Hello all, I’m a new knitter and have been practicing stitch patterns with swatching. I’m interested in different types of selvages, just to see how they look! I’ve read about a few, like k one st at the end of each row, or sl 1 st at the beg of row and knitting the last st of that row. (I haven’t tried these yet, tho:aww: )
I know they’re needed sometimes like to stop stockinette from curling, and some to make seaming easier. Any other ideas for some?
Oh, and say I’m following a pattern and it says to cast on 20 stitches but I want to add selvage stitches at both ends (or one)…do I count these? Or do I add them on but not count them? (especially if it’s in a certain pattern stitch).
I would love your help and ideas. By the way, I love this site so much! Y’all are so helpful! 
Selvage ideas?
If you want a selvage on the piece just add one or two stitches to what ever you are making. But make sure to put a marker between your selvage stitch and the pattern stitches so that you do not accidentally count your selvage stitch as part of the pattern.
For example I am making a baby blanket that has a garter stitch band but also uses part of the garter stitches in the pattern count. I have markers in each side telling me where the garter stitch is the border and the 5 stitches of garter stitches that are part of the pattern.
Hope this helps you.
First thing you need to know…just a selvage alone will not stop stockinette from curling. You need a non curling border and at it needs to be a 6 stitches or so. It may still tend to curl a bit at that, but not as badly.
Regarding seaming…I think most people prefer not to do anything to the edge if you’re going to seam. It helps to see the stitches so you get an even seam.
What I do for a nice even chained edge is to slip the first stitch and knit the last one. I’ve heard some people slip the last one and knit the first one.
Daylily- Thank you for the marker suggestion, that will remind me to keep those seperate from my pattern. (and I need all the reminding I can get!)
Jan- Thank you, knowing that helps…by adding 6 stitches as a border does that mean six on each end, or three?
It depends on the look you want, but for the best curl relaxer I’d go with 6 on each side. Everyone knits differently so you’ll have to see if that’s enough for you.
If you’re enjoying making swatches to learn you could make up several small ones in stockinette and see the differences when you’re done…
- No borders and no selvage changes
- Selvage edge treatment always slip first stitch, knit last regardless of the rest of the pattern.
- Add a 3 stitch border to each side
- Add a 6 stitch border to each side
The borders need a non curling stitch… like seed stitch or garter stitch.
I agree with what Jan says, just slipping the edge st doesn’t stop the whole edge from curlilng, just the edge st itself. So you need a border that’s garter or seed or kp ribbing to keep the edge flatter. If you’re going to seam the edge, that will stop the curl. Also, slipping the edge st doesn’t make make seaming easier, because the slip st spans 2 rows and you need to seam into each edge st or it will cause a gap. Same thing if you’re going to pick up along the edge - you often need to pick up in 3 sts out of 4 for it to lie flat, so when the slip st spans 2 rows it’s going to be harder to get in there.
If you’re just making a scarf, use as many sts as you want, but generally you don’t need to add stitches for a selvedge or border. Most actual scarf patterns usually have a border edge already, and for other patterns you don’t want to add stitches or it may throw off the size.
Jan, great, I’ll experiment with those different ones…I did a pattern with garter stitch, even though I know that doesn’t curl, and did the sl st edge and it does have a lovely chain! I want to try other edge stitches just for the heck of it just to see the effect. Thank you.
suzeeq, I’ll try the seed st selvage tho not with stockinette, again just to see how it looks. I suppose there’s lots of st patterns (non-curling ones) I can experiment with, huh? I’ll get to work on some, thanks! 