Experimental Spinning 2

January 18, 2022 / underdutchskies / 4 Comments

In the first Experimental Spinning post I used shades of purple to demonstrate the effects of multiple plies and multiple colors on the final knitted fabric. In this post I will continue with the theme of using plying to play with color, this time working with opposite colors on the color wheel. Again, I am using a somewhat scientific structure to organize my method from start to finish: Subject, Hypothesis, Methods, Testing, Results, Conclusion

Subject – Plying Opposite Colors

Hypothesis – Plying so called “complimentary colors” from a color wheel will result in muddy brown color in a knitted swatch.

Everyone knows that mixing blue and yellow will give you green. blue + red = purple. yellow + red = orange. I have heard and read and found in dying wool, that mixing complimentary colors will often end in mud. If you’ve done any painting or fabric dying or fiber dying, you may also have had this experience. But does this always hold true? Will it hold true with simply plying them together?

First of all, what is the definition of “complimentary” color? Using the most common generally accepted color wheel, complimentary colors are those found directly opposite on the wheel. The compliment of blue is orange. For red it is green. For yellow it is purple.

Methods – I began by spinning singles in each of the 6 colors needed: red, blue, yellow, orange, purple, green. Your basic rainbow.

I used European Merino (27 micron) that is inexpensive and readily available from a local shop. It is commercial dyed. I didn’t need a lot so only spun 20 grams of each color. I spun everything for this experiment on an Electric Eel Wheel 6.0.

I then plied HALF of the amount on the bobbins with their compliments.

Then I knit swatches with the yarn.

I then decided to ply the rest of the singles together into 6-ply yarn to see what that would look like. My additional hypothesis was that all 6 colors together would look muddy. I had never made 6-ply yarn before and was a little nervous about handling all those singles, but it was actually pretty easy.

6-ply yarn, primary and secondary colors

Testing – Testing the hypothesis is a very subjective process. Do these colors look muddy to YOU? Do they look muddy to ME? With this method, only the green/red combination looks muddy at first glance. I think this is because the value of the colors are very similar. Meaning, they are equally dark. Mixing yellow and purple in a 2-ply yarn only looks like a marled yarn because the value of the colors is so different. The yellow is so bright compared to the purple. To test this further I took a black and white photo of the yarns together. Here you can see what I mean.

from L to R: yellow/purple, blue/orange, red/green

It’s clear from the photo above that the red and green colors are very similar in value and thus more easily fool your eye into thinking they are blended together.

What if you would see the effect of the color mixing more obviously if the pieces of color were tiny pixels instead of large chunks of yellow and purple? I decided to look at the photos of the swatches in Photoshop and see what I could do there to blur the image and see what color would result.

I used the Blur filter on the photos and came up with these results. The algorithm finds the average color from what it sees in the image.

Results – Mixing complementary colors via plying does not create a stark or obvious mud color to MY eyes. Possibly the result would be more mud colored if I had spun very fine singles and knit a swatch with 2mm needles the stitches would be small enough to make more of a muddy impact.

However, if you visually mix the colors fine enough it is clear that a muddy color results. So, if you are painting, or mixing dyes, the Photoshopped blur colors are likely what you will get as a result.

Summary – I consider my hypothesis proved right, even though my swatches were too large in their pieces of color to see the effect at first glance. Blurring the images shows the true mix of the colors when the size of each “pixel” is inconsequential. But this leads me to sub-hypothesis, and the next episode of Experimental Spinning…. what happens if you blend these same combinations on a drum carder? How many passes on the carder are needed before you see the complete blending of colors, matching more or less the blurred images above? Do we still end up with mud? Does blending on a drum carder mimic blending dyes in a dye pot? I’ll let you know in a couple of weeks.

Side note – I have fallen in love with the 6 ply multi-colored yarn. I was surprised how easy it was to ply so many singles together and I’m very happy with the result. It’s not ropey. Not terribly bouncy, but not hard either. I’m very tempted to spin up some more singles and ply enough to make a hat. I think it would make me smile every time I put it on. My advice to spinners – go for lots of plies and see what happens! It’s only wool after all. You are the boss of your spinning.

One Glove

January 11, 2022 / underdutchskies / 2 Comments

The first of EJ’s gloves is finished. I think he will be as glad as I am when they are both done because I’m bugging him all the time to try it on. It is knit to fit!

