Global Textile News & CAD Insights

Knit fabric is built from a single yarn transformed into interlocking loops, row after row, unlike weaving, which crosses two perpendicular sets of yarn. This article explains, in simple terms, the technical basics of jersey knitting (single and double) and jacquard knitting: the loop, the needle, the course (row) and the wale (column), the essential concept of gauge and the non-square grid, and the difference between plain jersey, simple jacquard, and intarsia jacquard. It then walks step by step through how Pointcarre's Knit Design module supports the full process: cleaning up and repeating a motif, scaling it correctly on a grid faithful to the machine, generating motifs with AI (Design Maker and Repeat Maker), stitch and color libraries, realistic simulation before production, 3D mapping onto a finished product, and finally exporting to Stoll, Karl Mayer, and Shima Seiki knitting machines. A concrete example, designing a sock in five steps, illustrates this journey from sketch to machine. This article deliberately focuses on classic knitting (jersey and jacquard, weft knit) and does not cover warp knitting.

1. Knit fabric: a construction made of loops

Before talking about software, it helps to understand what fundamentally sets knit apart from woven fabric.

In weaving, two sets of yarn cross at a right angle: the warp (yarns held taut lengthwise) and the weft (a yarn that passes over and under). Strength comes from this rigid interlacing.
• In knitting, a single yarn (or several, depending on the technique) is turned into a series of loops that hook into one another. Each new loop is pulled through the previous one with a needle.

This loop-based construction gives knit fabric its defining properties: stretch, softness, and the ability to follow the body's shape, qualities woven fabric doesn't naturally have.

The basic vocabulary

The loop (stitch): the basic unit of any knit, formed when a needle pulls yarn through the previous loop.
• The course: a horizontal row of loops, formed in a single pass of the needles. This is the knit equivalent of the weft in weaving.
• The wale: a vertical line of loops stacked on top of one another, row after row.
• The needle: the mechanical element that forms each loop. The number of needles per inch or centimeter defines the machine's gauge, the closer together the needles, the finer the knit.

This article focuses on weft knitting, where each course is formed by a yarn moving horizontally from needle to needle, the technique used for jersey and jacquard, on both circular and flat (rectilinear) machines.

2. Jersey and jacquard: the two families covered here

Plain (single) jersey

Plain jersey is the simplest structure: a single series of loops, all formed the same way, on a single needle bed. It's the base of the classic T-shirt. Its surface has a smooth face and a textured back, and it's easy to spot by the clear "V" columns visible on the right side.

Jacquard: drawing by changing color loop by loop

Jacquard knitting uses the same loop principle, but allows the yarn color to change at every loop, following a predefined pattern, exactly as jacquard weaving allows the weave structure to change at every point. There are three main types:

Single Jersey Jacquard: a single needle bed, colored motifs achieved by feeding the right yarn to the right needle at the right time.
• Double Jersey Jacquard: two opposing needle beds, allowing more complex motifs, better hold, and usually a cleaner back side, typical of jacquard sweaters.
• Intarsia: each color zone is knitted with its own yarn, without carrying it behind other zones. The result is a clearly defined motif, without the small "floats" typical of classic jacquard, but a finer structure, often reserved for dressier pieces (sweaters, scarves).

Gauge and grid: the most common pitfall

One technical point is too often underestimated by designers coming from drawing or print backgrounds: a knit loop is almost never a perfect square. Its actual proportion (wider than tall, or the opposite) depends directly on the gauge of the machine the fabric will be produced on.

In practice, if a motif is drawn on square graph paper while the production machine knits at a different proportion, the finished result will be distorted once knitted: stripes that lean, a motif that stretches out of shape, circles that turn into ovals. This is one of the most frequent causes of unpleasant surprises when a sample comes back from the mill.

3. How Pointcarre supports every step, from sketch to machine

Pointcarre's Knit Design module is built around these two families, jersey and jacquard, for every knitwear product: socks, beanies, polo shirts, scarves, sportswear, jacquard sweaters. Here's how it steps in at each stage of the process.

