Patent ID: 6918270

Claim:
A neck forming method of knitting a tubular knitwear on a flat knitting machine comprising a pair of first and second needle beds arranged in front and back, either of or both of which are slidably moved in a transverse direction, wherein alternate first-body knitting needles on the needle beds are used to knit a first body (e.g. a front body) and the remaining alternate second-body knitting needles on the needle beds are used to knit a second body (e.g. a back body), and the first body is attached to the first needle bed (e.g. the front needle bed) and the second body is attached to the second needle bed (e.g. the back needle bed), whereby a tubular knitted fabric with its first and second bodies continuously connected with each other at both ends thereof is knitted by a half gauge knitting, starting knitting from hems to a shoulder, and an overlapped-in-two-layer neck portion where an inner layer neck and an outer layer neck are overlapped in two layers is formed in a center of a neckline in the process of the half gauge knitting, the neck forming method comprising: (a) the step of knitting a 1-a body (e.g. a right front body) and a 1-b body (e.g. a left front body) diverging from the front body after the neckline in the front body starts knitting, and putting the loops to form the neckline into the rested state sequentially by a flechage knitting, while knitting the bodies toward the shoulder; (b) the step of widening the loops of the first body in the center of the neckline and engaging outer-layer-neck knitting loops and inner-layer-neck knitting loops with the alternate needles, respectively, and holding either of the outer-layer-neck knitting loops and the inner-layer-neck knitting loops on second body knitting needles; (c) the step of starting forming a first neck (e.g. a left neck) from a whole or a part of the inner-layer-neck knitting loops in the condition that the outer-layer-neck knitting loops are held by the alternate needles on the first needle bed and moving the first neck toward the 1-b body whenever a proper number of courses are knitted, to overlap the loops of the first neck at an lateral end thereof with the loops of the neckline so as to form loops of the next course, the step being repeatedly performed, and (d) the step of starting forming a second neck (e.g. a right neck) from a whole or a part of the outer-layer-neck knitting loops and moving the second neck toward the 1-a body whenever a proper number of courses are knitted, to overlap the loops of the second neck at an lateral end thereof with the loops of the neckline so as to form loops of the next course, the step being repeatedly performed.