The pattern is Seascape Gloves but there are instructions also for mittens or fingerless mittens in the same pattern. I used Zauberball Crazy yarn which EJ picked out himself at de Witte Engle in Den Burg, Texel. I used 2.5mm needles (2 circs) for the ribbing and tops of fingers, and 2.75mm for the hand and beginning of the fingers.

The pattern is easy to follow and in general I like the result. The only thing that didn’t go well is the shape of the base of the thumb. It was a big hole. When I picked up stitches for the thumb I did some short rows between thumb and first finger to try to fill in the gap. That worked ok, but I’d rather not have to do that. I’ll see on the second glove if I can keep that from happening in the first place.

I have started on my second mitten and once I’m past the thumb area I’ll also start on the second glove. I am really looking forward to getting back to my CARDIGAN!

I’m also spinning – working on Experimental Spinning 2, which I’ll be able to share next Tuesday. I’m already plotting ES 3. But before that I want to prepare an article proposal for Ply magazine. I hope they like it! If they don’t, well, you’ll see it here instead. 🙂

Free Patterns

January 7, 2022 / underdutchskies / 1 Comment

I have a couple of free sock patterns on Ravelry and I thought I’d put them here as well. Above is a photo of Butterfly Circus socks.

These socks are called Seasonal Socks. In the pattern there are 3 lengths (Spring, Summer, Fall/Winter) and 3 ending treatments (picot edge, bind off calf length, and increases to a knee length).

Finally, I have updated the charts for knitting left and right toes. You can use them to knit toe up or top down socks and also for socks with more than 60 stitches in the foot.

You can find all of these things, and more, on the Resources page. Enjoy!

One Mitten

January 4, 2022January 4, 2022 / underdutchskies / 4 Comments

I finished the first mitten yesterday. Today I went out into the windy cold day to try to find some light to take a few photos. This group of statues stands in front of the public library in my town. In 2018 the library was voted the “Best Library in the World”, as judged by IFLA (International Federation of Library Associations). But back to the mitten….

I started working on this on Christmas Day so it has knit up very quickly, also considering other ongoing projects. It was a cold afternoon and I was glad to have even ONE mitten to put on.

This Estonian yarn is rough and tough and perfect for mittens. I used size 2.25mm needles and got the same gauge as the pattern (36 sts/inch/10cm). They fit me perfectly, but I have small hands. You could easily go up to 2.5mm for a larger size and still have a good warm fabric.

The pattern is Kainoruusu, which I knit as given except for adding the Latvian braid before and after the cuff. For that I used the instructions from the free pattern Warm Hearted Mittens on Knitty.com.

I’m knitting these mittens as part of the Yarniacs Self Indulgent KAL, which runs from the winter solstice to the spring equinox. The mittens are really self indulgent because I don’t NEED them. I have other mittens. I have mittens that I bought in Estonia. Mittens I’ve knit. Mittens I don’t wear often. But these are so pretty that I just couldn’t stop myself. And when you have the yarn in stash, there’s no reason not to!

I’m also busy working on the man gloves. I’m up to the fingers on the first glove, so you’ll be seeing it soon. And I need to get back to my cardigan!

As a sneak preview…. can you guess what I’m up to here?

Goodbye 21, Hello 22

January 1, 2022January 1, 2022 / underdutchskies / 6 Comments

In this year of stops and starts, ups and downs, open and closed, left and right, here are my best 9 projects of 2021. All of them are on Ravelry if you are interested in more details. From top left:

374 grams, 2670 meters of Shetland lace weight, spun on a Schacht Matchless; knit into 9.
Shark tank baby blanket made for the newest member of the family
920g of 2-ply Aran weight, 70% Shetland fiber, 30% sparkly merino/sparkles, spun on an Electric Eel Wheel 6.0
Canal Poncho, pattern by the fantastically talented Nancy Marchant
Exploration Station shawl, pattern by the also fantastically talented Stephen West
Sweater Spin 2021, knit with yarn from 8.
Best Vacation Ever sweater, my own pattern, knit with 10 colors of Holst Garn Tides
450g 3-ply BFL, fiber dyed by me, knit into sweater 6.
Shetland christening shawl, 140cm / 55“ square, 291g final weight, knit from 1.

