Weaving in ends is a thing that just happens in projects. I mean, every ball of yarn has a beginning and an end, and when it’s through when the project is not, a new one has to be attached. When working in a solid color, depending on the type of yarn, the Russian join, braided join or the felted join may be just what you’re looking for. However, if there are a lot of joins, because you’re, for example, working wide stripes in different colors, these usually are not the best option.
Therefor, I want to focus in this tutorial on a different method to join a new yarn in a new color. For this method, you don’t need to tie knots, or even use a tapestry needle. And you can work it on the go, so that when you’re finished with the project, you’re also already finished with weaving in the ends. The downside is that this method is best to use in combination with feltable fibers. In other words: yarns that are somewhat “grabby” like wool and alpaca. Worked in ends with smoother yarns like silk and cotton may become undone.
Let’s get started!
Materials used
Yarn: Rauma Finull a sportweight wool yarn from Norway. It has a crisp hand and works well for stranded color designs. The yarn also softens up with washing.
Knitting needles: A pair of Addi circular needles in size 4 mm (US6).
Weaving in ends as you go, step by step
To start, grab your new ball of yarn!
Making sure you leave a yarn tail of approx. 10 cm (4 inches), work the first stitch of the row as instructed, using the new color of yarn.
In this case, I worked a knit stitch.
Next, hold the yarn tail together with the working yarn and work approx. 4 to 5 stitches as instructed, with the yarn held double.
Here, you see the result after I worked those stitches and I have a little bit of yarn tail remaining.
After this, work the rest of the row as instructed in your pattern, and continue with the next (WS) row as well.
When you arrive at the double strands on the WS row, just work them as if they are a single strand of yarn.
In this picture, I’ve inserted the right-hand needle into the first stitch to purl it.
Once the row is finished, this is how it looks.
Please note, that I’ve worked the last stitch with the new color yarn held double with the old color, as explained in the tutorial about carrying yarn up the side.
The result
Below, you can see the result of when viewed from the right side of the fabric. All new colors started (except the darkest one, which has been carried up along the side), were woven in as explained above. As you can see, the few stitches with the yarn held double at the beginning of these rows do not have a significant impact on how it looks. It sure makes a difference in the amount of finishing to when the knitting is done, though!
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With almost every new design, comes a new technique or stitch pattern. In the project pictured above, I’m working a stitch pattern that uses a “make 6” increase. It’s very much like a regular “make 1” but instead of picking up the strand between the 2 stitches and making 1 stitch out of it, 6 new stitches are made by working [k1, p1] 3 times in the same loop. So, of course, there has to be an accompanying tutorial to make sure there is no confusion about how to go about it.
Let’s get our materials and get started!
Materials used
Yarn: Rauma Finull a sportweight wool yarn from Norway. It has a crisp hand and works well for stranded color designs. The yarn also softens up with washing.
Knitting needles: A pair of Addi circular needles in size 4 mm (US6).
Working the M6 increase step by step
To start, work as instructed by your pattern until the point where you want to make the increase.
In this example, I shot the pictures with the M6 not quite in the correct place. No worries, though, I corrected it later on.
First, insert your right-hand needle from front to back underneath the strand of yarn between the stitch just worked, and the next one to work.
Place it on the left-hand needle as shown, with the stitch mounted with the right leg in front of the needle.
You can place it on the needle with a twisted stitch mount, with the left leg of the stitch in front of the needle. However, this would mean that you have to work the following steps though the back loop to make sure the hole created in the fabric is not closed up.
Next, insert the needle knitwise into the loop, wrap the yarn around the needle …
… and pull it through. Do not slip the loop off the needle yet!
Now, bring the yarn to the front of the work, insert the needle purlwise into the loop, wrap the yarn around the needle …
…and pull it through. Do not slip the loop off the needle yet!
Repeat steps 4 to 7 twice more, so that you have created 6 new stitches. You can now slip the loop of the left-hand needle.
On the next row, you can just work these new stitches as instructed in your pattern.
The result
Below, you can see the result. On the left, it’s shown directly after the M6 increase has been worked. On the right, the M6 increase is shown, incorporated in the patterning I’m working in this design. Pretty, right?!
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When working with different colors of yarn, for example when knitting stripes, it can be useful to carry up the unused yarn at the side of the work. This, of course, assumes you’re working on a project knitted flat back and forth. Carrying the yarn between rows, can help avoid a lot of cutting and weaving in ends. I don’t know about you, but that is not a favorite step of mine when finishing projects, so I try to avoid that where I can.
