Swung English Rib

Swung English Rib is simply English Rib where we change the swing position of the ribber while knitting.

Swung English Rib on a Singer Knitting Machine

To start we cast on as we would for 1×1 ribbing.

In the Singer manual our operation table looks nearly the same as it did for English Rib. The only change is a line is added and we have information in the swing column.

Starting with the carriage on the left.

• We aren’t using the punch card so we set the patterning lever to the circle.
• On our main bed carriage, we set the left side lever to the circle and the right side lever to the triangle.
• We set the cam lever to tuck.
• On the ribber carriage we leave both set levers on ‘1’
• Pitch is ‘P’ and swing set to 5.
• We set the tension or stitch size appropriate to our yarn and the same on both carriages.

Then we knit

We knit two rows with our swing set to 5. Pitch stays on the ‘P’.

As we knit from left to right both the ribber and main bed knit. On the right to left carriage pass, the ribber knits but the carriage only lays the yarn in the needles on the main bed.

Then we change our swing to ‘7’

This is how our knitting looks before any carriage passes.

We knit left to right and then back to the left.

And then change our swing back to position ‘5’ before knitting 2 more carriage passes and repeating the two instruction rows of the operation table.

We end up with a fabric that looks like rib on one side and a very pretty zig-zaggy effect on the other.

More on Swung English Rib

You can find demonstration of this technique on my YouTube channel – don’t forget to subscribe while you’re there.