Tufting machine and method for reducing yarn waste

A method of operating a tufting machine comprising:

• providing a needle bar with a plurality of needles, the needle bar being reciprocable in a plane of the needles to form tufts of yarn in a backing medium fed through the machine, the needle bar being slidable transversely to the plane;
• providing a presser foot mounted above the backing medium so as to be slidable with the needle bar, the presser foot comprising a shift plurality of fingers, with each needle being arranged to pass between a pair of adjacent fingers and into the backing medium;
• providing an individual end yarn feed to respectively feed each of a plurality of yarns to a respective needle;
• providing a needle selection mechanism to selectively latch a needle to the needle bar when the yarn in that needle is required to form a tuft, so that the needle can move with the needle bar as it reciprocates;
• providing a plurality of loopers each configured to pick up a loop of yarn as a respective needle reciprocates;
• providing a plurality of knives to cut a loop of yarn on a respective looper;
• and providing means associated with each looper to selectively dislodge a loop of yarn from the looper before it is cut;
• the method further comprising controlling the feed of yarn to the needles such that, when a cut end is required, a determination is made that a predetermined yarn condition is present in the yarn at its cut end and, in response to the predetermined yarn condition being present, an additional loop of yarn, not required by pattern data is formed, such that the additional loop of yarn forms a yarn buffer that can be pulled back through the backing medium.