If you know me, you know I’m a planner. On 1 January 2022 I’m planning my projects for the coming year…. Finish the 3 projects that are in progress. Make yet another baby blanket. Spin the next episode of Experimental Spinning. Send an article proposal to Ply Magazine. Knit another version of the Best Vacation Ever sweater and write up the pattern. Sew a dress with my own designed fabric. Sew a dress with all of our cast off jeans. And then we’re up to summer and I want to do some dyeing outside……

I have also been thinking about this blog, and Instagram and FaceBook and Twitter, and how to make this all work together and create things that others find interesting enough to come back to. I have re-opened the Under Dutch Skies FB page. I’ve linked Instagram to that page and also to my Twitter account. Today’s blog post will be a test to see if the link between WordPress and those accounts play nicely together and will post simultaneous updates.

That’s the technical side of things, but what about content? What am I trying to do here? What keeps the blog from becoming a chore instead of a fun creative thing? I have found that trying to write a blog post every week with a “big story” is really difficult. I am not that fast with my projects! I really want to write about the start, middle and end of a project every week. But, starting in 2022, as you are seeing here, I’m going to write more often, smaller posts, and at least once a month write a longer complete project (or technique) post.

I’ve been blogging for a long time (those old years are archived now) and I found that when I wrote something every single day for a month, my readership went way up. People have the attention span of fleas and if you aren’t creating, they aren’t coming back. I’ll start writing more. Please come back!

What are you planning for 2022? Are you planning ahead or do you just pick up what feels good in the moment?

Holidays Lazy Days

December 28, 2021December 31, 2021 / underdutchskies / 2 Comments

It’s the Tuesday between Christmas and New Year – technically a holiday week here in NL – but I’ll still write a little something on the blog. I have no finished object to share, but I do have some new projects to show you.

Above is the first cuff of my Kainoruusu mittens. I’m making them per the pattern, mostly. I just can’t help but modify something in every pattern! I’ve added the 2 Latvian braids below and above the color work section (the red and white candy cane). The cuffs I’m making in red and white and the rest of the mitten will be dark grey and white.

The yarn is some Estonian yarn that I bought during my trip there in 2013. It’s not soft yarn but it’s sturdy and great for mittens. It should be softer after washing, but I wouldn’t want to wear it around my neck.

Here’s a photo of the inside, in case you’re curious what that looks like. I always like to see the inside of things. 🙂

I’ve also started a pair of gloves for DB. When we went to Texel a couple of weeks ago (to get our Christmas lamb) he saw this yarn and wanted to buy it for himself. Either for a hat or gloves. I was secretly hoping for a hat, but in the end he chose gloves.

You can see that I’m working up the hand, increasing on the right side for the thumb. I chose the pattern, thinking that it would be great for gloves – sturdy and long wearing. That is certainly true! But the stitch pattern used is hurting my hands to knit. The pattern is Seascape Gloves. Here’s a closeup of the stitches. This multi-colored yarn doesn’t make it easy to see, but it’s a 2-stitch twisted thing.

You put the right needle through the first stitch on the left needle, and knit the SECOND stitch on the left needle, bring your right needle back out, and knit the first stitch through the BACK loop, then slide both stitches to the right needle. I had no idea it would cause my hands so much trouble. But you know, the things we do for love.

Here’s the inside of the glove.

I’m trading off working on the mittens, then the gloves, so my hands get a break. There has also been a little spinning going on, for the next Experimental Spinning post. Hopefully I’ll have that ready to show in another week.

These dark days make photography so difficult! I spend a lot of time trying to get the colors to match what my eyes see. I think I’m pretty close this week.

That’s it for craft pursuits this week. I’m also practicing the accordion and cooking and baking and taking care of the neighbor cat while they are out of town, and visiting family. I hope you are having a nice holiday week and can find joy, even in the smallest of things, during these pandemic times. Til next week, happy end of 2021!

Experimental Spinning – 1

December 21, 2021December 31, 2021 / underdutchskies / 4 Comments

For the past couple of years I’ve been thinking about writing a book. About spinning. Because I have so many questions and I want to take readers on a trip with me to find the answers. Writing a book feels very daunting so I’ve decided to take it in pieces, starting with blog posts, and starting with this one today, which is why it is titled with the number “1”. There will be many more of these spinning experiment posts, put into a separate category on the blog called “Experimental Spinning” so as not to confuse it with just every day normal spinning. 🙂

I’ve already got many topics outlined and summarized like chapters in a book and I hope that they will fit nicely into blog posts. Otherwise I’ll chop them up to fit.

The format for each topic will be the same: Subject, Hypothesis, Methods, Testing, Results, Conclusion. For anyone who has taken science classes in school this should look familiar. It’s a way to structure this work and make it easy for someone else to follow the steps and see if they get the same results, or to modify the experiments to test a similar hypothesis. I hope this will make sense as we go down this road together, my readers and I.

