Knitting machine type
Single bed (punch card) + ribber
A punch-card machine with a ribber attached as a second bed, which adds ribs, double jersey, tubular knitting and bed-to-bed transfers by hand. A pitch lever switches between pitch (needles opposite, for even ribs and transfers) and half pitch (for full-needle rib and double jersey). The card selects only the main bed; the ribber can only knit, slip or tuck across the whole bed, and hold is a main-bed feature.
Can do: rib and double jersey, transfers between beds, hold (short rows), tuck, slip, two colours in a row, lace carriage
Cannot do: —
- Needles chosen by a 24-stitch punch card
- Pattern repeat up to 24 stitches
- Pitch lever: opposite or half pitch
- Needle spacing: 3.6 / 4.5 / 9 mm
- Default 200 needles (up to 250)
Examples: Brother KH-821 / KH-836 / KH-881 + KR-830 or KR-850; Silver Reed SK-280 + SRP60N; Brother KH-260 + KR-260 (bulky)
How to draw for it
- Label the rows main bed and ribber, and keep selection patterns on the main bed.
- Set the pitch per section: any row where both beds knit neighbouring needles must be half pitch.
- On the ribber row, use one action for the whole bed in each pass (knit, slip or tuck).
- Draw racking and cross-bed transfers as their own step rows, and never rack while needles are in hold.
- Use hold cells only on the main bed.
105 techniques you can knit on it
Jacquard (Fair Isle)
- Two-colour Fair Isle
- Multi-colour Fair Isle by feeder changes
- Single motif
- Elongation / double length
- Float control (latching, hooking up, bird's-eye dots)
- Double-bed jacquard (needs ribber)
- DBJ with bird's-eye backing
- DBJ with striped backing (full and half)
- DBJ with plain (solid) backing
- Ladder backing / Fair Isle tamed by the ribber
- Tubular and reversible double jacquard
- 3–4 colours per row in DBJ
- DBJ on KH-821 + ribber without a colour changer
- Relief/blister jacquard
- Butt-height colour patterns and manual colour options on Dubied
Tuck and slip
Intarsia
Plating
Rib
- Vertical rib (N×M)
- Pitch / half-pitch rib arrangement
- Horizontal rib by whole-width bed swap
- Knitting the first row after a transfer
- Travelling rib by edge-stitch transfer
- Travelling rib by shifting all stitches
- Mirrored / zoned travelling ribs
- Bed-swap blocks (checkerboard / "large moss")
- Alternating vertical-rib and horizontal-rib blocks
- Moss dots in the centre of rib columns
- Plated transfer motifs (reversible two-colour image)
- Rib bands alternating with single-jersey bands (accordion)
- Rib with single-jersey panels / broken rib relief
Cables and lace
Short rows (partial knitting)
- Partial-knit hold mechanics
- Wrapping & float discipline
- One-side wedge / curve / spiral
- Alternating wedges, stripes & chevrons
- Centre bulge / dome
- Flared / ruffled edges
- Inset godet / pocket-flap triangle
- Peaks / pyramids (single and arrays)
- Partially knitted sections (leaning columns)
- Twisted / staggered sections
- Sections with needle-out bridges
- Mirrored sections (multi-bobbin)
- Stuffable pockets, one/two colour
- Multi-colour pockets (reverse partial knit)
- Knitted loops & surface braids
- Edge loops for joining pieces
Lifted stitches
- Basic lifted stitch (heel hook-up)
- Selective lifts, alternating grid (honeycomb / smocking)
- Charted lift placement (blocks, diamonds, conceal-and-reveal)
- Stepped adjacent lifts (diagonal wave)
- Lifts with contrasting yarn weights/fibres
- Lift-and-shift (directional/twisting lifts)
- Full-row lift (horizontal tuck/roll)
- Partial knit + lift: diagonal ripples
- Sectioned ripples in multiple directions
- Stacked shrinking ripples (pyramid / peak)
- Partial-knit peaks closed by lifting
- Short-row godet ground with ripple dividers
- Partial-knit loops closed by lifting (loop pile)
Ottoman ridges
Pleats and folds
- Horizontal Transfer Fold (Accordion)
- Vertical Accordion Pleat
- Integrated Knife Pleat
- Integrated Box Pleat
- Raised Box Fold (Over-filled Box Pleat)
- Right-triangle transfers (knife pleat)
- Diagonal-boundary chevron transfers
- Diagonal (Moving) Fold
- Herringbone / Zigzag (V-pleat) Fold
- Stepped (Irregular-Spacing) Herringbone
- Mirrored V-Pleat and X-Pleat
- Horizontal V-Pleat (Rotated Herringbone)
- X-Pleat Pyramid Strip
- Water-bomb X Tessellation
- Square-Base / Star Water-bomb Tessellation
- Radial Corner-and-Edge Square Fold
- Origami Crease-Pattern Translation Workflow
- Colour Accents on Folds
Stripes and woven-in yarn
Other machine types
Researched from machine manuals, dealer spec sheets and knitting references; a few details are still unconfirmed.