roller 24 for taking up lace sheet 10 directly from knitting machine 20 take up roller 24 is rotated by chain 26 which is driven by power derived from a low speed shaft not shown of knitting machine 20 chain 26 is designed to rotate take up roller 24 at that speed which will cause lace sheet 10 to be fed into clipping and shearing machine 18 at the speed at which the sheet 10 is dispensed from knitting machine 20 it is feasible however to construct chain 26 as a tensioning mechanism for example as an independently driven motor not shown and a suitable control circuit for enabling rotator 26 to rotate roller 24 at a speed that will result in the taking up of lace sheet 10 at the speed at which it is supplied from knitting machine 20 next lace sheet 10 passes through an arrangement of direction and tension rollers 30 which readjust the tension on lace sheet 10 and orient floats 16 as shown a first redirection roller 32 changes the orientation of lace sheet 10 such that floats 16 face up and toward clipping apparatus 34 clipping apparatus 34 comprises as shown for example in fig2 a plurality of sickle shaped cutting blades 36 which are supported on bar 38 and are cam driven to oscillate perpendicularly to the direction of travel of lace sheet 10 in the directions of arrows 39 such that the blades will lift and cut yarn floats 16 cutting blades 36 span the entire width of lace sheet 10 over a distance of about 130 inches which is typical of lace sheets each cutting blade.