Step 1 — Drawing at the right scale from the start

Pointcarre lets you work directly on a virtual grid set to the exact number of rows and columns of the target machine, choosing a square or non-square grid. The motif shown on screen therefore respects the real proportions of the finished knit from the very start, avoiding the distortion problem described above before a single stitch is knitted.

The motif can also be worked directly in repeat (straight, half drop, mirror, with or without overlap), so what's seen on screen matches exactly what will come off the machine.

Step 2 — Starting from an image, a scan, or a sketch

When the starting point isn't a clean digital drawing but a photo, a scan, or a hand sketch, two tools take over:

Cleanup & Repeat reduces the number of colors in an image within seconds while keeping the detail, an essential step before turning a visual into a knittable motif.
• Repeat Maker, powered by AI, then computes a perfect repeat (straight, half drop, or mirror): the software handles the geometry of the repeat so the motif tiles seamlessly in every direction.
• Digitalize brings the imported image to the right scale and repeat, resizing it to the exact number of rows and columns matching the target gauge.

Step 3 — Generating a motif with no starting image

When there's no image at all yet, Design Maker generates brand new motifs from a simple text description, in repeat if needed, ready to be sent straight into a knit document.

Step 4 — Building the knit: stitches, colors, filters

Once the motif is ready, Pointcarre offers:

a complete stitch library covering Single Jersey, Single Jersey Jacquard, Double Jersey Jacquard, and Intarsia, expandable with custom stitches;
• filters dedicated to knit fabric for graphic effects (an "ikat" effect by vibrating colors, a "woolen" effect through felting, relief effects by shading textures, or blended effects for allovers);
• direct drag-and-drop access to the Pantone Textile, Archroma Color Atlas, and ColorCSI color libraries, included at no extra cost, to create as many colorways as a collection needs without ever redrawing the motif.

Step 5 — Seeing the result before knitting

Simulation displays a realistic rendering of the knit, jersey or jacquard, on screen, at the chosen gauge, before any production. This step reduces the number of physical samples needed to validate a motif or a range of colorways.

Going further, 3D Mapping lets you drop the knit onto a photo of a real product, a sock leg, a heel, a beanie, a polo shirt, and add a logo, a stripe, a text, or a motif exactly where it belongs, before a single physical sample is even made.

Step 6 — The technical card and machine export

Every knit document keeps the stitches used, the colorways (in the dedicated Colorways for Knit Card format, so a color change never means redrawing the motif), and the complete technical card, reporting the knit's construction with each color expressed by number, stitch, or symbol, all in one file.

The final motif exports to .bmp, .pat, .tiff, .png, and .tga, formats ready for both flat and circular machines, with compatibility for Stoll, Karl Mayer, and Shima Seiki.

4. A practical case: a sock, from motif to machine

Socks are a good example to see the full process, since they combine the most demanding constraints for a knit CAD software: a small scale motif, a fine gauge, and often many colorways needed for a collection to feel complete.

Design and colorways: the motif is drawn at the right scale using the stitch and color libraries, then declined into as many colorways as the range requires.
1. Selection of knit stitches: chosen from a stitch library that can be parameterized to the machine, complemented with custom stitches if needed.
2. Effects and textures: textures are applied for a realistic rendering, with new ones importable at any time.
3. 3D Mapping: the motif is dropped onto each zone of a real product photo, leg, foot, heel, with a logo, stripe, text, or motif placed exactly where it belongs.
4. Machine file and check: the graphic design is converted into a production file for the knitting machine, then checked via the 3D simulation or yarn path to catch a skipped stitch before production starts.

5. Why it matters

What all these steps have in common is simple: they bring the screen closer to the machine. A grid faithful to the gauge, a realistic simulation, and an export file directly compatible with production machines avoid costly back and forth between the design studio and the mill. It's this continuity, from the first sketch all the way to the file sent to a Stoll, Karl Mayer, or Shima Seiki machine, that makes Pointcarre a tool built specifically for jersey and jacquard knit, not just a drawing program adapted to knitting after the fact.