Hi again, i absolutely hate seaming ,have tried and tired and it always looks so ugly. This project was a cocoon style .stitched up both sides,I knit this quite some time ago and pulled it out and I am so disappointed, as said i absolutely hate seaming and it shows! I am hoping i can do some kind of stitching over the seam with a contrast color to hide the seam, other wise, I guess this project is garbage, any thoughts??
Do you have a photo of the project you want to change?
Sorry to hear you don’t get on well with seaming. I am very bad at sewing but i find seaming knitting the easiest type of sewing because i know the ‘rule’ of which hole to go into, otherwise mine would be appalling.
Might we be able to help with your experience of seaming for future projects? I almost always make selvedges in stockinette so I can use mattress stitch on the seam and know where to go in and out and sew row by row so everything aligns.
I agree with @Creations that a stockinette edge stitch is easiest to deal with. There are a number of seaming methods to choose from too. Which have you tried? If you have live stitches on the needle and need to join to the cast on edge you might consider a half graft seam. I can and do seam projects but much prefer to avoid it.
Video grabbed at random -
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I had a seam at the shoulders on a sweater that I wasn’t fond of. I worked a chain across the seam and it evened out. I used a crochet hook but you could use a tapestry needle to make a chain. It’s really an embroidery stitch.
Knowing more about the seaming method you’re using as asked in the above posts will help solve the seam problem to begin with. It’s often a struggle to make neat pretty seams but I’ll bet we can help.
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Your knitting is beautiful. Did you use mattress stitch?
What method did you use?
Mattress stitch is pretty common and works very neatly. It helps to pin the saem together first. Then watch as you seam so that it comes out even and one side does not get ahead of the other.
You can also use a backstitch.
Could you consider taking out the seaming and redoing it? I undo lots of knitting and seaming to get something to look the way i want it. After all that time knitting it feels worthwhile doing the seam a few times if I need to.
When I first learned mattress stitch I was amazed such magic existed. I did have to pracise many times on swatches and because I’m not good at sewing i would count every row on my sweater seams and put a marker every 10 rows to make sure i reached them at the same time. On tricky seams I even seamed the whole thing with embroidery thread first then took out 2 or 3 stitches at a time of the embroidery thread and sewed those with the main yarn before removing another couple of embrodery thread stitches and continuing in this way. It can feel like seaming several times but i feel it’s worth it for me and over time, it has helped me get better at seaming. Even so, I still count, place markers, tack, baste… everything to get my seams looking good.
Your knitting looks so lovely.
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I beleive I used mattress stitch ,i knit his quite awhile ago and was so disappointed in the seaming, i put it away out of sight, recently i pulled it back out and had hopes of trying to fix this without having to rip the entire project out. Obviously, this looks a mess ,I do appreciate all the info and feedback, it seems that this will either go back into "Hiding’ or get ripped out or tossed out.
Sometimes a project is just too frustrating and has to go away for a bit. It would be a shame to toss it out without having a go at reseaming though.
If you used mattress stitch could it be that the seam wasn’t fully “zipped up” and that perhaps all it needs is a tug on the seaming tail to pull the excess yarn through? This could magically fix the entire seam.
If you can find the tail that was woven in and release it, and give it a good tug to see if it zips up the seam, it could be a relatively simple fix. Making sure it is fully zipped pulls the whole seam together firmly.
I agree with @Creations. I asked about which seam you used because I was thinking the same thing - the seaming yarn wasn’t pulled tight enough. I didn’t want to make the suggestion if you’d done something else.
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Sometimes when you work mattress stitch your seaming strand gets caught on another stitch, on the strand itself, somewhere. It hangs up the mattress seam so that you can’t pull the seaming strand and join the sides neatly.
Yes, as suggested, take this out and re-try mattress stitch but don’t wait till the end to pull the seam together. Work a couple of inches, then pull to join the edges. Then repeat. That way you can see if there’s a problem and undo a smaller section of seam early on.
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Thanks to all who offered help, I think I will have to attempt the undoing if tightening the end doesn’t work.Going forward ,I will look for patterns that don’t need seaming,I absolutely hate seaming! Now I am struggling with a moebius wrap which has to be seamed, I can’t seem to understand the twist,knowing I am dealing with dyslexia ,things like this are confusing, I wonder why I take on the challenge.I wish there were diagrams with some of these patterns ,but this is my challenge, thanks again!
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Is it a strip that is seamed with a twist or actual moebius knitting?
Maybe if you post a photo we can help with the join? What is the name of your pattern and designer? Some of these patterns stump all of us when a diagram would make things so much simple.
Here’s an example of moebius knitting which is a real mind twister to me.
Undoing and redoing the seaming certainly seems a better choice than throwing it out! If it doesn’t work, you can consider frogging it and reusing the yarn, but chances are good that you’ll get a better seam this time. You can also do as @Creations suggests and knit up a couple of quick swatches to practice seaming.
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I hear you! I don’t know that I’m dyslexic but some things just make zero sense in my head. I have to find my own ways of making them make sense for me. It’s challenging for sure so I totally sympathize with you. I often avoid using left and right because some days I just don’t know which is which without looking for a scar on my right arm. That was the only way I could learn to tell my left hand from my right hand when I was a little kid.
I think you can get mattress seaming to work for you. Just practice with no pressure to get it right and maybe it will become something you can just do without a lot of thinking. If not then no seams whenever possible is my way of coping.
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Do you crochet? There is a way of crocheting a side seam which you might prefer if you are comfortable with crochet.
Hi, the pattern is by Marlaine Deschamps, Moebius Wrap, It is a wrap that is twisted and seamed, yea, i know that dreadful seaming. I am not sure if I am following the directions, "flip one short end of the wrap so that there is a twist ,sew short ends together ,maintain the twist.I am thinking i will baste it together with a different color to make sure it looks like it is supposed to. Oh, and the gals will be happy to hear that i sat and worked at getting the navy project free of the seams, Now it is sitting in a basket until I decide what to do with it,at least i didn’t toss it! Thanks again
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Yes, just lay out the wrap flat then fold in the ends. Flip one end over and you have the moebius. Basting the seam on the moebius is an excellent idea.
Good for you for taking out that seam. Try mattress stitch on a swatch just to get confidence in the tecknique. If you work a few stitches at a time then tighten and always keep to the same columns of sts you should be fine. Good luck with it and come back to let us know how it’s going.
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Good on you for getting those seams free!
Mattress stitch needs to be fully tightened (i hold both ends of the seaming yarn to do this or put a slip knot in one end and a removable marker or safety pin in the slip knot, this is to prevent accidentally pulling the whole seam out, then i can hold the fabric and the seaming yarn). Aftern pulling properly snug you can extend the seam to its fullest and relieve any overtighting by pulling out on the fabric. Over tightening a seamed swatch and then loosening it up again is good practise, at least i found it helped me improve my seaming.
I also like the tip of tightening or zipping up every few cm.
Do you have a seaming method for the wrap? Is it cast on and bind off edges seamed together?