I am making a baby blanket/afghan for a friend and instead of making a large blanket that is all one piece, I am creating one out of this awesome animal dishcloth patterns. They are all 9 x 9 inch and it will be five squares wide and five squares long. 45 x 45 inches.
Here’s where I get stuck…I can’t find instructions for it online, but when I am sewing these pieces together when I am complete, HOW do I do it? On a sewing machine? With other yarn?? I’m completely LOST. I’ve done more complicated things in my knitting history so far, but am just lost on how to do this without it looking like…Well…CRAP!
I’m not a very experienced knitter yet, but I plan to make one of those for my bed (king size - yikes!) with tons of squares, and my plan is to crochet them all together with a yarn that ties in all the colors, so the crochet will act as a border of sorts between all the squares and around the entire quilt. Sounds really pretty!
What kind of borders or selvage sts are on the dishcloths? Garter, moss?
ETA: If garter, there’s seaming info (w/pics) here. This site has more chapters on horiz seaming, as well.
You’ll have to decide how ‘invisible’ you want the join and if you want a seam on the back…or not. The nice thing about crochet (which can be learned quite easily) is that it works up quickly and can be ‘unzipped’ if you’re not getting the look you want or need to re-adjust for variations in the sides of the sqs. (Bit more arduous taking out sewn stitches.)
Are you planning to seam in matching yarn or have the joins be a contrast?
I’m not a fancy crochet-er either but it works good for seams. I line up the v’s of each stitch in each square side by side. then slip the crochet hook under each v of each piece. wrap the yarn around the crochet hook and pull that yarn under each v with th hook. Now youhave a loop on the hook. take the crochet hook and go under the next set of v’s and wrap the yarn and pull under again. now you have 2 loops on the hook. You can now use the crochet hook to pull one loop under the other and continue putting the hook under the v’s or some people wrap the yarn around the crochet hook before pulling under the loops. It’s up to you. I know there must be a video of it around here somewhere.
I’ve just finished doing the exact same thing. I sewed it together using matress stitch which is pretty much invisible if you just use yarn the same colour as one of the squares. You might need to (learn how to) crochet round the edge to stop it stretching or knit a narrow seed stitch border to strengthen edges. That’s what I’m off to do now!
Good luck.
I will take a look at the videos everyone linked for me. THANKS! :DCrossed Fingers