PurlbedRib › Racked fabrics
Chevron
Vertical bands of stitches slanting one way and the other, in V shapes up the fabric. Colour changes make the chevron stronger. Both beds are set out in blocks of high and low butts, opposite each other, so where one bed has high butts the other has low.
- Two beds
Machine types that can knit it
Demo swatch
Drawn for: Double-bed hand flat (V-bed)Approximate preview worked out from the bed chart, not a photo.
Carriage settings on a Dubied
ChevronHandle in the middle.
- Set-up, welt. Carriage on the right. Rack 1 needle right (handle down), knit 1 row. Rack 1 needle left (handle up), knit 1 row. Repeat to the length you need, changing colours when you want.
How to read the cross
- The four quarters are the carriage: top rear bed, bottom front bed, left moving left, right moving right.
- Corners, knit/miss cam: 1 knits; ½ knits on high butts only and misses low butts; 0 is out of work.
- Diamond, tucking cam: 0 no tuck; ½ low butts tuck, high butts knit; 1 all needles tuck. An empty diamond is all 0.
- Numbers on the line are tension dials, 0 tightest to 20 loosest. A + means looser than your usual size.
- Set-out: long tick high butt, short tick low butt, dot out of action.
Steps
- Handle in the middle.
- Set out the butts.
- Set-up, welt.
- Set the cams, carriage on the right.
- Rack 1 right, knit 1 row.
- Rack 1 left, knit 1 row.
- Repeat 5–6.
The full card
- What it looks like
- Vertical bands of stitches slanting one way and the other, in V shapes up the fabric. Colour changes make the chevron stronger.
- How it behaves
- Thick cardigan-like fabric with a slight ridge along each change of slant.
- How it works
- Both beds are set out in blocks of high and low butts, opposite each other, so where one bed has high butts the other has low. Both tucking cams for the left-going pass are at ½, so low butts tuck, one block on each bed. Racking one needle before each row then pulls the tucks of each block the opposite way.
- Machines
- Dubied with high and low butts.
- Parameters
- Blocks of 7 needles. Rack 1 needle before every row. Handle in the middle.
- Steps
- 1) Handle in the middle. 2) Set out the butts. 3) Set-up, welt. 4) Set the cams, carriage on the right. 5) Rack 1 right, knit 1 row. 6) Rack 1 left, knit 1 row. 7) Repeat 5–6.
- Charting
- Bed chart with the butts marked, and a rack position on every row.
- Limits and common problems
- Lose the rack rhythm and the chevron breaks. Check the handle sits exactly in a notch each time.
- Combines with
- triangular-points, racked-herringbone, stripes-and-colour-relief.
- Pieces and assembly
- All-over panels.
Written in our own words from machine manuals, knitting references and swatching. Knit a test swatch before a whole piece.