OK, now that I’ve set the scene…

Experiment 1 – Effects of multiple numbers of plies on color and texture

Hypothesis – 3-ply yarn is the best for knitting/crochet. It is round and bouncy. Colors play well together in 3’s. 2-ply is less round, 4-ply is ropey and 5-ply even worse. More than 3-plies in multiple colors is just not pleasing to the eye. Therefore, 3-ply is the best yarn to make when planning to make garments from spun yarn.

Methods – As you can see from the photo above, I have 5 similar colors of fiber. This is Corriedale that I bought from World of Wool (WoW) in the UK. The colors range from dark to light, blue-ish to red-ish and a basic purple. All of the colors are listed in the “purple” category by WoW.

Create 4 yarns, from 5-ply to 2-ply.
1. Create 5-ply yarn: Spin 5 x 10g bobbins, 1 of each color, as lace weight, and ply them together. Wash and set the yarn. Look at the yarn created and choose the 1 color that stands out and remove it from the next round of spinning.
2. Create 4-ply yarn: Spin 4 x 10g bobbins of the 4 remaining colors and ply them together. (I chose to remove the lightest color from this round, using purple, red-ish, blue-ish and darkest colors.) Repeat the washing, setting, reviewing and deciding which stand out color to remove for the next round.
3. Create 3-ply yarn: Repeat step 2 for the 3-ply spin. Spin a little thicker single to try to keep the total grist the same. (I chose to remove the blue-ish color from this round, using purple, red-ish and darkest colors.)
4. Create 2-ply yarn: Repeat step 3 for the 2-ply spin. (I chose to remove the darkest color from this round, leaving the purple and red-ish colors.)
At the end of these steps there should be 4 skeins of yarn, a 5-ply, 4-ply, 3-ply, 2-ply, all different combinations of colors, as close to the same grist as possible.

Testing – The best way to test the results of the method is to knit swatches of each yarn. The photo below shows the swatches from 2-ply on above, to 5-ply at the bottom of the photo. I used size US4/3.5mm needles for all the swatches. Each one measures about 6″ x 5.5″ (15 x 14cm). They were all knit: CO 32 sts; knit 4 rows; (seed st 4 sts, stockinette for 24 sts, seed st 4 sts) for 4″/10cm; knit 4 rows; bind off. Weave in ends and steam block.

You can see that from the 5-ply I removed the lightest color. From the 4-ply I removed the blue-ish color. From the 3-ply I removed the darkest color. What remained in the 2-ply was the purple and red-ish colors.

While I knit the swatches I developed a ranking/testing method that will hopefully show the “winner” of this test and whether or not the winner is the 3-ply that I hypothesized it would be. There are 8 categories and each one will be ranked from 1-5, 5 being best.

Test	5-ply	4-ply	3-ply	2-ply
ease of spinning	2	3	4	5
enjoyment of spinning	2	3	5	5
efficiency of spinning	1	2	4	5
pleasing color result	3	4	5	4
enjoyment of knitting	3	4	5	3
ease of knitting	3	5	5	4
hand of fabric	3	5	5	3
visually pleasing fabric	2	5	5	4
TOTAL	19	31	38	33

Below are close up photos of the swatches, from 5-ply to 2-ply.

4 ply – Darkest, blue-ish, red-ish, purple colors used

Conclusion – Obviously this is not empirical testing and the results are subjective. These are my opinions about my own spinning and knitting and color choices. According to the ratings, the hypothesis holds and 3-ply is the best yarn for knitted fabric and mixed colors (of similar hue).

What surprised me? I was surprised by how nice the 4-ply yarn is. I think that apart from the extra time to spin an extra bobbin (as compared to 3-ply), it would have rated right up there with 3-ply yarn. It is NOT ropey, but still soft and bouncy and the chosen colors look nice together. It is not too busy in my opinion.

An observation about the 5-ply yarn – I found that it felt ropey in my hands and the yarn was kind of splitty, meaning that it was easy to split it with your needle while trying to knit. If you have ever knit with Wolmeise sock yarn, you know what I mean. That yarn is 6 plies of wool, however it is so ropey that it feels almost like cotton. Based on that yarn knitting experience, and this spinning experiment, I am coming to the conclusion that anything more than 4 plies is probably not going to be bouncy and lofty.

