Effect of Number and Position of Tuck Stitches in the Pattern Repeat on the Quality of Rib Weft-Knitted Fabrics from the Point of Comfort

Abstract

Consumers are interested in knitted clothing that looks beautiful and feels comfortable. Incorporating tuck or float stitches in the basic weft-knitted fabrics produces many new structures that differ in appearance and characteristics. In this study, the effect of number of tuck stitches and their position in the structure of rib-weft knitted fabrics on some of the comfort properties of the fabrics has been investigated, and the quality of the fabrics has been measured by evaluating the ability of the fabrics to meet these properties. According to the calculated values of the complex criterion of fabric's quality, all considered fabric structures exhibited good to excellent quality, however, the fabric containing one tuck stitch in the pattern repeat, demonstrated the best overall quality among the investigated fabrics (Qk=0.84). The Half Cardigan with tuck stitches on one side of the fabric showed similar quality as the Rib (Qk=0.8), in contrast, the Full Cardigan with tuck stitches on both sides of the fabric demonstrated inferior quality (Qk=0.76) than them. Eventually, it can be concluded that using tuck stitches in the fabric structure in a controlled manner leads to better fabric quality regarding comfort properties.