An object of the invention is to control the yarn length as appropriate in a tubular knitted fabric including a drop loop, regardless of the presence of crossover. For front and back needle beds, ones of those indicated by capitals ABC . . . among odd-numbered or even-numbered ones are allocated to a front portion thereof and the other portions indicated by lower cases abc . . . are allocated to a back portion thereof. At knitting needles ABC . . . which actually form stitch loops perform knitting operation, and knitting needles abc . . . between the knitting needles ABC perform hooking operation. A hung stitch is shook off, and the knitting yarn used for the hanging is absorbed in stitch loops at the knitting needles ABC . . . at both ends as shown in dotted lines. As shown in (b) by solid lines, the loop lengths of back stitches are shortened and the lengths of the knitting yarn at crossing portions are absorbed by the stitch loops of the back stitches. Thus, the drop loops matching the set yarn lengths can be knitted without differentiating the lengths of yarn between the face stitches and back stitches.
A knitting machine, a method of working yarn by the knitting machine, and a controller for working yarn by the knitting machine and its program. In the method, a carriage is controllably stopped at a point where a yarn passage length between a yarn working device and a knitting needle obtained by assuming that a buffer length on a tension arm is maximum matches a residual knitting length left before knitting at a point where yarn working is performed. When the carriage is stopped, the buffer length of a first arm is measured, a yarn is delivered from the yarn working device by an amount of difference between the buffer length and the maximum value thereof, and the yarn is worked in synchronism with the application of a tension to the yarn by releasing a second arm. Thus, the yarn can be worked at specified positions.
