KNITTING, an industrial and ornamental art akin to weaving, but of much later origin. It does not appear to be more than three or four centuries old, and seems to have been first used in the manufacture of stockings. It consists in forming a series of loops with a single thread, through which another row of loops is passed, and so on consecutively in spiraled circles, the garment being shaped by variations in the num ber of loops in a row. In hand-knitting, steel wires or bone or composition needles are used, termed knitting needles, and on these the loops are formed. For manufacturing purposes hand-knitting has been entirely superseded by machinery (see KNITTING-MACHINE), which is constantly receiving new improvements. Hand-knitting, however, still forms an agree able domestic occupation and also furnishes many women in some parts of the world with means of subsistene . Promptly upon America's entrance into the World War, many patriotic societies, and women of the Red Cross in particular, started a worl, of knitting sweaters for soldiers and sailors. The movement was taken up by thousands of women, who devoted their otherwise idle time to ail it be came common to see women everywnere with knitting bags on their arms, that they might work whenever they had spare moments. On the street cars, at social gatherings, in inter vals of business, there was industrious knitting, resulting in a great volume of very serviceable sweaters and some other knitted garments be ing provided for the "boys at the front' Of the many kinds of knitting-machines in use, one of the best known has a bed-plate with a vertically projecting and grooved needle-guiding cylinder or bed, secured to a table or support. On the
bed-plate is a loose ring with a thread-guide for conducting the thread to the needles, and about the needle-cylinder is a revolving cylinder with an annular groove interrupted by a cam portion and provided with adjustable cams, which govern the downward motion of the needles, and consequently the length of the loops, and raise the needles; two of these latter cams being needed for reversing the machine for knitting a heel or a fiat web. The cam cylinder is moved by a bevel-gear connected to a driving-crank, and when moved continuously in one direction knits a circular web; and this web may be narrowed as desired, to fashion the leg of a stocking, by removing needles, and placing their loops on adjacent needles. One needle receives the thread within its hook, and is subsequently moved by the cam-cylinder so as to form the thread so taken into a loop. When the heel is to he formed some of the needles are drawn up, their loops thus being re tained and the number of needles left in action corresponds with the width of the heel to be formed. The cam-cylinder is now to be reciprocated in opposite directions, and in order to keep the thread-guide in advance of the descending needles sufficiently far, so that the thread will be caught, pins are inserted in the bed-plate to engage the heel of the thread carrier and stop it just before the cam-cylinder is stopped. See TEXTILE INDUSTRY.