The Knitting Fiend

Mom stopped by to visit on Thursday; naturally she brought her first FO. (Mom if you are reading, FO= “finished object”. )

It’s a seamless yoke sweater she knit for a friend’s daughter. The pattern? We don’t need no stinkin’ patterns! She used the “formula” in her author signed copy of Elizabeth Zimmerman’s “Knitting Without Tears.” EZ’s shaping instructions are particularly suited to placing three small color motifs around the neck, which inevitably looks pretty.

Still, Mom had a problem. She’d finished a sweater a while back, following a pattern suggested by a friend of hers. Now, my mom has been knitting a long time, but she had a horrible secret: She had never been taught to sew seams correctly. She hid this horrible secret by knitting hats, mittens, scarves, socks and sweaters all in the round!

Unfortunately, her friend tempted her with this design.

The Good: It’s an unshaped drop sleeve sweater with roll neck and straight sleeves. It’s mostly stockinette and reverse stockinette. You can’t see the stitch detail in the photo, but the regions of reverse and plain stockinette are divided by a chevron or “V” on the front. So, it’s a bit decorative, but not hard to keep track of.

The Bad: It requires seaming.

I think she said she knit this while on her vacation in all the countries that recently made up Yugoslavia; she thought pieces would be convenient on the bus rides. She also thought almost stockinette was a good choice for nearly mindless knitting.

See that seam to the right? There is a ridge. The Ugly!

After knitting, Mom backstiched to seam the sleeves and body. Back stitching is durable, and it can turn out all right: I find it easier to make invisible seams that way. Admittedly, the seam is mostly hidden under her arm, but Mom never felt comfortable about the flaw. So she hit on an idea. I’ll ask Lucia!

I saw the seam and shook my head and declared, “Mom, it’s time to learn ‘matress stitch!”

Mom undid her seams, and handed me the sweater. I demonstrated matress stitch on exactly two stitches. Mom said “I got it!”, seized the tapestry needle and took over. Here’s mom using mattress stitch. Now, I have to tell you gals, once Mom, otherwise known as “Instant Natailie”, learned what to do, getting her to pause to let me photograph her doing it correctly was not easy.

I got one chance to snap a shot. No, it’s not my best how to photo ever.

Ok, so what’s Mom doing? Well, the right and left edges of the sleeve seam are adjacent to each other. The already sewn bit is toward the bottom; the yet to be sewn bit is toward the top. I outlined first and second stitches from the left edge piece in blue. Mom is holding a tapestry needle and inserting the tip the first and second stitches from the edge. She will draw the yarn through and pull fairly firmly.

I advised her not to draw too firmly after each stitch. If the seam is too loose, you can check after doing a few stitches and draw it a bit tighter. Loosening is more difficult.

After drawing the thread through th eleft, she will shift to the right edge, insert between the first and second stitches from the right, still going from bottom to top. After that, left, right, left right. The tapestry needle tip always goes in from the already sewn direction and out pointing toward the yet to be sewn direction, so in this case, bottom to top.

Look, no ridge! Yes, that is the seam! I tried drawing it apart with my fingers to make it look as bad as possible. It’s even less visible when the sweater is worn.

Mom is now happy with her “new” sweater. She thanked me for learning this technique from my French friend Lee and being available to teach her.

Mom says she will wear the now perfect sweater during the few cool weeks before she leaves for Egypt in April. She doesn’t really think she needs to pack a worsted weight pullover for Egypt in April; I suspect she’s right.