Knitting Finishing Techniques – How to Seam Your Sweater Well
By Karen Wehrle
Have your poor knitting finishing techniques ever ruined a hand-knitted sweater? Then you already know there’s a radical difference between a beautiful hand-crafted sweater and one that screams home-made because of bad seams. One secret to success with seams is blocking your pieces before you join them. Your edges will lie flat so they cooperate with you as you stitch. Let’s examine how the mattress stitch joins side seams and shoulder seams.
Side Seams Can Vanish
The mattress stitch (odd name, eh?) can join two pieces of knitting side-to-side as you join a back and front of a sweater. Because knit stitches run vertically on both pieces, this seam is so invisible, it disappears.
Bar Hopping
If you pull on one edge of your knitting, you’ll see little bars connect columns of stitches. You can use bars inside the edge stitch or between the first two stitches. Whichever you choose, use it on both pieces. This ensures your seam will disappear with no odd half stitch in sight.
Most often you seam with whatever yarn you knitted with. Exceptions include very heavy yarn, which makes too bulky a seam, or novelty yarn that’s either so breakable or lumpy you can’t pull it through stitches. You can choose embroidery or sock yarn instead, whichever best matches your sweater in color and washability.
Working from the front with a darning needle threaded with yarn, slide your needle tip under the bottom bar on one piece. Pull your needle through, leaving a tail you’ll weave in later. Now slide your needle under the bottom bar on your other piece and pull it through. One strand of yarn loosely connects both pieces.
Go back to your first piece, slide under the next bar up. Back to your second piece, slide under the next bar up. Back and forth you go as you work upward bar by bar, leaving your yarn somewhat loose for now. After you’ve done an inch or two, you can tug the yarn so it snugs both pieces of knitting together. It’s magical how your seam disappears, eh?
Shoulder Seams Have Legs
When you join a sweater front and back at the shoulder, you join bound off edges. Instead of sliding your needle under a bar, slide it under both legs of the first knit stitch on one piece. Ignore the bound off edge. On your other piece, slide your needle under both legs of the first stitch, again ignoring the bound off edge. Work back and forth as you connect both pieces of knitting. When you tug the yarn, the seam closes over both bound off edges making them disappear inside the sweater.
These two ways of using the mattress stitch will join most of your sweater pieces. What’s left is the worst seam of all: sewing a set-in sleeve into an armhole. Conquer this knitting finishing technique and you can do anything.
Remember, you knit for fun, relaxation and productive results. For tips on success with setting in sleeves
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