VASANT R KOTHARI has done Masters in Textiles Technology from DKTEs Textile and Engineering Institute,

Ichalkaranji (Shivaji University, Kolhapur), Maharashtra. He has also done Diploma in Export Management
(Apparel Export) from the Indian Institute of Export Management, and Garment Export and Merchandising
Management from NIFT, Bangalore. Presently, hes working as an Assistant Professor in Department of Fashion
Technology, NIFT, Bangalore. (This is his eighth input from the series of articles in Knitting Views).

Single jersey fabric

If a weft knitted fabric has one side
consisting only of face stitches, and the
opposite side consisting of back stitches,
then it is described as a plain knitted fabric.
It is also frequently referred to as a single
jersey fabric (single fabric).
Technical face of single jersey fabric is
smooth, with the side limbs of the needle
loops having the appearance of columns
of Vs in the wales. These are useful as

basic units of design when knitting with

different coloured yarns. On the technical
back, the heads of the needle loops and
the bases of the sinker loops form
columns of interlocking semi-circles,
whose appearance is sometimes
emphasised by knitting alternate courses
in different coloured yarns.

Fig 8.3: Face & back side of plain jersey fabric

Fig 8.4: Face side Cross

of the fabric
section

Fig 8.2: The technical back of plain jersey

Fig 8.1: The technical face of plain jersey

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Back side of
the fabric..

Plain is the simplest and most economical

weft knitted structure to produce and has
the maximum covering power. It normally
has a potential recovery of 40 per cent in
width after stretching.

Clearing: The sinker is still forward as the

needle has been raised to its highest
position clearing the old loop from its latch.

Fig 8.5: Knitting notation of single jersey fabric

Production of single-jersey
fabric
Single jersey fabrics are produced on flat
as well as circular machines, having one
set of needles in one needle bed and are
called jersey machines, plain-knit
machines, or single knit machines. Most
of the single-jersey fabrics are produced
on circular machines whose latch needle
cylinder and sinker ring revolve through
the stationary knitting cam systems that,
together with their yarn feeders, are
situated at regular intervals around the
circumference of the cylinder. The yarn is
supplied from cones, placed either on an
integral overhead bobbin stand or on a
free-standing creel, through tensioners,
stops motions and guide eyes down to
the yarn feeder guides. The fabric, in
tubular form, is drawn downwards from
inside the needle cylinder by tension rollers
and is wound onto the fabric-batching
roller of the winding-down frame.

The knitting action

Fig 8.10: Holding down

Fig 8.7 Clearing

Yarn feeding: The sinker is partially move

back allowing the feeder to present its yarn
to the descending needle hook and also
freeing the old loop so that it can slide up
the needle stem and under the open latch
spoon.

Fig 8.8: Yarn feeding

Knock-over: The sinker is fully withdrawn

whilst the old loop has closed the latch to
trap the new yarn; needle descends to
knock over its old loop on the sinker belly.

Figure 8.6 8.10 shows the knitting

action of a latch needle and holdingdown sinker during the production of a
course of plain fabric.
Tucking in the hook or rest position: The
sinker is in forward position, holding down
the old loop (fabric) whilst the needle rises
from the rest position.

Fig 8.9: Knock over

Holding-down: The sinker moves forward

to hold down the new loop in its throat
whilst the needle rises under the influence
of the up throw came to the rest position
where the head of the open hook just
protrudes above the sinker belly.
Fig 8.6: Tucking in the hook or rest position

are unbalanced and have a tendency to

curl at the edges. This condition can
frequently be corrected in fabric finishing.
If not corrected, this problem can be quite
troublesome in cutting and sewing
operations. Jersey-knit fabrics stretch
more in the width directions.

All needles in one bed can pull loops in

only one direction as shown in fig 8.11.
As a consequence, jersey-knit materials

Fig 8.11: Single jersey circular knit fabric

on machine

A wide variety of knitted fabrics are made

with the jersey-knit construction, ranging
from sheer, lightweight hosiery to thick,
bulky sweaters. Most full-fashioned
sweaters are fundamentally jersey-knit
fabric types. Additional fabrics that use
jersey-knit construction are men's
underwear, T-shirts, pantyhose, knit terry,
knit velour, and many more. One
shortcoming of jersey-knit fabrics is that if
one yarn breaks, it causes an unravelling
of adjoining stitches in the wale, called a
run. Lightweight filament-yarn jerseys are
especially susceptible to runs due partially
to the very smooth surface of filament yarn.

