Mother of Purl by Eig, Edith (best desktop ebook reader .TXT) 📗

In this chapter, I’ll show you how to sew the pieces of your sweater together, block, or shape, the final garment.

There is a reason why finishers charge a lot of money to put a sweater together. Anyone can knit the pieces of a sweater, but not everyone has the eye for detail or the patience needed to finish it well. Finishing can take a lot of time, so be aware that it may take as long to finish your sweater as it took to knit it. Don’t try to rush this last but equally important process. Instead, take as much pride and pleasure in finishing your garment as you did in knitting it.

SEAMING

Once you have finished knitting the pieces of your sweater, your final steps will be to seam them together and block the finished garment. Don’t rush either of these steps. Quality seaming will take you a while, but it’s critical if you are going to achieve a smooth and refined end result.

As with every technique in knitting, there are various ways to sew a sweater together, but I teach several specific skills to my knitters that cover just about any seaming situation. To seam the main pieces of the sweater, I generally recommend “weaving,” which is also referred to as the mattress stitch. I prefer to weave, but it’s not always possible. I recently made a suit out of a fine yarn that I found very difficult to weave together because the yarn was uneven. So I used another method, “backstitching.” To put the shoulders together, I used the three–needle bind–off and omitted the process of staggered cast–offs that most patterns call for.

[EDITH KNIT TIP]

To Block—Before or After?

There is a certain amount of debate in the knitting world about whether to block your sweater before or after you sew it together. I view blocking a garment as an opportunity to refine the fit and shape of your sweater–something you can only do when the sweater is seamed and you are able to try it on.

Weaving. Weaving, or the mattress stitch, is the most common seaming technique and resembles the zigzag of shoe lacing. It’s easy, invisible to the eye, and leaves a neat seam on the inside. To weave you need to place the front piece and the back piece side by side, with the right side facing up. One side will almost certainly be shorter or tighter than the other, so don’t be afraid to pull and adjust it if necessary.

As you weave the sides, you will notice that there are evenly spaced bumps on every other row. The goal is to have every bump fit neatly into the space opposite it. You’ll apply the shoe–lacing motion, interlocking one piece to the other. When you’ve worked a few rows, pull your seaming thread taut; the knitting should neatly align, leaving an almost invisible seam on the wrong side.

[EDITH KNIT TIPS]

Knit and Sew with Different Yarns

Don’t sew your sweater together with the yarn you used to knit it. Every so often, a knitter will come in with a beautiful sweater that he or she has painstakingly sewn together—incorrectly. When I help take it apart, I make a terrible discovery: despite my advice, the knitter has chosen to sew the sweater together with the same yarn used to knit it. I can’t stress this point enough: don’t do this. Using the same yarn to seam as you did to knit only leads to tears, because it can be almost impossible to see your stitches to undo them, plus you run the risk of cutting your hard labored work. Instead, I recommend using a tapestry wool in a matching shade to sew your garment together. When sewing your cotton, rayon, or silk sweater together, use either embroidery floss or pearl cotton.

Backstitch. Backstitching is similar to the stitch made by a sewing machine and is very firm because you work over the seam twice. If you’ve ever hand–sewn a seam, you will be familiar with this technique. Backstitching is the simple motion of stitching forward one stitch, then bringing your needle back to reenter the fabric halfway down that stitch. So basically for every stitch worked, you are only moving forward half a stitch.

Put the two pieces you will be sewing on top of each other, with the right sides facing inward (as if the finished sweater has been turned inside out and is lying flat). Take a few moments to make sure the edges of the sweater where you will be seaming are fully aligned. Using straight pins, pin the edges together as close to the edge as possible.

Thread embroidery floss or yarn through a darning needle that is similar in color to your knitting yarn, and insert the needle through both layers of knitting at the bottom of the sweater. Backstitch several times to secure your thread. Now work up the sides, always backstitching as you go.

THREE–NEEDLE BIND–OFF

Although most patterns suggest binding off the shoulders and then sewing them together, I prefer the three–needle bind–off method because it results in a smooth, clean, and invisible shoulder seam. It’s also much easier to do. There is nothing more unsightly than a bulky shoulder seam. Remember to take into account that you must knit the stitches for the shoulder that would have otherwise been cast off.

When you’ve finished the back and front of your sweater, don’t bind off the shoulders. Instead, place those stitches on a stitch holder, leaving a long tail of yarn about four times the length of your shoulder to knit the shoulders together, then cut the yarn. With the right sides of the sweater facing each other, replace the stitch holders with your knitting needles, taking care to make sure the two points of the needle are facing the same direction. Take a third needle to join the shoulders together. Insert the third needle into the first stitch of the other two needles and knit