Foot-covering garment, method for manufacturing such a foot-covering garment and a circular machine for knitwear or hosiery

Method for manufacturing a seamless foot-covering garment made of knitted courses, wholly on a circular machine for knitwear or hosiery provided with a rotating cylinder able to be selectively and rotationally activated in reciprocating motion, carrying a plurality of needles able to be selectively activated, and provided with means for feeding at least one main thread and at least one elastic thread to the needles, comprising the steps of:

• a) knitting at least one main thread through part of the needles of the rotating cylinder activated in reciprocating motion, in order to realize a toe portion or a heel portion of the foot-covering garment;
• b) at the end of the step a) knitting at least one main thread through a needle set of the rotating cylinder, activated in reciprocating motion, in order to realize the middle portion with the respective right and left side edges, wherein said needle set comprises a left set of end needles, composed of one or more needles, and a right set of end needles, composed of one or more needles, and a plurality of middle needles with respect to the left and right sets of end needles,
• c) at the end of step b) knitting at least one main thread through part of the needles of the rotating cylinder activated in reciprocating motion, in order to realize the heel portion or the toe portion, respectively, of the foot-covering garment, wherein the toe and heel portions are aligned along a longitudinal direction, wherein:
• b′) during the step b) and during at least two runs of the rotating cylinder, activating all the needles of said needle set in order to make up two corresponding knitted courses and feed, to at least the needles of the left set of end needles and the needles of the right set of end needles, a respective elastic thread along with at least one main thread, to make up at least one elastic portion of the left edges and right edges composed of a plurality of stretched stitches located at an end of knitted courses, which stretch stitches are composed of at least one main thread and of the elastic thread, wherein said elastic thread extends as a single length with no interruption in each elastic portion, in that it is not cut at each knitted course of the elastic portion.