Take up

Apparatus for tensioning textile material as the material is knitted from a strand of yarn into an elongated sock by a circular knitting machine includes a first roller over which the sock is passed and a second roller which urges the sock into engagement with the first roller. The first roller has a left-hand helix on one half of its surface which advances from the center of the roller to the edge of the roller as the roller rotates, and has a right-hand helix on the other half which advances from the center of the roller to the opposite end of the roller as the roller rotates. These helixes hold the sock in alignment between the first and second rollers. The first roller is driven by a belt and pulley arrangement and the second roller is free-wheeling so that it is rotated by tangential force applied thereto through the sock.