle bed to overlap stitches, as indicated at 61 in Fig. 2. Then, in block 37, racking is made to the right by two needles from the reference position to move the stitches at needles kl to empty needles LM which are opposed thereto. In this way the connection of the sleeve and body portions is continued (not shown), whereby there is formed a shoulder line having a stylish join. Further, by continuing the body portion knitting operation (not shown) there is formed an item which permits one to omit the sewing process to a great extent. In the above embodiment, when the sleeve portion is moved to the body portion, the endmost stitch loops of the sleeve portion are overlapped with the stitch loops of the second wale from the adjacent side of the body portion which is opposed thereto. However, in the case where the said endmost stitch loops are to be overlapped with the stitch loops of the third to fourth wales, it is not always required to apply a tuck joint to the body portion at the time of knitting the sleeve portion, and even without forming a close connection the hole formed therein is covered and hidden by the loops of the body portion overlying the hole, so is not visible at the garment surface. The knitting method of the present invention is not limited to a sleeve-body connection as described in the above embodiment, but is applicable to conventional fabric connecting methods. Furthermore, although in the above embodiment there is used a knitting machine having a pair of needle beds, one in the front and one in the rear, it goes without saying that the present invention can also be practised by the use of a knitting machine having two or more pairs of needle beds. In this case, it becomes possible to knit the parts of an item of clothing, including sleeve and body portions, in a cylindrical form and so the sewing step after knitting can be omitted to a greater extent. As is apparent from the above description, since the wale in the connection is positioned inside, the external shape is retained by the action of adjacent stitches and hence the appearance is not impaired. Besides, since the stitches of the wale located outside the connection are placed in a free state, the beauty of a created shoulder line is not spoiled and one obtains a garment whose finishing is neat. Furthermore, since the stitches located outside the connection, and assuming such free state, are curled inside due to the properties of the fabric itself, there can be formed an elegant fabric having a three-dimensional appearance in the connection, including a fabric located in a lower position such as a sleeve portion, a fabric located in an upper position such as a body portion, and an end wale fabric of the body portion positioned in a form having depth between the upper and lower portions.

Claims: A knitted item comprising a first part and a second part, characterised in that the last stitch loop of each wale in said first part is overlapped with a corresponding stitch loop of one of the second to fourth wales from the boundary side of said second part. A method of connecting parts of a knitted item wherein the parts constituting the item are knitted separately on a flat knitting machine having at least one pair of opposed needle beds (I, II) of inverted V shape in section, at least one of these beds being adapted for racking movement relative to the other or others, which comprises moving a first part of the item from one needle bed to a second part of the item on another needle bed to overlap stitches ( 51 to 61), feeding yarn to the needles of the second part including the thus-overlapped stitches to perform knitting, thereby releasing the overlapped stitches from the needles, and repeating said steps to connect the parts, characterised in that the last stitch loops of each wale in the first part are moved by racking of two to four needles to overlap with the stitch loops of one of the second to fourth wales of the second part adjacent to said first part.

Inventors: OKUNO MASAO, OKUNO, MASAO
Applicants: SHIMA SEIKI MFG, SHIMA SEIKI MFG., LTD.
Application year: 1991
Main classification: D04B7
IPC codes: D04B1, A41D1, D04B7