There are various ways of carrying yarn along the side of the work. In this tutorial, I’m focussing on the double strand method. In the basis, this means nothing more than working the last stitch of the row with both strands of yarn. You can also work the first stitch of the row with both strands together, this is purely a matter of preference. I’m used to the last stitch of the row, so that’s what I’ll be showing.
The main upside of this technique, when compared to just holding the yarn along the side, is that the tension is the same as the rest of the project. This way, there is absolutely no risk of holding the unused yarn at a too tight or too loose tension. It’s also very easy and fast to do. There are of course also downsides. Because the yarn is held double at that one stitch, it will bulk up that stitch. When working with thinner yarns, as I usually do, that’s often really no issue. However, if you’re working with thicker yarns, or with multiple colors, this may not be the ideal method.
Materials used
Yarn: Rauma Finull a sport weight wool yarn from Norway. It has a crisp hand and works well for stranded color designs. The yarn also softens up with washing.
Knitting needles: A pair of Addi circular needles in size 4 mm (US6).
Carrying yarn up the side step by step
To start, work as instructed by your pattern until you only have 1 stitch remaining in the row.
In the picture, you can see the working yarn (light) as well as the yarn to carry up (dark).
Now insert the right-hand needle into the stitch (here it’s to be knit) and wrap both strands of yarn around the needle.
Pull both strands of yarn through, and slip the stitch of the needle.
This is the result when viewed on the wrong side of the work.
Do you see that the first stitch of the row is now double-stranded?
Next, turn the work and insert the right-hand needle into the stitch (here it’s to be knit), taking care to insert in both strands and wrap the working yarn around the needle.
Pull the yarn through…
… and finish the stitch.
The result
Below, you can see the result of carrying the yarn up the side, using the double strand technique. You can see that the stitches in the light yarn on the right are a tad bulkier than the other stitches. That said, the yarn is thin enough that after blocking this won’t be much of an issue. Also, in this particular case, I’ll be picking up stitches along the side of the project for a border, so the edge stitch is also a selvage stitch ad won’t be visible at all in the end result.
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When knitting a top-down garment like a sweater or a tee, there inevitably comes a moment where the stitches in the yoke are divided in those for the armholes and those for the body. Usually, the armhole stitches are put on a stitch holder or waste yarn. Next, the stitches for the back and front(s) are to be connected. Of course, you could just knit straight from the one set of stitches to the other. However, for optimal fit patterns usually instruct some stitches to be cast on for the underarm, connecting the front and back stitches. But how to go about that, especially if the pattern does not mention a specific method to use?
In this tutorial, I’ll tell you all about both the backwards loop method and the knitted-on method. To show you how to go about it, I’m using my Cherry Puff sweater WIP as an example. It’s a design by Skeindeer Knits, you can find the pattern here (Ravelry link).
Materials used
Garment WIP: Cherry Puff work-in-progress, which I’m knitting in Lang Yarns Super Soxx 6 ply.
Other materials: I’m doing this project on a Zing circular knitting needle in size 3.5 mm (the green one pictured).
To start
Before we can start casting-on at the underarm, we first have to organize the stitches. I’ve knit to the shoulder stitches and have placed them on waste yarn. So, on the one needle we have the back stitches, and on the other the front stitches.
Using the backward loop cast-on
To work the backward cast-on, you just work the cast-on on the right-hand needle. A photo tutorial on that can be found here, the result can be seen below. On the following row, the newly cast-on stitches can be hard to knit into. Also, the loops of yarn may stretch out where they connect to the front or back stitches due to the loose character of this cast-on. A way to tighten this up, is to cast-on 2 extra stitches for each underarm section. On the following row or round, when you come to 1 stitch before the underarm stitches, work a decrease. Next, work to 1 stitch before the end of the underarm stitches and again work a decrease.
Using the knitted-on cast-on
The process to work the knitted-on cast-on is a bit more involved than the one for the backward loop cast-on. That said, the result is much neater, with still a bit of stretch in the resulting edge. A detailed photo tutorial on how to work this cast-on can be found here, below I’ll show you how to utilize it for casting on stitches mid-row.
On a side note: The cable cast-on is pretty similar in how it’s worked, but results in a sturdier edge. For that reason, I usually don’t use when casting on stitches for the underarm.
