Knitted underpants with front-side openings and without seams in the crutch and method to manufacture

1. A garment in the shape of underpants with a body portion having a front and rear parts that join an infra-leg crutch area and that define a waist-encircling portion and two openings for legs, characterized in that the crutch area is made up by a knitted-fabric extension without interruption with garment rear part and folded up frontally in order to be placed upon said garment front part forming there a front central panel, and in that said front panel is fixed only at outer points of a free end of said front part and at level with the waist-encircling portion, defining with said front part two side symmetrical openings, both communicating with a horizontal opening that comes out between said panel and the free end of said front part.

2. A method for knitting on a knitting machine a garment in the shape of underpants with a body portion having a front and rear parts that join a crutch area and that define a waist-encircling portion, two openings for legs and two front openings on the opposite sides of a central panel, comprising the steps of:

manufacturing a tubular knitted-fabric element with traces defining a blank element, having in succession

an edge defining the waist-encircling portion,

front and rear parts manufactured simultaneously and shaped to define the openings for legs,

a shaped extension continuing the rear part, while the front part is interrupted at one of its ends;

unloading the tubular knitted-fabric element from the machine, cutting the blank element following the preformed traces, and

folding up the shaped extension on a front side of the front part, fixing it only at the outer points of the free end of said front part and at level with the waist-encircling edge, so that one first part of said shaped extension makes up the crutch area and the remaining part of the said prolongation makes up the central panel in the front part of the body portion, to define with said front part two side symmetrical openings, both communicating with a horizontal opening between said panel and the free end of said front part.

3. A method for knitting on a knitting machine a garment in the shape of underpants with a body portion having a front and rear parts that join a crutch area and that define a waist-encircling portion, two openings for legs and two front openings on the opposite sides of a central panel, comprising the steps of:

manufacturing a tubular knitted-fabric element with traces defining two joined blank elements for the forming of a couple of underpants, and including:

a first edge defining a first waist-encircling portion,

a first front part and a first rear part manufactured and shaped to define two first openings for legs,

two shaped extensions continuing said first front and rear parts respectively,

a second front part and a second rear part that follow the extensions continuing the extension continuing the first rear part and the extension continuing the first front part, respectively,

a second edge defining a second waist-encircling portion; unloading, the tubular knitted-fabric element from the machine; cutting the two blank elements following the preformed traces; and

separating the two blank elements by cutting the knitted fabric at the front part ends of both blank elements, leaving said extensions in continuation with rear parts of both blank elements;

picking up every blank element to fold up the shaped extension on a front side of its front part, fixing it only at the outer points of the free end of said front part and at level with the edge of the respective waist-encircling portion, and so that one first part of said shaped extension makes up the crutch area and the remaining part of said extension makes up the central panel in the garment body portion, defining with said front part two side symmetrical openings, both communicating with a horizontal opening between said cloth and the free end of said front part.

4. Method in accordance with claim 3 , in which the two blank elements are cut and separated during their knitting.

5. Method in accordance with claim 3 , in which two blank elements are cut and separated after the completion of the knitting of the tubular blank element.

6. Method in accordance with claim 2 , in which at least the first part of the extension designed for making up the crutch area is manufactured with yarns and/or in a knitted-fabric type that are different from the ones used for the manufacturing of the remaining parts of every knitted-fabric raw element.

7. Method in accordance with claim 3 , in which at least the first part of the extension designed for making up the crutch area is manufactured with yarns and/or in a knitted-fabric type that are different from the ones used for the manufacturing of the remaining parts of every knitted-fabric raw element.