It's Only Fun After It's Done

They tell you about the road to hell. They tell you about it very early in life and it gets repeated in the knitting life. It is paved with all that good intention stuff. You are looking to do a project and you say to yourself: 'Self, make some squares out of stash yarn and when you get enough of them just sew them together and make an afghan. That would be cool.'
You know how the conversation goes and you get yourself all kinds of excited because this is a culmination of a bunch of knitting stuff.

First, there's knitting/crocheting: just the very act of it makes us giddy with delight and we are enthusiastic about what will becoming off the hooks and needles.

Second, using the stash. There's a love/hate relationship with the stash - you love to have one, you hate to use yarn out of it because then there would be no more stash and you love your stash but using the stash means going to the LYS or yarn section of the craft store to buy more yarn ( GOOD!!) and refresh/renew the stash - and we love that.

Third, the creativity - every square can be different. We can experiment with stitches and colors and mixing fibers together and almost anything goes because if you rim the square and then the entire afghan with an unifying color then the whole thing comes together and if it doesn't you can get away with it by calling it rustic.

It all sounds really good - and it probably really is - but what they don't tell you; what they save and make you discover for yourself is that there are details - details that you will have to deal with. "Oh, yes, all those squares will have ends you have to do something with." "You will have to sew or learn to crochet them together", "You will have to watch carefully so you match things up just so..." They don't tell you that and I think they leave it out on purpose. It's a test to see if you really belong in the crafter's circle. All craft genres have their little quirks that the crafter has to deal with. The very first person who discovered he had to deal with a yarn end decided not to tell the next person because he wanted them to have that unique experience for themselves and the when the second person discovered he too had to sew in an end, went to the first guy and said,"Dude."

To which the first guy replied," Yeah, I know." and the code was made. When women started to get into the guilds, you know they didn't share the code with them. So now, this discovery is something of a rite of passage but we never really learn it. We forgive the process because we like the end result. For all the swear words we say while we are making our projects as soon as the delivery is over we fall in love and forget about the pain that was with us just moments before.

We even look forward to the next one that's how sick we are. So, this one moves from the WIP to the complete pile. Now there are four WIPs in the hopper and I don't see a completion date in the pike for any of those and I'm looking two weeks down the road. I am running into a little snag with the biased crochet afghan and I hope I am working it correctly considering every row has a color change and this is the third time starting it. If it doesn't work, then all those color changes will become a granny square afghan. Hmmm, now I don't know what to hope for.

Better Late Than Never

I was somewhere else - at least mentally. I am about six posts behind schedule (so much for schedules) but here I am, back at last, and I am going to talk about something I used to despise a lot and now only despise a little...

seams.

I don't know what it is but there are some of us (you see how I am making you an accomplice so as not to be the only one guilty) don't like the finishing on knitting. For me, it's because I never expected it. When we are learning how to knit, no one says, oh by the way, there's going to be some finishing work like seaming, blocking and there's also going to be math. They never tell you that up front. They always throw it in as an aside. "When you've finished casting off, sew in your ends." Why don't they tell us up front in the stitches and technique section of the pattern that you are going to have to come to terms with sewing in knitting. You will have to purchase a needle. You will have to thread the needle with yarn. You will have to work that thread and needle through the fabric you've knitted or you will not have a bag, sweater or soap holder.

They should tell us that.

But they didn't so I had to come to grips with all that and when I learned there was more than one way to make a seam, it got slightly more interesting and a lot more frightening. Which one do I use when? If I don't use the right one, will the finishing fairies come and take my Chibi away? (Not sure that's a bad thing.)

You know what made it all OK? Crocheting the seams.

I love crocheting the seams together. It's so much easier. The seams are neater and stronger and blend better. Once I discovered I could crochet seam just about anything, the other seaming stitches weren't so bad. I kinda like grafting. And I've turned the three needle bind off into a seaming technique that works really well. And mattress stitch will work when I can't crochet a seam (rare, I tell you, rare.) So, following is a small explanation on how you can seam your work together without fear.

First, make four swatches: two will be stockinette and two will be garter stitch. You will need these because your are going to mix them up and use them to practice your seaming. If your eyesight isn't the best or you just want to be able to see more clearly - use a big needle - like a thirteen. I personally would make the swatches with the needle size I use most often so I can get real time practice. So I would be somewhere around the 8-10.75 needle range. You'll use these swatches over and over as you practice your stitchery.

For now, we'll talk about my favorite method of seaming - crocheting you two pieces together.

1. You'll want the right sides facing each other unless you want a slight raised effect on the right side. You'll work from the right to the left.

2. Take your crochet hook (it should be the approximate size as your knitting needles) and push the hook from the front to the back going through both swatches. Wrap the working yarn around the hook and pull it back through to the front. You should have one loop on your hook.

3. Push the hook through the next two stitches (one from each side.)

4. Wrap the working yarn around the hook and pull back through to the front side. (You should have two loops on the hook)

5. Pull the first loop on the hook through the second loop. (You should have one loop on the hook.)

Repeat steps 2-5.

When you get to the last stitch, you will pull it through just like you would the last stitch of a traditional bind off.

That's all there is to it.

If you need photos or to watch a video, YouTube has a few you can look at or put 'crocheting seams' in a search engine and you will get plenty of results.

It's fast and easy and makes a great looking seam. If you do it in the same color yarn, it's an almost invisible seam and if for some reason you need to take it out, it rips out like a dream. I don't mind doing seams like this.

Hopefully you'll find it useful,too.


042004