PurlbedRib › Racked fabrics
Racked herringbone
Horizontal bands of slanting stitches. The stitches in one band lean one way and the next band leans the other way, so the fabric reads as a herringbone or a row of chevrons lying on their side. The effect shows on both faces.
- 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
Full cardigan racked every row
- Knit 16 rows racked alternately once left, once right. Knit 1 row with no rack. Repeat.
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
- Cast on all needles on both beds, half pitch.
- Repeat 12 times: knit front, tuck back; rack to +1; tuck front, knit back; rack to
- Knit front, tuck back; rack to +1; tuck front, knit back.
- Repeat 12 times: knit front, tuck back; rack to 0; tuck front, knit back; rack to +1.
- Knit front, tuck back; rack to 0; tuck front, knit back.
- Back to step 2.
The full card
- What it looks like
- Horizontal bands of slanting stitches. The stitches in one band lean one way and the next band leans the other way, so the fabric reads as a herringbone or a row of chevrons lying on their side. The effect shows on both faces.
- How it behaves
- Thick double fabric with a gentle crosswise ripple at each change of direction.
- How it works
- Full cardigan racked after every single row, so the effect reaches both faces. Over 24 passes the bed goes 0, 1, 0, 1 and so on. Then the sequence changes phase: one pass is knitted without moving the bed back, and the next 24 passes rack the opposite way round. The lean turns over at that point, and that makes the point of the herringbone.
- Machines
- As racked-cardigan: two beds, cardigan cams or ribber tuck levers, racking handle. Fully manual on a hand flat and on a domestic ribber.
- Parameters
- Rack 1 needle after every row. Band length 12 repeats of 2 passes in the Stoll sample. Stitch size NP 2–2. Change band length to change the height of the chevron.
- Steps
- 1) Cast on all needles on both beds, half pitch. 2) Repeat 12 times: knit front, tuck back; rack to +1; tuck front, knit back; rack to 0. 3) Knit front, tuck back; rack to +1; tuck front, knit back. 4) Repeat 12 times: knit front, tuck back; rack to 0; tuck front, knit back; rack to +1. 5) Knit front, tuck back; rack to 0; tuck front, knit back. 6) Back to step 2.
- Charting
- Bed chart as full cardigan, rack position marked on every row, with the phase change marked between bands.
- Limits and common problems
- The phase change is the easy place to go wrong: note it on the row counter. A missed rack leaves a visible break in the lean.
- Combines with
- racked-cardigan, cardigan-rib, stripes-and-colour-relief.
- Pieces and assembly
- All-over panels, scarves and coats. Mark the band count on your sample before planning a garment.
Written in our own words from machine manuals, knitting references and swatching. Knit a test swatch before a whole piece.