Method of knitting a double fabric on a warp knitting machine

Claim 1

In a method of knitting a fabric having a carrier layer and a face layer different from said carrier layer on a raschel knitting machine having a first needle bar carrying a row of spaced first latch needles and a second needle bar carrying a row of spaced second latch needles, a trick plate associated with each needle bar, means for moving the needle bars toward and away from respective top positions in which the latches of said needles are upwardly spaced from the associated trick plates, and yarn-feeding means for feeding yarn to said needles in a manner to knit spaced courses of stitches on the needles of each needle bed when said needles move toward and away from said top positions, the stitches forming said layers, the improvement which comprises: a. intermittently reducing the upward stroke of movement of said second needle bar to a top position in which the open latch of each second needle is received in a groove of the associated trick plate while the remainder of said latch projects upwardly from the associated trick plate, whereby a loop of yarn is retained in said latch and no stitches are formed on said second needles; and b. engaging a loop of yarn knitted on a respective first needle with each of said retained loops during the knitting of a course of stitches on said first needles in such a manner that the layers of fabric respectively knitted on the needles of said needle bars are intermittently interconnected by the engaged loop.