Silver Threads
Knitting is a way by which thread or yarn can be turned into cloth or other fine crafts. Knitting is made up of consecutive loops, called stitches. As each row progresses, a new loop is pulled through an existing loop. The active stitches are held on a needle until another loop can be passed through them. This procedure eventually results in a final product, usually a garment.
Knitting can be done by hand or by machine. By hand, a lot of styles and techniques of knitting exist.
Different yarns and knitting needles can be used to reach different end products by giving the final piece a different color, texture, weight, or integrity. Using needles of varying sharpness and thickness as well as different varieties of yarn adds to the effect.
Like weaving, knitting is a technique for producing a two-dimensional fabric made from a one-dimensional yarn or thread. In weaving, threads are always straight, running parallel either lengthwise (warp threads) or crosswise (weft threads). By contrast, the yarn in knitted fabrics follows a meandering path (a course), forming symmetric loops (also known as bights) symmetrically above and below the mean path of the yarn. These meandering loops can be stretched easily in different directions, which gives knitting much much more elasticity than woven fabrics; depending on the yarn and knitting pattern, knitted garments can stretch as much as 500%. For this reason, knitting was initially developed for garments that should be elastic or stretch in response to the wearer's motions, such as socks and hosiery. For comparison, woven garments stretch mainly along one direction (the bias) and are not very elastic, unless they are woven from stretchable material such as spandex.
Knitted garments are usually more form-fitting than woven garments, ever since their elasticity allows them to follow the body's curvature closely; by contrast, curvature is introduced into most woven garments only with sewn darts, flares, gussets and gores, the seams of which lower the elasticity of the woven fabric still further. Extra curvature can be introduced into knitted garments without seams, as in the heel of a sock; the effect of darts, flares, etc. can be obtained with short rows or by increasing or decreasing the number of stitches. Thread used in weaving is most commonly much finer than the yarn used in knitting, which can give the knitted fabric more bulk and less drape than a woven fabric.
If they are not secured, the loops of a knitted course will come undone when their yarn is pulled; this is known as ripping out, unravelling knitting, or humorously, frogging (because you 'rip it'). To secure a stitch, at the very least one new loop is passed through it. Even though the new stitch is itself unsecured ("active" or "live"), it secures the stitch(es) suspended from it. A sequence of stitches in which each stitch is suspended from the next is called a wale. To secure the initial stitches of a knitted fabric, a way for casting on is used; to secure the final stitches in a wale, one uses a way of binding off. During knitting, the active stitches are secured mechanically, either from individual hooks (in knitting machines) or from a knitting needle or frame in hand-knitting.
There are two key varieties of knitting: weft knitting and warp knitting. In the more usual weft knitting, the wales are perpendicular to the course of the yarn. In warp knitting, the wales and courses run harshly parallel. In weft knitting, the entire fabric can be produced from a single yarn, by adding stitches to each wale in turn, moving across the fabric as in a raster scan. By contrast, in warp knitting, one yarn is required for every wale. Since a typical piece of knitted fabric may have hundreds of wales, warp knitting is generally done by machine, whereas weft knitting is done by both hand and machine. Warp-knitted fabrics such as tricot and milanese are resistant to runs, and are generally used in lingerie.
