Joining body and sleeve of dropped shoulder style in stocking stitch

Hi. I’m doing this project on my knitting machine but hand knitting produces the same result. I’ve knitted a drop shoulder sweater and have joined the sleeve seam to the garment body. The same result happens every time when the garment portion of the seam rolls a bit over the sleeve portion of the seam. Pressing lightly with an iron help this but I’m wondering if hand grafting or some other method might not make the roll so obvious. In my case, I hang live stitches from the sleeve onto the needles then hang the garment portion by picking up both legs of the last stitch. Thus there are 3 strands of yarn over each needle.The bulk of the seam would lessen if I picked up just one leg of the last stitch of the garment side but this sounds to me like it might not hold well and so stretch out a bit.

Any thoughts about this anyone?

Your method is a good one and the first that I would try. I’ve seen this kind of roll with backstitch seams but maybe not so much with the live stitches.
I wonder if the tension is causing some of the problem? Steaming or wet blocking will help and wearing may also help because of the pull of the sleeve on the seam (gravity helping out here).

Hi salmonmac. I guess it’s just the nature of stocking stitch to have this roll in homemade knitting projects. I don’t think it’s a tension thing on the machine as it happens in hand knits for me as well. Interestingly, commercial knits don’t seem have this problem. Wish I knew what their secret was!

It doesn’t always happen though. That makes me think about the yarn weight, and the ply and spin. Yes, I’ve seen it in sweaters that I’ve made by hand too. There will probably be more suggestions to help you (and me) out here.

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Do you have a photo of this?

I have a half memory about how a sleeve sits/fits and a hunch that this could be the same. In the comment i saw I think it was to result of live stitches rather than bound off stitches. This is a half memory I have, the live stitches resulted in the sleeve appearing to come out from underneath the body fabric (making sort of roll perhaps) where as the bound off stitches gave appearance of being on an equal plane with the body fabric and lay flatter. I think mattress stitch was used or this.
Either effect is fine of course depending on the choice of the designer or knitter.

My half thought may help or may trigger a memory for someone else with the other half of the thought!

Hi Creations. My issue with binding off the sleeve stitches is that it would mean I’d then have four strands of yarn (two legs of last stitch on body plus the same on the sleeve). This would increase the seam bulk. I do understand your suggestion of seaming like with like but dont want more bulk. Having said that though, if the sleeve head was bound off there may be a kind of mattress stitch i could use to join the seam flatter.

I will go hunting for info about this and post back here. Also I will add pics later today.

Here are images of the garment/sleeve seam, the shoulder seam and what the seam looks like internally. What I found interesting in looking at the garment again is that the shoulder join sits flat: this had front and back stitches live and both were loaded onto machine needles and joined. The garment seam has more rows than stitches in the sleeve head and so the join wasn’t even like the one-to-one stitches of the shoulder. Theoretically, what one could do here is to calculate the ratio between rows and stitches and once a pattern of pick up is established from that, there would be a more even distribution between the seams. You would be picking up rows from the garment edge and stitches from the sleeve edge. The sleeve stitches would need to be bound off.

This is conjecture on my part and the only way to know would be to try it I. I have used the ratio calculation for picking up stitches along a cardi front in order to create the button band to the body of the cardi. This always works out that the band sits perfectly - not too tight or too loose.

Having said all that, there still exists the problem of the roll of stocking stitch at its edges so the above thinking may not apply to application in question.

3 knits pics

Yes, working with a ratio is needed for the seam here similar to front bands as you note. Stockinette has such a drive to curl that even with front bands there is the tendency to curl or flip the band. Blocking does help mitigate this.

Oh, that looks really neat to me. I was imagining a little more roll than what appears on the pictures.
Isn’t this really the norm with knit wear? Having a quick glance at shop sold knit wear there’s a slight mismatch of the levels at the seam too. Perhaps (like me) you’re inspecting the detail a little too closely?

There’s always a slight roll in at the shoulder seam too, but the weight of the garment often pulls that flatter.
I thinkmknce a piece I being used, washed and worn, these slight rolls are less obvious.

Next time I’m going to try the mattress stitching once i know the ratio between row and stitch gauge. It will worth doing to satisfy my curiosity about this particular join in a sweater.

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The camera was a bit kind about the small roll but as you say washing and wearing (and blocking as salmonmac mentioned) will all help. I have to watch the part of me that is prone to wanting perfection but at the same time I’m always curious to know if someone has discovered a “better way” to do something.

Thanks to both of you for your input. :slight_smile:

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Hi, I have two suggestions. 1) When you have picked up both legs from the main body knit all three strands on the needles with a much thinner yarn of the same colour.

  1. Perhaps block your knitting before sewing up? And are you familiar with blanket stitch ? This is what I mainly use for my sewing up as it gives a nice flat seam (with a bit of practice!!), but of course you would have to cast off the stitches at the top of the sleeve.

Hope this helps

Hi jenny and thanks for your reply. Your first suggestion sounds interesting. Is this something you have tried with success?

Once I joined the seam in my usual way as outlined above, I used a pressing cloth and ran steam over the seam with slight pressure from the iron. That did have the effect of flattening things out somewhat.

HI,

Yes, I do sometimes use a thinner yarn and it gives a better seam. I would definitely recommend blocking (steaming) before sewing up, it makes that horrible job much easier!! I do knit for sale so things do need to look to good.

When joining the body and sleeve of a dropped shoulder style in stocking stitch, I’ve found that using a three-needle bind-off works really well for a clean and seamless join.