Ripples on a single bed: machine knitting a jersey pin tuck

A couple of weeks ago someone contacted me looking for instructions on how to knit the ripple pattern on a knitting machine. I knew of no online source and pointed the person to Lewis & Weissman's A Machine Knitter's Guide to Creating Fabrics. The book is out of print but used copies do occasionally come up on Amazon. I also suggested that the person try searching for pin tucks, but pin tucks are just one of several rippling techniques.

Ripple stitches, a vast category, come in several styles and can be made using a variety of methods. If you enjoy hand manipulated techniques, single bed ripples are the easiest to design. Almost any jersey fabric can be remade with a ripple simply by picking up one or several adjacent loops of previously knitted stitches (purl bumps) in a regular (or irregular) pattern. The loops are then rehung on the needles holding live stitches. You must then follow with a knitted row to lock the ripple in place. If it's difficult picking up the purl bumps, a row of alternating slip stitches can be knitted on the pick up row and the bar from the slip stitch picked up. Here are some experiments in single bed ripples:

Knitted on a standard gauge machine, I found slip stitches easier to grab.  With a bulky machine,  it's easy to pick up the pearl bumps, creating tighter ripples. 

The single bed ripple fabrics are usually knitted on the back bed so that the purl bumps or slip stitches can be easily seen and reached. Using two colors makes it easier to see the pick up row.

This is the technical back of the fabric.

The chart below is a single repeat of the pattern.


Patterns can be varied further by hanging the picked up stitches on needles other than the ones that originally knitted them.  (Susan Guagliumi has a chapter in her book Hand-Manipulated Stitches for Machine Knitters called "Rehung Stitches", where many variations are shown, though most would not be in the "ripple stitch" category.)

Besides changing the number of picked up loops or slip stitches, variations can be made by using a different fiber on the pick up row. I've always wanted to try regular wool with a superwash wool and then throwing it in the dryer. Because of the different properties of the fibers, cotton with wool makes an interesting fabric.

If anyone knits this pattern or any variations, I'd love to see them! If you post scans or pics, please let me know.

Even though I like single bed ripple fabrics, my absolute favorite rippled fabrics are the double bed variety such as this four-color rippled jacquard. I will discuss the various double bed techniques in a future post.