Turn the work
Usually the piece of knitting to which the yarn is connected, is on the right-hand needle. However, to be able to cast-on the new stitches with the knitted-on method, you need to turn the work. Position it in such a way that you’re looking at the wrong side of the fabric, and the needle with the piece of knitting to which the yarn is connected, is ready to be used as the left-hand needle.
Work the cast-on
The short version is that you insert the right-hand needle into the stitch nearest to the point of the left-hand needle, pull up a loop through that stitch, and place it on the same needle. This is repeated until you have the number of desired stitches.
Turn the work again to continue knitting over the next set of stitches
The result of casting on at the underarm, after working a couple of more rounds
Picking up the stitches
Of course, at a certain point, stitches have to be picked up from the cast-on to work the sleeves. The below picture shows where I did that in this particular project. That said, there are more loops to choose from when picking up stitches. The important thing is not to pick up just a single strand, because that will be very visible and a weaker join than when picking up two strands. In another tutorial, I’ll go into detail about how to deal with the gaps in the corners!
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The backward loop method of casting on stitches is also known as the thumb method of casting on, and as the “single cast-on”, “e-wrap cast-on”. It’s a stretchy cast-on that is quite easy to do. However, it tends to leave loops along the bottom edge, which can look rather loose. To counter that, it can be helpful to drop down a needle size for the cast-on, then going up again when continuing with the rest of your project. While the backward loop cast-on is pretty easy to work, I really don’t prefer it for most projects, because I find the stitches very hard to work into on the first row of knitting.
There is one place where this cast-on really shines, though: when stitches needed to be cast on in the middle of a row, like for the underarm of a sweater. Yes, those are still hard to knit into on the next row and may seem rather loose. However, the number of stitches is usually very small, making that less of an issue.
Let’s get started!
Working the backward loop cast-on step by step
Take your working yarn and loop it as shown in the picture below, with the yarn going to the project in front.
Next, insert the tip of the right needle from back to front through the loop.
Pull the yarn snugly around the needle.
Repeat steps 1-3 for as many stitches as needed.
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The bamboo stitch is a wonderfully textured stitch. It looks very similar to bamboo shoots, with the horizontal lines dividing the sections. Hence, the name of this stitch pattern. Also, it’s much easier to work than it looks like. It can be used as all-over patterning in for example dish cloths or blankets. But it would also work very well as a strategically placed accent in a bigger project. It is a simple 2-row repeat, worked over a multiple of 2 stitches.
Let’s get started!
Materials used
Yarn: Paintbox Yarns Simply DK, a good value, good quality 100% acrylic yarn, here in the color Tea Rose.
Knitting needles: This is a pair of straights that I picked up at the second-hand store when I started knitting, brand unknown.
On an even number of stitches, work the following 2 rows for the pattern:
Row 1 (RS): *Yo, k2, pass the yo over both k sts; rep from * to end.
Row 2: (WS): Purl.
Bamboo stitch instructions – worked in the round
On an even number of stitches, work the following 2 rounds for the pattern:
Round 1: *Yo, k2, pass the yo over both k sts; rep from * to end of round.
Round 2: Knit.
The step of lifting the yo over the 2 knit stitches, and the result of that, can be seen in the 2 pictures below.
Insert knitting needle into the yoand lift it over the 2 knit stitches
The result
Viewed from the right side of the fabric:
Viewed from the wrong side of the fabric:
Thanks to my Patreon supporters for bringing you this freebie! Creating quality patterns and tutorials is a lot of work and resource-intensive. However, I find it important to give you free content like this tutorial. Thanks to the generous support of my Patreon supporters, I can make it happen. Thank you, patrons! Click here to join, or click here to read more about La Visch Designs on Patreon.
Herringbone stitch is a stitch pattern that creates a woven looking fabric. It creates a very thick and dense fabric, for that reason it’s often used for home decor projects, or items like scarfs and cowls. Because it is so dense, it’s strongly advised to use a much larger size of needles than you may usually use for that particular yarn. In this tutorial, I will be using a fingering weight yarn with size 4 mm (US 6) needles. But I can already tell you that going up another size wouldn’t have been a mistake. Of course, it all depends on your preference.
There are various ways to work herringbone stitch. As far as I know, they all boil down to a left leaning decrease on the right side of the fabric, of which only 1 loop is slipped off. This is followed by a decrease worked on the wrong side, that shows as a right leaning decrease on the right side of the fabric. Of this, again, only 1 loop is slipped off every time the decrease is worked. There are many left leaning and right leaning decreases, so that absolutely explains a lot of the variations in working the herringbone stitch. In this example, I will be using k2tog tbl as my left-leaning decrease, and p2tog as my right-leaning decrease.
