Thursday, July 4, 2013

It's got to be seamless.

I was talking to a lovely friend and her Mum at school today and I mentioned with my current non-existent voice (laryngitis I suspect) that I was meant to be teaching a beginners knitting class this weekend at Holland Road Yarn Company. Anywho, her mother mentioned my friend used to knit, but the discussion evolved into how they could never be bothered sewing things up at the end. Who can? I showed them right then and there the Greyson sweater my youngest was wearing and how these days, many people design and knit only seamless items. That there's no front, back, arms to sew together. Sheer brilliance.

It was this Greyson sweater to be precise!

I really think this is why knitting is so popular these days. I would never be bothered to knit my kids garments if I had to sew pieces up at the end! I know I can knit nicely, but sew? No. I do recall trying to patchwork together pieces of my first adult garment years and years ago, and trying to sew it so that everything matched up well enough. I remember vividly trying to sew together this blanket for a beautiful friend of mine who's most precious daughter Hope was diagnosed with terminal cancer...and whilst I did my absolute best at the time, I still grimace at the less than perfect sewing and piecing together.



Awww Hope, we still all think of you and your family often. How big your little brother is now xxx

No, there would be so many knitting bags with many more WIP's if the huge range of seamless patterns didn't now exist.

Seamless all the way! How wonderful are the fabulous ranges of circular needles these days, that we can just change tips and cable lengths to suit our projects. That we can just knit and virtually pop a garment on our children as soon as we cast off, or try it on numerous times whilst still knitting to get the length just perfect. All hail to the wonderful seamless designers out there.

I actually thought back to why I picked up my needles again after my first child was born - my next post I'm going to show you some oldest circular knitting and the patterns that got me hooked again. Be prepared for less than perfection! And imagine prickly yarn....(which I called wool then, because I called everything I knitted with wool then!) and birch needles with their terrible bumpy joins!

Do you ever sew items that need seaming? Why? What kind of garments?