to be lowered while before the completion of such lowering the stitch sinkers 8 are again extended outwardly owing to the influence of the notch 19 fig7 c upon completion of the needle 22 lowering the sinkers 8 are driven to withdraw while positively picking up the yarn from between the needles 22 operating in the upper cylinder thanks to the markedly low position of the latter fig7 d it is only after the sinkers 8 have been withdrawn with the yarn hooked thereon that the needles 24 operating in the lower cylinder begin to be raised the sliders 11 whereof meet with their butt 11a the portion 20b or 20b 39 of the cam 20 respectively 20 39 thus the needles 22 24 are in a condition to again pick up the yarn at the following feed after regularly forming stitch fig5 is a visual representation of the successive positions of the stitch sinkers around the cylinder during the knitting process and fig6 shows the needles and sinkers at each feed although in the latter figure for clarity reasons it has been assumed that the needles are alternatively one in the upper cylinder and one in the lower cylinder as may be observed from a comparison of fig1 and 2 the machine according to this invention exhibits a simplified cam box with respect to the one of the prior art machine the additional stitch.