Materials used
Yarn: Leftovers from my Sunglow Forest shawl, it’s Fleece Artist Merino Slim (100% Merino wool; 400 m (437 yds) / 115 g) in “Minegold”
Knitting needles: This is a pair of straights that I picked up at the second-hand store when I started knitting, brand unknown.
For this particular stitch pattern, there is no specific multiple needed for the patterning to work out. So, cast on any number of stitches.
To start, insert the needle through the back loop of the first 2 stitches on the left-handle needle.
Wrap the yarn around the needle…
… and pull it through both loops.
Don’t let the loops drop off the needle yet! See that I use my finger to hold the second loop from the tip fixed against the needle?
Drop the loop, and only the loop closest to the needle tip, off the needle.
Repeat steps 1 to 4 until there is 1 stitch left in the row.
Knit this last stitch.
Next, we can turn the work to start the WS instructions.
Now insert the needle purl wise through the first two stitches on the left-hand needle.
Wrap the working yarn around the right-hand needle….
… pull the yarn through the 2 stitches.
Again, I use my finger to hold the second loop from the tip fixed against the needle.
This is how it looks after I’ve dropped the loop closest to the needle tip, off the needle.
Repeat steps 6 to 9, until there is 1 stitch left in the row.
Purl this last stitch.
Repeat steps 1-10 for the stitch pattern.
The result
Viewed from the right side of the fabric:
Viewed from the wrong side of the fabric:
Thanks to my Patreon supporters for bringing you this freebie! Creating quality patterns and tutorials is a lot of work and resource-intensive. However, I find it important to give you free content like this tutorial. Thanks to the generous support of my Patreon supporters, I can make it happen. Thank you, patrons! Click here to join, or click here to read more about La Visch Designs on Patreon.
Stumped by how to go about picking up stitches to work a neckline? Many garment designs consist of working the body first, and working the neckband later on. This is often done to have the cast-on or bind-off edge at the neck help in stabilizing the fabric. This prevents it from sagging when worn. In those cases, picking up the stitches to work the neckband, is one of the last steps in completing the garment.
Usually, patterns give an indication of how many stitches to pick up. Still, it can be a challenge to pick up the correct number. And, more importantly, have them distributed evenly over all sections of the neckline. As with all knitting things, there are multiple ways and techniques for picking up stitches around a neckline. In this tutorial, I’ll show you how I go about it.
In this tutorial, I’m using my Hay tee as an example. It’s a design by Annarita Ceretti, you can find the pattern here (LoveCrafts link). On a side note, I often work the neckband when I’m midway the miles of stockinette of a garment body. It breaks it up a bit. It also has the added benefit that the neckband already done by the time most of the knitting is completed.
Materials used
Garment WIP: Hay tee work-in-progress, you’ll also need yarn to work the neckband. Here I’m using a mercerized cotton.
Other materials: Bulb pins or removable stitch markers, a circular knitting needle in a size 0.5 mm smaller than used for the body of the garment and a crochet hook in a similar size. The crochet hook is optional, but I find it makes picking up stitches a lot easier. Therefor, I certainly recommend using one.
Marking the sections
Let’s get started with picking up stitches to work a neckline! Every neckline consists of sections. Picking up the correct number of stitches from them is easier if you plan ahead. Part of this is marking the sections with your bulb pins or removable stitch markers. Most necklines have a combination of types of sections. Horizontal sections; bound off or cast on, depending on if you’re working bottom-up or top-down. Diagonal edges shaped with decreases, and vertical edges that are worked even.
Let’s take a look at how my neckline actually looks when put in a schematic. In the below picture, A en C are the stitches over the shoulders. B is for the back stitches. F for the stitches that were cast on for the horizontal bit of the neckline in the front of the garment. D and E are the diagonal parts of the neckline, where shaping was worked.
Now we have to take a look at the pattern to see how many stitches are in every section for the size we’re making. The neckband instructions in the pattern may indicate a specific number of stitches to pick up for each section. Alternatively, the pattern may indicate how many stitches to pick up in total. This is often paired with suggested pick-up ratios in each section to help you hit the target number. For my size, my Hay tee pattern instructs me to pick up a total of 162 sts. But how are those to be divided over the various sections?
In my tee, I had to CO 100 sts for A + B +C. A further instruction on the placement of stitch markers gave me the information that my B = 56 sts, and A = C = 22 sts. The instructions for the front yoke CO tell me my F = 38 sts.
