ALL ABOUT FULL NEEDLE RIB © 2024 Kathryn Doubrley Many kinds of ribbing may be achieved by hand manipulation but full needle rib absolutely requires two beds. With the ribber in use and racked so that the needles alternate with those of the main bed, the fabric is created using all available needles within a designated span. That is, ALL on the main bed and ALL on the ribber are used. Because of the racking, stitches may form on all of the needles and no needles will hit one another. Because all needles are in use, the gauge of the fabric is smaller than that usually produced on any given gauge of machine. Maximum yarn size is smaller because of the closeness of the needles. For example, although #4 [worsted weight] yarn knits well on bulky machines, it’s best to stick to #2-3 for full needle rib. On standards, #2 and even #3 may knit well in stockinette but for full needle rib, it’s best to stick to #0-1. And in mid-gauge machines, which knit #3 and even #4 yarn in stockinette, #1-2 work best for full needle rib. Because of the closeness of the stitches, full needle rib often doesn’t actually appear to be ribbed. It more closely resembles stockinette on both sides of the fabric. It is totally non-rolling and completely reversible. My first exposure to the fabric was browsing in a ready to wear clothing boutique. I came across a tunic sweater that puzzled me no end because it looked like stockinette on both sides and was rather thick for the size of the yarn, which I could see in the stitches. It had vented sides and they did not roll. Shortly thereafter, I bought an old Passap pinkie and learning to use it also taught me about full needle rib. The photos above demonstrate the qualities of full needle rib quite nicely. The gray sweater has full needle rib hem on a sweater that is mostly stockinette. The stockinette portions are visible in the upper part of each photo and there is clearly a difference between it and the hem fabric but it doesn’t look very much like ribbed fabric in the same yarn. The cuff of the same sweater is also shown.

USES OF FULL NEEDLE RIB The most notable characteristics of full needle rib are these: It doesn’t roll at all It is thicker and heavier than stockinette It is completely reversible It is smooth In spite of its small gauge, it produces a wider fabric than the same machine would produce in stockinette because there are so many needle in work. It is very flexible These characteristics make it excellent for: Hems Scarves Some kinds of collars Blankets Larger garments. Use with industrial yarns. These yarns are often thinner than retail yarns and have size designations such as 2/24. They were designed for use on high speed factory machines and frequently do a great job of double bed work on our domestic machines. The samples pictured are knitted in a yarn that gets 7.25 stitches per inch in stockinette. In full needle rib, counting only the stitches on one face of the fabric, the gauge is 6.25 stitches per inch. That means that using a machine that has 200 needle on each bed, as most Japanese standard gauge machines do, a piece of knitting that is 32” wide is possible. That is plenty wide enough for a baby blanket and for the front or back of a 4X sweater with plenty of ease. In the sample sweater, which is available in my Can You Top This? book, the use of full needle rib for the hem and collar did several useful things. It gave the very light acrylic yarn a bit more weight and substance at the hem which made the whole garment hang nicely. It is a little bit wider than the stockinette portion which resulted in defacto hip shaping. After the hem, all of the front bed stitches were transferred to the main bed but there were no decreases necessary to produce hip shaping. The full needle rib shawl collar is warm around the neck even though the sweater is very light weight and the fabric of the collar has a substantial rather than a flimsy look.

HOW TO KNIT FULL NEEDLE RIB Like most fabrics made with the ribber, a ribber comb and weights are necessary. On Passaps, they are optional but helpful for full needle rib. For all other machines that I know of, they are essential. Because of the number of needles in use and the sheer volume of fabric being created, the number of weights needed may be a bit more than you are accustomed to using for other kinds of ribbing. For the first few rows of knitting, it can help to get a hand on the comb and manually pull it down after knitting a row. After that, it should fall freely due to weights and gravity. On some machines, claw weights or heel grips at the edges of the knitting help the end stitches to knit off neatly. The beds should be racked so that the needles alternate perfectly so that, when all of the needles get to work doing their job, they won’t hit. Plain stockinette settings are used on both beds. Work a little bit slowly to give the needles time. A lot of stitches need to knit off in very quick succession so a measured pace makes it possible for them to do that. A tubular cast on is and excellent way to begin full needle ribbed fabric. The racking cast on is Also an option. SETTING FOR VARIOUS MACHINES As already noted, the carriage settings should be those for stockinette. On Brother and Brother relatives, this is N on both beds with no extra buttons engaged. On Silver Reed and Silver Reed Relatives, the dials may read “stockinette” or “plain”. On Superba, the keys that are marked with a symbol that resembles and upside down V are the stockinette keys. On Passaps the setting is N/N with orange strippers.

