Finishing: Very Helpful Links

It's no secret that I have strong opinions to share on finishing.

Good finishing makes all the difference in a project. Good finishing techniques make a project look,... well... finished.

I know it's not necessarily the most fun part of a knitting project. It's sort of like ironing your cotton clothes, however - a necessary step to make something look its best.

And I know that a lot of knitters don't feel confident about finishing. I can't say I blame them - it's not well explained in the patterns or books in general. The average pattern will say something helpful like "sew up", or "assemble", or - my favourite - "set in sleeves". And it's not necessarily covered in sufficient detail in the books, either.

But as I prove every time I teaching a finishing class, taking time to use proper seaming techniques is absolutely 100% worth it.

A proper seam is smooth, tidy and invisible.

Here, let me show you...

Seamed using the techniques you would normally use to seam fabric:



Seamed using Mattress stitch:



What do you think?

Proper seaming techniques aren't difficult - but I do find they simply aren't well known. Even very skilled and experienced knitters don't necessarily know how to seam a good seam.

I learned many of my techniques from my bible, Vogue Knitting. And I recently discovered that their Knit Simple publication's website has a lot of helpful info - including a page of info about some of the key seaming techniques.

And as usual, Theresa provides an incredibly helpful how-to on Knitty.

Go! Check them out! Key information! Seriously! These won't necessarily make Finishing more fun, but they will certainly help you make it easier and better.