But how to deal with D and E?
Pick-up ratio’s
For sections D and E we will have to pick up stitches along the diagonal edge. This means we can’t just pick up every stitch at the edge that we encounter. This is because stitches are usually wider than that they are tall, and there will be more rows than stitches per given length. In other words: picking up every single one would end up in a distorted neckline. That’s where the pick-up ratio’s come in.
If no ratio is specified in the pattern, picking up approx. 2 stitches for every 3 rows or 3 stitches for every 4 rows for stockinette fabric is a good rule of thumb. Do you have a different kind of fabric, or does your gauge differ a lot from the one in the pattern? Then you can easily calculate the ratio by dividing your stitch gauge by your row gauge. Don’t forget to wash and dry the swatch as you would do with the garment before measuring, though, or the results won’t be reliable.
The diagonal edges in my tee
Going back to my tee! My pattern said to pick up 162 sts total, which would mean that I would need to pick up 12 sts for both D and E. However, my gauge is a tad tighter than the pattern was written for. To counter that, I worked more rows in the yoke increase section. This means that for me, it’s a better approach to see how many rows of knitting are actually in the diagonal section and use the rule of thumb to calculate my stitches. I counted 24 rows, using the 2 stitches for every 3 rows ratio, this gives me D = E = 16 sts.
Please note that I also like to pick up stitches in the corners on both sides of the front yoke CO to prevent any gaps there. These I decrease away again on the first round of knitting the neckband.
Now we have the totals of stitches, we should also check to see if we run in any issues with the ribbing. In my case, I’ll be working 1×1 rib, so it works out alright. If you’re working 2×2 rib or another pattern requiring a certain multiple of stitches, you should do the check and adjust if necessary. You can do this by decreasing in one or more of the orange corners indicated above. You can also adjust the pick-up of stitches in the diagonal sections D and E towards the other pick-up ratio to get a number that works better.
Once we have all our numbers, we can go ahead and put the bulb pins or locking stitch markers in place for the various sections.
Let’s start picking up those stitches!
I like to start at the back because it makes it easier to hide the ends that have to woven in later on. Also, it means I can start with an “easy” section, just pick and knit one stitch for every stitch in the CO or BO edge that I encounter. For this, I insert my crochet hook through the center of a stitch below the edge, wrap the working yarn around the hook, pull it through the stitch to the front, then place it on my knitting needle.
You can find a detailed tutorial on doing this without a crochet hook here.
From the back stitches (B) I continue with the shoulder stitches (C). I’m putting the bulb pins on my knitting needle whenever I encounter one. This is also a good point to count the number of stitches picked up in the previous section, to make sure that we’re on track. The bulb pins or stitch markers on the needle form an indication of the transition points between the various neckline sections, and help in keeping track of the stitch count per section.
Next up, is picking up the stitches along the first diagonal edge (E). To do so, insert the crochet hook through the space between the selvedge stitch and the next stitch, wrap the working yarn around the hook, pull it through to the front, and put it on the knitting needle.
Continue picking up and knitting the stitches along the various horizontal and diagonal sections. The result you can see below, ready to work the neckband!
The result
After working the neckband (in my case in 1×1 rib), not forgetting the decreases in the first round, and working the BO in pattern, this is the result. Please note, both pictures are before blocking!
This is how to go about picking up stitches to work a neckline!
Thanks to my Patreon supporters for bringing you this freebie! Creating quality patterns and tutorials is a lot of work and resource-intensive. However, I find it important to give you free content like this tutorial. Thanks to the generous support of my Patreon supporters, I can make it happen. Thank you, patrons! Click here to join, or click here to read more about La Visch Designs on Patreon.
There are many ways to join two pieces of knitted fabric together. In this post, I’ll tell you all about working the backstitch seam. It’s a sturdy kind of seam, worked from the wrong side of the fabric. This type of seam creates a seam allowance. Because it’s not worked right at the edge of the fabric, this technique can also be used to slightly change the fit of a garment by changing the seam allowance. Do take care to not make your seam allowance too big, say about 1 cm or 3/8 inches. Because it will make a ridge at the inside of the garment.
In this tutorial, I’m using a contrasting yarn to make it easy to view what exactly I’m doing in the various pictures. However, if you want the seam to be less visible, make sure to use a yarn that matches the knitted fabric.
Materials used
Yarn: Paintbox Yarns Simply DK, a good value, good quality 100% acrylic yarn, here in the color Marine Blue. I also used a bit of Tea Rose.
