Skill Builder: Seaming (Part One)

Let’s be honest: patterns do a pretty lousy job with the finishing instructions and these crucial skills are so often skipped over in knitting lessons.

Also, the nomenclature gets a bit silly, which can make things harder to look up. It’s never been clear to me if “mattress stitch” is only for one of the key three methods—or all of them. And I’m still not sure what to call the needle we use for this…darning needle? Yarn needle? Tapestry needle?

Never fear, names aside, I’m here to make things clearer and simpler for you!

The first step: Always block before doing any seaming; this is so that the fabric is tidy and even, and has settled to its finished shape and size. As per my blocking article, don’t pin the pieces out, it doesn’t matter if the edges are rolling a bit. Just wash and dry.

The last step: Always weave in the ends after sewing up—if they’re long enough, you can use them for seaming. (The traditional advice about not seaming with cast on and bind-off tails is because it can be harder to unpick the seams and unravel everything. But if you don’t expect to, don’t worry about it.)

In between, sew some seams! Consult the pattern for the order in which they should be done: for a sweater, generally it’s shoulder seams first, then attach the sleeve to the body, and finally sew up sleeve and side seams.

There are three seaming methods and they work for all fabrics and stitch patterns. Which method you use depends on how the fabrics are aligned: are you joining side edges, top and/or bottom edges, or one of each?

I’ll cover side edges in this column, the other two in the next.

Side-to-Side Seam

Lie the two pieces side-by-side with right sides up. Yes, always work with the right sides facing.

Thread a blunt-ended, large-eyed needle with a length of yarn and/or your tail. You don’t have to use your project yarn: if it’s slubby, highly textured, or loosely spun, it might be annoying. It’s ok to seam with something smoother, as long as it’s a similar-ish weight—certainly not thicker! —and a similar-ish color—definitely not darker as it might show through!

You’re going to be working in the columns beside the edge stitch; not in the middle of that stitch.

This means that it doesn’t matter if your edge stitches are slightly untidy. They usually are, and it’s not a problem at all! Whatever you do, do NOT slip the first stitch of a row. Although it makes the edges look tidier, it makes them much harder to seam neatly. For more on this, give this a read.

So tidy! Also invisible, even though I am using a different colored yarn.

With your yarn needle, work back and forth, grabbing the horizontal bar that runs between the edge stitch and its neighbor. Grab a bar, go over to the other side, grab the corresponding bar on the other side, and then back again, back and forth. Every few rows, snug things up, pulling so it’s fully closed up and firm. Don’t pull right to the top, leave yourself a bit of a gap as you’re working.

This is the bar you’re looking for.

Controversy alert! Do you grab one bar, or two? Honestly, it depends on how thick your yarn is: for sock to light worstedy weight yarns, I’m going to grab two at a time; for thicker ones, I’ll grab one.

And that’s it. No knots needed, either at the top or the bottom! At the top, leave yourself about 3″ (8 cm) or so of tail, for weaving in; if you’re using a separate length of yarn, do the same at the start.

If you’re sewing together two sides that have exactly the same number of rows (like a sleeve seam), it all magically works out.

But if you’re joining two separate pieces, there might be a little bit of fudging (or as the sewists call it, “easing”) to be done. Use removable stitch markers to clip the pieces together before I start seaming. (Straight pins just fall out.)

You’re establishing milestones, to make sure you’re lined up in all the right places. If one piece is a row or two longer than the other, then just take an extra bar on one side here or there, guided by your clips.

If you goes wrong or you don’t like how it looks? It’s the easiest thing in the word to undo: no need to unpick, just tug on the yarn.

The amazing thing about this technique is that it works exactly the same way on pretty much any fabric. That horizontal bar is always there: look at reverse stockinette stitch.

Ribbing is just the same! If you’re working (k2, p2) ribbing, and the row starts and ends with k2, then it’s actually exactly like stockinette stitch.

Look for the bar between the two knit stitches, just like stockinette stitch.

For (k1, p1) ribbing, the bar sits between the knit stitch and the purl bump.

The bar is between the v of the knit stitch and the “umbrella” bump of the purl stitch.

There is one exception: With garter stitch, you’ve got two choices: using exactly this method makes a firm and stable seam for garments. But if you’re making a blanket, it’s flatter and more reversible if you just work back and forth into the ridge bump at the edges.

A flatter seam for blankets if you just work in the edge of the purl ridges of garter stitch.

Up next: two other directions!