The present invention relates to a method for producing a cloth, and to the relevant cloth thus produced, which combines the conventional weaving and knitting techniques.

It is known that in weaving a plurality of threads are interwoven to form a weft/warp structure which results in a fabric with very little elasticity but the greatest liberty of colour combinations and of yarn type. In other words, the fabric obtained by weaving can include threads of various colours and characteristics so as to achieve the desired effect as to appearance and texture.

On the contrary, in knitting the threads are connected more loosely through a working in rows which provides a great elasticity to the cloth, sometimes even too much, but poses limitations as to the combinations of colours, stitches and yarns.

In fact, the colour can be changed at each row but within a single row the number of colours which can be used is limited by the number of thread guides of the loom. Moreover, it becomes quite difficult where not impossible to knit a cloth with a complicated combination of different yarns and/or different stitches.

Therefore the object of the present invention is to provide a method for producing a cloth which is free from said drawbacks. This object is achieved by means of a method in which the weft and warp weaving is combined with the knitting used to obtain the single elements to be interwoven in the weaving.

A first advantage of the cloth obtained through the present method is that of having an elasticity intermediate between that of the knitted cloth and that of the common fabric, even without using elastic yarns, which results particularly suitable for the production of items such as blankets, mats, sofa-covers, etc.

A second significant advantage of the present invention is that through this method it is possible to obtain a cloth with knitted texture yet with total liberty of colours, yarns and stitches since each single weft or warp element can be knitted in a specific manner. For example, it is possible to obtain a chequered cloth with an unlimited number of colours on each row of squares, and even with more colours within each square or with different yarn and/or stitches from square to square.

Still another advantage of this method and of the cloth resulting therefrom is

the possibility of obtaining seamless pieces of any width, since the single knitted elements have no length limit.

Further advantages and characteristics of the method according to the present invention and of the resulting cloth will be clear to those skilled in the art from the following detailed description of an embodiment thereof, with reference to the only figure, annexed as fig. 1, which illustrates a portion of cloth produced according to the above-mentioned method.

With reference to said figure, there is seen that the cloth according to the invention is made up of a plurality of strips of knitted cloth which are interwoven to form a structure similar to that of woven fabric. In other words, a series of vertical strips V act as warp elements and a series of horizontal strips H act as weft elements, but each of these strips is made up of a series of rows each including a plurality of stitches M (12-13 stitches in the illustrated example).

Since each of these strips is individually produced, it is obvious that it can be made with any combination of yarns, stitches and colours which can even be changed from row to row. Therefore it is readily understood how the cloth resulting therefrom has the greatest productive flexibility, allowing to obtain squares S, S', S"having different characteristics although adjacent in the horizontal or vertical direction.

It should be noted that the figure illustrates strips of uniform width and all with the same plain-stitch working, but in the light of the above the strips could also be of different width and/or made in different ways. For example, strips T made of flattened tubular cloth could be used along the edges to provide greater thickness to the cloth, whereas in the central region the strips could be of simple cloth.

It is clear that the above-described and illustrated embodiment of the method and cloth according to the invention is just an example susceptible of various modifications. In particular, the knitted strips can be interwoven in a manner different from the regular crossing of weft and warp illustrated in the figure, for example by providing the interweaving of a weft element every two warp elements or vice versa according to the structural and/or aesthetical requirements of the desired cloth.