Full fisherman’s rib, also apparently known as full cardigan rib, can be knit on any machine with a ribber.
Full Fisherman’s Rib on a Singer Knitting Machine
We start by casting on as we would for 1×1 ribbing, using either the zig-zag/circular cast on, or eWrap.
There are no instructions for this stitch in my Singer manual, but if there were, the operation table would appear something like the photo above.
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 the left lever to ‘0’ and leave the right lever on ‘1’.
- We set the pick knob to the upside down ‘U’.
- 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
Starting with our carriage on the right, our main bed stitches “tuck” as we knit to the left. The ribber stitches knit, but on the main bed the yarn is just laid in the needles.
Then as we move the carriage back to the right, our main bed knits while our ribber bed just tucks.
The resulting fabric is nice and squishy. The tucks make the fabric thicker and more dense than stockinette or ordinary rib would be, I assume that’s why it’s called fisherman’s rib.
