Slip Stitch

Slip stitch (referred to as Part stitch on Brother machines or Skip stitch on Singer/Silver Reed machines) is a patterning technique in machine knitting where the carriage passes over selected needles without knitting them, causing the yarn to form a float behind the inactive needles.

Skipped needles retain their previous loops from the prior row, and these loops are stretched vertically until they are finally knit in a subsequent row.

Mechanism of Operation

• Needle Selection: The patterning mechanism (punchcard or electronic) selects which needles will knit and which will be skipped.
• Carriage Settings: The carriage must be set to the slip/part setting (e.g., both Part buttons pressed on Brother, or the side levers set to skip on Silver Reed).
• Floats: On the carriage pass, the selected needles remain in the non-working position or are skipped. The yarn lies flat across these needles, creating a horizontal strand of yarn (a float) on the purl side of the fabric.
• Subsequent Rows: In subsequent rows, the skipped needles are returned to active knitting, locking the floats into the backing fabric.

Common Applications

• Textured Fabrics: Creating dimensional relief patterns like honeycomb, brick patterns, and tucked/slipped ribs.
• Multi-Color Patterns: Knitting colorwork using only one yarn feeder color per row. By slipping stitches of the inactive color, complex designs can be made without floats hanging loose.
• Slip Stitch Ribbing: Creating firm, thick ribbing for cardigans, cuffs, and waistbands.