It’s been a long time since I last did a mini series of techniques, and I thought it was time to bring them back! For my mini series I choose one technique, try out four different ways to do it using The Knitter’s Handbook as my guide, and share my thoughts on each version over a series of posts. It’s a good exercise to push myself to try new versions of techniques and find out if there are better versions than the ones I typically use. In this mini series I’m going to look at four different seaming stitches.
To start things off, I sewed together swatches using running stitch. I seamed my first sweater with this stitch, and it looked awful. This swatch looks pretty bad, too. Running stitch doesn’t captured every stitch on vertical seams so it creates an uneven look because some stitches are being pulled on and others aren’t. It also neither stretches nor adds support to your knitting; you can easily slide your stretchy knit stitches up and down the rigid line of seam stitches. This makes running stitch useful for gathering and basting puff sleeves, but I’d use a different stitch to secure them to the armscye.
This stitch is worked with the wrong sides facing you, and the stitch adds very little extra bulk to the seam. But it’s just not that attractive. There are very few instances where this stitch would be the best choice in my opinion.
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