hi, me again. :oops: so, it turns out i can’t seed stitch at all. it looks messy and random, and i find it rather difficult and time-consuming. i know i should probably just practice it more, but i wanted to know if i could just do garter stitch on the border for this pattern instead.
would it still look good? also what confuses me about seed stich, if i wanted to drop the first stich of every row, how would i do that? would i just slip it off with the needle in as if i was going to knit/purl it? (whichever one it would have been.) i get confused easily with this type of thing.
This is the best method for slipping stitches to make a nice edge, in my opinion. In this method, it does not matter what stitch pattern you are using - every single row has the same done, first stitch slipped as if to purl with yarn in front and last stitch of every row knitted.
You could for sure do garter stitch rather than seed stitch if that is easier for you at this point. Be assured though that seed stitch isn’t as confusing as it seems. In seed stitch, a stitch that was knitted on one row, is also knitted on the next row. Likewise a stitch that was purled on one row gets purled on the next row.
it seems i have run into another problem. the first few rows i did look great, but they were knit very tight and difficult to do. i could barely move my work on the needle. i loosened up a little, but now it looks sloppy and uneven. any tips? (i’m just practising a bit right now, i want to make sure i know what i’m doing before i start anything.)
Are you talking in general, or the cable part?? Making cables IS tighter and more awkward than normal knitting - you’re reversing the order of the stitches, afterall. They have to stretch a lot further than usual.
I believe that the first knit stitch of the ‘K4’ is still part of the seed stitch border. So the P3’s in your row 6 instruction form a rib with 3 of the 4 knit stitches in the ‘K4’. Does that make sense???
another question… would i be able to eliminate the border on the ends without it curling? i don’t really like the way it looks. it would have a garter stitch border of 7 stiches on the edges, and then be 19 stock stitches in the middle where the ribbing and cable are.
I don’t really know what you mean, because it is a border of 7 sts on either side with 19 sts in the middle for the fancy stuff. What exactly were you thinking of eliminating??
Ahhh, you don’t mean the edge border lengthwise, you just mean at the two ends. Sure, if you don’t like how it looks you can eliminate it. I don’t think it will curl.
The whole middle section is a lot of purls and knits alternating - the rib on either side of the cable, and the cable itself. That alone will keep it from curling. Similar to regular ribbing, which doesn’t curl. It’s when you have loooong sections of stockinette that you have curling problems. The garter stitch border up the sides will help a lot too.
that is really good to know, you’ve been so helpful. if i did the whole scarf in ribbing (like did the borders in st st instead of garter stitch), would it not curl? does that count as ribbing? i wanted to do that because i thought it would make the cable pop more, but i thought it would curl.
I guess I should clarify. Stitches like garter stitch and seed stitch generally lay flat on all sides - left, right, and top, bottom. When I was talking about ribbing not curling…it won’t curl on the top or bottom but it will curl in a bit on the sides, depending how wide your ribs are. When you do 1x1 rib, it won’t curl. But when I did 6x6 rib, the bottom didn’t curl but the edges did curl in a bit because it was basically 6 stitch wide columns of stockinette and reverse stockinette. In my case it wasn’t an issue though because it was the cuff of a sleeve that was to be seamed.
If you do the borders of your scarf with 7 stitches of stockinette, it will curl in on the sides. Personally, I wouldn’t recommend it, I’d stick with either the garter stitch or the seed stitch. It’s a scarf and you want it to lay as flat as possible.