14 comments

  1. I’m not sure where I went wrong here. I believe I started with the bottom of the sweater by casting on with knitting the first stitch. However now that I want to join the side seams it looks like what I have is both the beginning cast on tails at the same side. The video shows an end cast with a beginning cast on for the opposite side. I have two beginning cast on tails on each side piece. Video shows that you were at the end of one cast on side and the beginning tail of the other so I’m not sure how I went wrong.

  2. This is not a big deal Penny. I’m guessing what happened is you started with a purl on the back (so as to make the first and last sts on the Right Side knits) and you started with a knit on the front because you remembered my saying you should begin and end with a knit but forgot the “on the right side of the work” part. If you look at the cast on edges from the right sides I’m guessing they look a little different. This cannot be seen by a man on a galloping horse. Even I would miss it unless I was scouring the work for it. You’ll be fine as long as you have knits on the edges when it comes time to sew them up. You could even sew them up if there were 2 purls or one of each, but it wouldn’t look as tidy.

    Carry on!

  3. One of the reasons I struggle so with sewing seams is because the edge rolls as I am stitching up and I think I move across the boundary to a new row of stitches!! In your demo on stitching, it would be helpful to see what the seam looks like all the way up and through the juncture of body to dropped sleeve. Just realized I started at the sleeve edge when sewing the second seam. That shouldn’t make a difference should it?

  4. Hi Cindi . . . did I never respond to this? It doesn’t make a difference which direction you sew the seam, but the stitches will look different when you work from the top of the work downward. You might try bastin a line of contrasting color thread along the “line” where you are going to seam, and then pull it out later.

  5. Hello, Cheryl, and thank you for these treasure videos! How do you add more yarn to sew the rest of the body when you use the tail to sew the first little bit? Do you simply thred it in and make a knot at the back? 😉 Thank you!

  6. Hi Lelli. No . . . thread up a new length of yarn and just continue where you left off. Don’t knot it but leave a 4″ or so piece of yarn hanging where you start it which you will eventually work into the seam. Thanks for asking.

  7. I am working on setting in the sleeves. It is a knit 2 pearl 2 pattern. It seems to me I should probably doing 2 different stitches, one for the knit and 1 for the pearl. Nothing seems very neat so far.

  9. Hi Cheryl. I have finished sewing the side seems but they don’t seem as neat and perfect as the video! I don’t have nice even knit stitches on the edges of my knitting…am I doing something wrong? I knit a continental style, so should I change and throw the yarn on the edge stitch? Hummmm

  10. Hi Helern. It’s fairly common to have “not perfect” edge stitches in stockinette. It has to do with turning the work and how you take the yarn to the back or front to get started on the next row. Some people just start working without taking the time to really pull the yarn into the right position. I automatically do it. You might try to consciously orient your yarn at the beginning of the row on your next piece.

  11. Seaming the ribbing is a problem for me. My 2 end stitches are not very uniform or neat. I read your brief comment to someone else about paying attention to that last stitch when knitting it and turning to begin the next row, but though I have been attempting to do that, I am not sure I know exactly how it is done! Please help!

  12. Hi Shari. Sorry. I don’t know why I didn’t see this earlier. Your two end sts do not have to be uniform or neat in order to yield a good seam when you do the “1/2 st mattress” like I show you in the video. Try using a lighter weight yarn or even some embroidery floss to see if that works. Just try it. If it doesn’t look right, rip it out and try again. Leave a long end as you start so that if it looks good you can work it in easily.

  13. Hi Cheryl, seaming is and has always been my problem. I think I created my own issue, when you mentioned K the last stitch of every row, that is what I did, knitted every row on right and wrong side with a knit stitch. So the last stitch should be a stockingette st, knit on right purl on wrong side? Would that make the seaming more professional lookinging ? Also do you have a video showing what the wrong side of finished mattress st. should look like. I am really enjoying this learning experience.

  14. There should be a column of knit sts at each edge when looking at the right side, hence knits on the right side and purls on the wrong side.

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