An observation about 2-ply yarn – The 2-ply yarn is rated so highly in the testing mainly because it is very efficient and easy to make. If I were to give a weighting factor to the table, I would weight the resulting fabric higher than efficiency (I’m spinning for myself after all, not for money) and maybe the 4-ply would have come out with a higher ranking than the 2-ply. The 2-ply fabric is nice, but not as bouncy and kind of boring in the depth of color. I also made a 2-ply using the darkest and lightest colors together to see what that would look like (bonus testing) and it’s really your typical marled effect.

marled 2-ply (darkest and lightest colors used)

In summary, if you are looking for fabric with nice depth of color and nice round crisp stitches, go for 3-ply. If you are just a little more adventurous, try a 4-ply.

Want to play along with my spinning experiments? Please do! I hope to share an experiment per month or two. I’m starting with the most simple and moving on to more and more complex. Next up – Experimental Spinning 2 – Plying the Color Wheel.

Here are some more photos of Experiment 1 results. Enjoy and til next time!

FO & WIP

December 14, 2021December 31, 2021 / underdutchskies / 5 Comments

This past week I finished the 12 recipe tea towels/wall hangings that I started in November. WHEW that felt good to get those off my plate. I hadn’t touched them in several weeks and in that time I had kind of forgotten how I made them so I spent more time ripping out than sewing for the first one. But after that it went smoothly and I finished them in 2 days.

I’ve decided not to trust them to the mail. They’d have to cross 2 countries and 5,000 miles and probably cost a fortune because they are heavy. I will take them with me the next time I visit my mom and mail them from there. Hopefully this Spring. Everyone will just have to wait!

AND I started a new sweater. This one is a cabled cardigan that I could really use in my wardrobe. This is my second winter after returning from California and I need more warm sweaters. This sweater is called Sandstone Peak, designed by Irina Anikeeva. I fell in love with it the second I saw it.

I’m knitting it with Cascade 220, which I had in stash. The colorway is called “Galaxy” and it’s another one of those hard to capture colors. Most of the time it looks dark brown, but in some light it looks dark purple. On dark winter nights it’s just black and I need a neck light to knit.

The instructions have you knit this from the bottom up, seamless, then knit the sleeves in the round, then put them all together at the underarms and knit the yoke seamless. Well, you can guess from other posts that I am a fan of seams in such a garment so I’ve decided to knit each piece flat and seam it together. It just takes more teasing out of the pattern instructions, especially at the yoke, but so far it’s not too bad. The instructions are very clear and easy to follow, which makes it also easy to tear them apart and see the pieces separately. I added 1 stitch at each edge for a selvage for seaming. I’ve finished one sleeve and started the second.

My plan is to have this finished by the end of January, with plenty of winter left to enjoy it. I’ve also got some mittens queued up to start, and DB has asked for either a hat or gloves (he hasn’t decided yet), so plenty of knitting on the horizon.

And that’s my FO (finished object) and WIP (work in progress) for this week. I was hoping to post about my spinning project(s) but I’m not quite ready for that unveiling. Come back next week for some spinning experiments in color.

Sweater Spin 2021

December 7, 2021December 31, 2021 / underdutchskies / 4 Comments

spinning BFL on an Electric Eel Wheel 6.0

Since I started spinning I have always had at least one “big” spinning project each year. Some years it was yarn for a sweater and some years it was at least 200g of lace weight yarn for a large shawl. Since the pandemic, and not working (and since I wrecked my shoulder with too much knitting), I’ve spun about 3 times that much per year. This year I finished spinning lace weight Shetland for a ginormous shawl, plus 2 sweater quantities of yarn. And some other spinning tests (more about that next week).

Last week I talked about sewing seams in sweaters and this week I’m going to show you my handspun seamless top-down sweater. It’s good to have options in your knitting!

I had been meaning to spin up this fiber since I dyed it a couple of years ago. I just love red and bright pink together. This is BFL (Blue Face Leicester sheep breed) fiber. I think BFL comes in a close second to Shetland wool for my favorite to spin. It’s very soft, but not as soft as Merino, which means that, for me anyway, it’s an easy relaxing fiber to spin. I’m not constantly fighting to keep it under control. It’s happy to be spun very fine, or thicker – whatever you want, it will oblige.

The fiber itself had to be pulled apart a bit and fluffed up before spinning. I didn’t do the greatest dye job and it was a little bit flat and matted. But with little effort I had beautiful little nests (nests on the left, matted fiber on the right).

