IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF STOCKINGS AND IN MACHINERY THEREFOR."
Year: 1880

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Harrietta Röhner and Louis Pagel
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 10th September 1880.
HARRIETTA RÖHNER and LOUIS PAGEL, both of Liverpool, in the County of
Lancaster. "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF STOCKINGS AND IN
MACHINERY THEREFOR."
In stockings as ordinarily manufactured a garter must be used above or below
the knee; if below it tends to injure the calf, if above it stretches the stocking
tight over the knee, causing a constant wear and irritation at this point.
Further, from this cause, the knee is the first part of the stocking to wear out, being
split or in holes (especially with children wearing knickerbocker suits) long before
the stocking requires mending elsewhere.
Now our Invention is designed to take away this tightness and wear and tear at
the knee.
This is done in knitted stockings by gradually taking on extra stitches on each
side the stocking a little above the knee and nearer the front than the rear. They
are then taken off again below the knee in the same gradual manner.
This causes the part at the knee to arch so as to leave plenty of room for the
knee to project out; the consequence is that there is no tightness and very little
wear on this point, even when children are at the sea shore and much on their
knees in the sand, while bicyclists will find the taking away of the tightness at the
knees a great relief.
In woven stockings a similar arching is effected by adding stitches or otherwise
as most convenient.
In making the stockings on the ordinary vertical knitting machine, which does
not allow of an increase in the number of needles in the ring, we arrange the frame
of the machine so as to be capable of holding a swinging overhanging bracket;
this bracket during the ordinary course of knitting is swung to one side. This
bracket contains two series of needles, each arranged in a horse-shoe or narrow loop
form with guards and hooks to be worked by hand. When the stocking is knit
to the point at which the enlargement is required, the knitting is stopped at the
first horse-shoe and a single stitch taken up on one of its needles, it is then run to
the next horse-shoe of needles and a single stitch taken on one needle in that,
next round two needles in each horse-shoe, then three needles, and so on till the

page_text: right number of stitches are taken up. The stocking leg is then knitted uniformly
till the point arrives at which the taking off begins, when the stitches are taken
off by hand in precisely the same manner as they were put on, and when all are
off, the bracket and horse-shoes and needles are swung out of the way.
With the new vertical rib machines it is easier as only one rib need be hand
worked on each side, and in those machines with expanding centres and variable
number of needles, a fresh needle is introduced for each new line of stitches
as required.
In practice however it will be found most convenient in knitting to do this part
entirely by hand and away from the machine, except in those machines where the
number of needles in the ring can be increased.