Rib fabric
Rib has a vertical cord appearance
because the face loop wales tend to move
over and in front of the reverse loop wales.
One vertical row of wale is meshed in the
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opposite direction to the other vertical row

of wales. Face row or loops tends to close
up in one plane and so also the back row
of loops in the other plain. Thus stitches
of rib fabrics lie in two planes and hence
the rib structure is also known as double
jersey structure.

Fig 8.14: Top view of rib fabric

1 x 1 rib has the appearance of the technical

face of plain fabric on both sides until
stretched to reveal the reverse loop wales
in between.
Fig 8.17: Graphic representation of two sets
of needle on rib knitting machine

Fig 8.14: Front view of

rib fabric

The knitting action of the circular rib

machine
The knitting action of a circular rib machine
is shown in Fig. 8.18 8.21:
Fig 8.12: Technical face and back of rib fabric

Relaxed 1 x 1 rib is theoretically twice the

thickness and half the width of an
equivalent plain fabric, but it has twice as
much width-wise recoverable stretch. In
practice, 1 x 1 rib normally relaxes by
approximately 30 per cent compared with
its knitting width.

Fig 8.14: Back view of

rib fabric

Fig 8.14:
Cross section
view of rib
fabric

Clearing: In clearing position, the

cylinder and dial needles move out to clear
the plain and rib loops formed in the
previous cycle

Fig 8.15: Knitting notation of rib fabric

is capable of producing stitches. The fabric

is formed between the two needle-holding
beds. The machinery required to produce
rib-knit fabric is substantially more complex
and operates at slower speeds than
knitting machines used for jersey fabrics.
Rib knits are produced on flat (V-Bed) as
well as circular machines.

Fig 8.18: Clearing

Yarn feeding: The needles start their return

moment and are withdrawn into their tricks
so that the old loops are covered by the
open latches and the new yarn is fed into
the open hooks.

Fig 8.13: Rib fabric structure

Production of rib fabric

Rib-knit fabrics are produced with knitting
machines that are somewhat different from
those used for jersey knits. Because rib
knits have stitches drawn to both sides of
the fabric, the machines used to make
them, called rib-knit machines, require two
sets of needles usually positioned at right
angles to each other; each set of needles

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Fig 8.16: Two sets of needle on rib

knitting machine

Fig 8.19: Yarn feeding

Knocking-over: The needles are

withdrawn into their tricks so that the old
loops are knocked over and the new loops
are drawn through them.

If cylinder needle is knocking over before

dial needle, then it is known as delayed
timing, which is very popular in
production of rib fabric as it produces
tighter fabric due to robbing back (this is
where some yarn is taken from the
previously knitted stitch to make the
current stitch). If both, cylinder and dial
needle knock over together, to produce
loops of equal size, it is known as
synchronised timing.
Fig 8.23: Synchronised timing

the loops of certain wales are withdrawn

in one direction and the others in the
opposite direction, whereas the loops of
plain are always withdrawn in the same
direction, from the technical face to the
technical back.

Fig 8.20: Knocking over

Fig 8.22: Delayed timing

Fig 8.21: Knock over

1 x 1 rib is balanced by alternate wales of

face loops on each side; it therefore lies
flat without curl when cut. It is a more
expensive fabric to produce than plain and
is a heavier structure; the rib machine also
requires finer yarn than a similar gauge
plain machine. Like all weft-knitted fabrics,
it can be unroved from the end-knitted last
by drawing the free loop heads through
to the back of each stitch. It can be
distinguished from plain by the fact that

Rib cannot be unroved from the end

knitted first because the sinker loops are
securely anchored by the cross-meshing
between face and reverse loop wales.
This characteristic, together with its
elasticity, makes rib particularly suitable
for the extremities of articles such as
undergarments, tops of socks, cuffs of
sleeves, knit hats, rib borders of
garments, and stolling and strapping for
cardigans. Rib structures are elastic, formfitting, and etain warmth better than plain
structures
(In the next article, we would be discussing
about purl and interlock fabrics.)
(The Author can be contacted at
www.vasantkothari.com)

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