I grabbed random nests from my bag to spin the singles. I made 3-ply yarn because that is my favorite yarn to spin and knit and wear. Those 3 plies together also hide any imperfections in your spinning pretty well. I ended up with about 455g/16oz of sport weight yarn. I hoped it would be enough.

I went looking for a super simple, plain raglan sweater pattern. You would think that after all these years I would have a go-to pattern like this all ready to cast on. But I rarely make something simple and plain. 🙂 I do have some books that have calculations for sweaters (“All Sweaters in Every Gauge”, “Knitting From the Top”, “Designing Knitwear”) and I did look through them but I was feeling lazy and just wanted someone to have done the work and figured out the numbers for me. I chose “#265 Mid Weight Neck Down Pullover” by Diane Soucy. Lots of people on Ravelry love this pattern so I felt confident it would work for me too. And it did! Super simple, straightforward no-nonsense pattern. I highly recommend it.

I was happily knitting away (see my previous blog post about fit) when I noticed that my yarn was being eaten up pretty quickly. I hadn’t planned to use the solid colored bits of my yarn because the blended yarn was so much prettier, but I HAD to use it to have any hope of finishing with long sleeves. The length of the sweater was plenty long, so in the end I had to go back and unravel part of the bottom and use that yarn on the second sleeve! I unraveled a row, knit it onto the sleeve, unraveled another row, knit some more sleeve, and on and on until the second sleeve was the same as the first. I ended up taking out 5 body rows.

Since I wanted the body ribbing to be a good length, I unraveled the rest of the ribbing and then 5 body stockinette rows, then knit the ribbing again and bound off. I was left with less than an arms length of yarn. WHEW. The sleeves are JUST long enough. The sweaters weighs in at 453g. I need to remember that number so that I spin at least 500g of sport weight in future to be sure to have enough for a plain sweater. And also measure the length of the yarn, not just the weight. (eye roll here – silly beginner/laziness not to have measured the length)

I’m really happy with the sweater and the yarn and the pattern. It took me exactly one month to knit. Almost-instant gratification! It was a cold grey day when we took outdoor photos.

I also want to share how IMPOSSIBLE it has been to capture the colors of this sweater. In the end, YOU pick which color you like best and I’ll say that’s what it looks like. I tried to take photos in all kinds of light and it was never just right. Honestly, it doesn’t matter. Any of them are good. 🙂

Do you plan out your projects, months ahead? Do you fantasy knit or spin? I sure do. I’ve already started another cardigan, I’m planning to make mittens starting the end of this month. I’m going to start a new spinning project the end of this week. I have a sweater planned for January, a baby blanket in February, and maybe a handspun sweater in February too. If I was smart I’d make seasonal items the season BEFORE I want to wear them, but I feel like I’m always running to catch up. I’ve just cast on a winter cardigan but I want to be wearing it now. Maybe I need to just skip a season and jump right into lighter weight sweaters to be ready to wear them in the summer. If I was smart.

Seams in Knitting

November 30, 2021December 31, 2021 / underdutchskies / 2 Comments

Link to this how-to document found below.

I’m an active member of the Yarniacs Podcast group on Ravelry and lately we’ve had some discussions about sewing seams in sweaters versus knitting sweaters in the round without seams. Some new knitters have never knit a sweater in pieces. I feel so old when I tell them that this is how I learned to knit! We used straight needles and knit back and forth and then sewed the pieces together. I’m not saying that one method is better than the other – each have their place depending on the garment you are making.

This is not a new discussion. In 2013 I designed a sweater that was designed to be knit in pieces and seamed. I realized then that this might be a stumbling block for knitters so I created a how-to document to teach people how to make beautiful and strong seams. In my previous blog (now retired) I had this document available for readers to download so it’s about time I put it back up there for anyone to use.

You can find the document here.

I explain how to sew vertical seams, horizontal seams and mixed vertical to horizontal seams (sewing in sleeves for example). I also show how to pick up stitches for necklines (or for sleeves in some patterns).

I had intended to use this document as a teaching guide but I never ended up teaching this class. Now, 8 years on, there are YouTube videos and online classes that will show you these techniques and my little document is just one of thousands of resources out there. But everyone learns differently and maybe this will be helpful to you.

Let me know if you have questions about sewing seams in your knitwear. I’m happy to help. I don’t want this technique to become a dying art! Seams have a function that can’t be replaced by any other method of knitting (see the document to find out more!).

Enjoy!