Darning needle: Hiya Hiya Darn It Yarn Needle, or any other tapestry needle, threaded with yarn. You will need a length of yarn about three times longer than the length of the seam.
Working a backstitch seam step by step
In this tutorial, I’m using 2 turquoise swatches to show you how to seam them together using a backstitch seam with the lilac yarn. This seaming technique is worked with the wrong side of the fabric facing, to have the seam on the inside of the piece.
First, line up the edges of the pieces to be seamed together.
As said, here I’m working with the swatches with their right sides together.
First, we secure the seam by taking the needle and seaming yarn around the edge of the fabric. To do so, insert the needle from back to front underneath the strands of the edge stitches in both pieces of fabric.
To finish this step, insert the needle once again from back to front underneath the strands of the edge stitches in both pieces of fabric, and pull the yarn through.
Take care to leave a yarn tail long enough to weave in later.
Next, insert the needle from back to front underneath the strands of the next stitch to the left.
This should be approx. 1/2 cm or 1/4 inch from where the yarn came out of the fabric before. If you’re working with a very fine-gauge fabric, you could consider skipping a stitch instead of going through the next one.
Pull the yarn through.
This is how it looks:
Next, insert the yarn needle from front to back into the point where it last came out of the fabric…
… when behind the fabric, back up about 5 cm / 1/4 inch (1 or more stitches) and insert it through the fabric again from back to front.
Pull the yarn through.
Repeat steps 6, 7 and 8, each time moving to the left, until the entire edge has been worked.
To complete it, just break the yarn and pull the end through the last remaining loop before weaving in the ends.
When turning the piece around, it looks like this:
The result when viewed flat
Viewed from the wrong side of the fabric
Viewed from the right side of the fabric:
Thanks to my Patreon supporters for bringing you this freebie! Creating quality patterns and tutorials is a lot of work and resource-intensive. However, I find it important to give you free content like this tutorial. Thanks to the generous support of my Patreon supporters, I can make it happen. Thank you, patrons! Click here to join, or click here to read more about La Visch Designs on Patreon.
As I wrote in my tutorial on the mattress stitch, there are many ways to join two pieces of knitted fabric together. And they all have their own advantages and disadvantages! In this post, I’ll be talking about seaming with the whip stitch, using a darning needle. This technique is also called an overcast stitch because of the way it looks on the side where it’s worked. It’s a pretty basic and fast to work seaming technique. I’m using a contrasting yarn to make it easy to view what exactly I’m doing in the various pictures. However, if you want the seam to be less visible, make sure to use a yarn that matches the knitted fabric.
Materials used
Yarn: Paintbox Yarns Simply DK, a good value, good quality 100% acrylic yarn, here in the color Marine Blue. I also used a bit of Tea Rose.
Darning needle: Hiya Hiya Darn It Yarn Needle, or any other tapestry needle, threaded with yarn. You will need a length of yarn about three times longer than the length of the seam.
Whip stitch seaming step by step
In this tutorial, I’m using 2 turquoise swatches to show you how to seam them together using the whip stitch or overcast stitch, with the lilac yarn. This particular seaming technique can be done with both the right side or the wrong side of the fabric facing. It yields a decorative seam, that could be used as a design feature when visible on the outside of the piece, especially in a contrasting yarn. In this example, however, I’m working it with the wrong side facing, to have the seam on the inside of the piece.
First, line up the edges of the pieces to be seamed together.
As said, here I’m working with the swatches with their right sides together.
To start, insert the needle from back to front along the edge of the right side of both pieces. Take care to go under both strands of the edge stitch for each piece, and to leave a tail long enough to weave in later. Pull the yarn through.
Next, insert the needle from back to front of the next stitch on both pieces of fabric.
Pull the yarn through.
See how it forms loops over the edges of both swatches? This is why this is also called the “overcast” seaming method.
Repeat steps 3 and 4, each time moving one edge stitch to the left, until the entire edge has been worked.
To complete it, just break the yarn and pull the end through the last remaining loop before weaving in the ends.
When laid flat, it looks like this:
The result when viewed from the RS
For completeness’s sake, you can see below how this seam looks on the other side of the fabric, the right side, in this case:
What if I’m not working with BO or CO edges?
You can, of course, also use this seaming technique on the side edges of knitted fabric. In that case, identify the column of stitches at the edge of the fabric. To work the seam, insert the darning needle underneath both legs of the v at the edge of the fabric for each swatch.
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