Patent ID: 7474936

Claim:
A flat knitting machine, having a carriage provided along a longitudinal direction of the needle bed with: a plurality of cam systems operating a needle in a needle bed; and a plurality of accompanying means for allowing accompaniment of a yarn carrier and releasing the accompaniment of the yarn carrier, wherein a yarn is fed to the yarn carrier from a fixed yarn guide through a movable yarn guide, the fixed yarn guide provided at an end of the needle bed, the movable yarn guide positioned between the fixed yarn guide and the yarn carrier, and the yarn carrier and the movable yarn guide provided on the same yarn guide rail, and wherein: first accompanying means among the plurality of accompanying means accompanies the yarn carrier; the movable yarn guide is structured such that the movable yarn guide can be accompanied by the plurality of accompanying means and the accompaniment of the movable yarn guide can be released by the plurality of accompanying means, and second accompanying means among the plurality of accompanying means accompanies the movable yarn guide and releases the accompaniment of the movable yarn guide; and the second accompanying means is controlled by control data for the movable yarn guide in a knitting program for controlling the carriage such that an interval between the movable yarn guide and the yarn carrier is kept within a predetermined range, and a position of releasing the accompaniment of the movable yarn guide falls within a stroke of the second accompanying means at the time of the next accompaniment of the movable yarn guide.