Patent ID: 7739886

Claim:
A method of knitting a knitwear having an open part in a body tubular part and formed by joining the body tubular part and sleeve tubular parts using a flat knitting machine having a pair of front and back needle beds extending in a transverse direction and disposed opposite to each other in a cross direction, at least one of which is capable of being racked in the transverse direction so that loops can be transferred between the front and back needle beds; the method comprising the steps of: a) knitting the body tubular part having a front body and a back body by return knitting up to a joining starting position to form a tubular part with the open part as a turn-back position on the knitwear, wherein either the front body or the back body is divided into a right body and a left body, overlapping portions of the open parts of the bodies are abutted to each other, one of the front or back bodies does not have the open part, one of the front and back needle beds holds loops of the one of the front or back bodies not having the open part, and a boundary of knitted fabric of the front body and knitted fabric of the back body is positioned on the one of the front and back needle beds holding loops of the one of the front or back bodies not having the open part; b) rotating the body tubular part so that one of the left and right boundaries of the body tubular part is positioned between the front and back needle beds; c) joining the body tubular part and one of the left and right sleeve tubular parts to form one tubular part with one of the boundaries of the body tubular part and a joining side boundary of the sleeve tubular part facing each other; d) rotating the tubular part formed in step c so that the other boundary of the body tubular part is positioned between the front and back needle beds; e) joining the body tubular part and the other sleeve tubular part to form one tubular part with the other boundary of the body tubular part and a joining side boundary of the sleeve tubular part facing each other; and f) knitting the tubular part formed in step e by return-knitting towards shoulder parts with the open part as a turn-back position.