STITCH SIZE As a rule of thumb, start with one stitch size smaller on the main bed than you would use for stockinette in the same yarn and tweak the stitch size to perfection from there. On European double bed machines, the stitch sizes for both beds are likely to be the same or very close. The goal is to get stitches of the same size on both faces of the fabric. On Japanese machines, the ribber stitch size that makes stitches that match those on the main bed is likely to be in the neighborhood of two numbers smaller on the stitch dial. For reference, the samples shown on the previous two pages were knitted at stitch size 4/4 for the full needle ribbing and 5 for the stockinette portions of the sweater.

SUITABLE YARNS Because the stitches are so very close together, the optimal size for yarns for full needle rib differs substantially from the stockinette options for the same machine. Most knitters will probably use full needle rib more on standard gauge machines than on mid-gauge or bulky machines so I did a test of various yarns with that in mind. The results appear below. To keep things consistent, I used stitch size 4/4 on a Superba machine with the beds set as close to one another as possible. To clarify for owners of other machines, most main bed/ribber combinations have one working height for the ribber. Superbas have an adjustable height possible. The behavior of the closer position seems to me to be most similar to other machines so that is what I used, It is also the most appropriate spacing for the full needle rib fabric. All of the yarns tested made acceptable swatches but for Tamm Estilo and a single strand of 2/24 weight yarn, I would have chosen smaller stitch sizes if actually creating a garment the fabric seemed a little bit flimsy at stitch size 4/4. The yarns used range from what would be called “cobweb” weight by hand knitters to the light end of “fingering weight”. In present day terms used by the Craft Yarn Council, these thicknesses are expressed as sizes 0-1. Many of the yarns I tried are mill ends of industrial yarn. I did this because they offer an easy way to get appropriate weights for full needle rib. The numbers that appear to be fractions are the way industry usually sizes yarn according to what is called “the fixed weight system.” There’s an article on machineknitting.com that explains this yarn sizing system quite well. Once you get the hang of looking at the numbers, translating them becomes quite simple. Basically, the first number represents the number of single strands of spun fiber and the second number represents a length indication for a specific amount of fiber by weight. If you do the division the result tells you the composite weight of all the plies represented. 1/12 and 2/24 are therefore the same thickness of yarn. 1/12=.083333 2/24=.083333 Two to three strands of 2/24 equals the thickness of most of the yarns we normally use on standard gauge machines. They are equivalent composite weights to fingering and sport weight yarn [or #1 and #2 weight yarn]. But three strands of 2/24 is thicker than I’d like to knit full needle rib. It gets to be hard work for the operator as well as for the machine. Two strands of 2/24 knits nicely in full needle rib. The top segment of the swatch pictured on the previous page is made with two strands of 2/24. The nicest fabrics in my experiment were produced by the 3/11.5 and the two strands of 2/24. The 2/24 plus 1/14 was a nice fabric but unsuccessful only because there were weak spots in my old cone of 1/14. Only the black part of that section actually represents the combined yarns because one of those weak spots broke. Tamm 3 ply Astracryl, a #1 or fingering weight yarn, is not shown in the experimental swatch, but historically, I have used it for full needle rib on a standard gauge machine successfully. That is the thickest yarn that I enjoy using for this fabric on a standard. The plum colored scarf above was knitted on the bulky machine using #3 [aka DK] yarn which is the maximum thickness that performs well on the bulky when knitting full needle rib.It is available in the Keyhole Scarf Collection.