Today’s topic for Friday Finishing is a Horizontal to Vertical Seam.
Here is a video tutorial I made on working the seam:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=734S62xZIEk]
The one key to getting this seam perfect is to measure your gauges and determine your ratio BEFORE starting your seam. Many patterns will tell you what ratio to use – but your ratio may very well be different. So you should always measure and determine your own ratio for a perfect seam. The same goes for many references for this seam – many of them give a straight 3 to 4 ratio as standard. This WILL NOT always work. It is best to measure your own knitting and determine your ratio for your project.
Once you know your ratio, the steps for working the seam are:
- Find the centers of each piece. Thread a tapestry needle with the seaming thread.
- Starting at the center of the horizontal piece, bring the tapestry needle up (from back to front) out of the center of the stitch nearest the center of the piece. Use the row directly below the bind off edge. Leave a long tail for the second half of the seam.
- Move to the vertical piece and starting at the center there, catch one (or two) bars. You are catching the bars between the selvedge stitch and the next stitch. It is best to leave a whole selvedge stitch in the seam – do not go into the middle of the selvedge stitch.
- Insert the needle into the center of the same stitch on the horizontal piece, then come up out of the center of the next stitch over.
- Repeat steps 3 and 4 across to the end, maintaining your particular ratio for your gauges.
- Thread the other side of the seaming thread to work the second half of the seam. Insert, from back to front, the tapestry needle into the center of the next stitch.
- Reversing your ratio, work the seam across the other side in the same manner.
- Pull the seaming thread tight (but not too tight.)
Next week (the last of my Friday Finishing series for a while) we’ll cover picking up neckband stitches – a technique that combines many of the methods we’ve already covered.
Until then, Happy Knitting!