Estelle Yarns KAL Week Six- Finishing

This is it knitters! The final segment of our Knit-A-Long! The knitting is complete, and now it’s time to sew it up, weave in the ends, and block it! We hope that by the end of this week, you will have a finished sweater. And if you don’t…worry not! You have until Monday, May 4th to finish everything up in order to qualify to win a prize.

The only rules regarding winning prizes? That you finish your sweater and send us a photograph by Monday, May 4th, using a yarn(s) that Estelle Yarns stocks. Don’t be shy about your workmanship, that’s not what matters in this contest! All that matters is that you have knit the sweater from beginning to end. That alone is something worth being proud of!

So let’s get on with it! Shall we?

You squeezed in some practice with seaming last week on the raglan seams. And there’s good news! Seaming stocking stitch is easier than seaming garter stitch.

You will see in the pictures below that the principles remain the same. Weave your yarn back and forth across the two sides that you want to join, entering the fabric with the tip of your needle where you exited previously.

Once you have entered the fabric with our darning needle, travel up the side seam by two stitches, or ‘two bars’, before exiting. By seaming it up this way, you can ensure that you are sewing up the sides evenly, which is important! No one wants their seams to be uneven, or their stripes to not line up!

And speaking of stripes… lining them up can sometimes be tricky! So if you have knit stripes into your garment, you might need to dig deep for a little extra patience. You might find that you have a few false starts before getting it right.

Mattress Stitch 2
Mattress Stitch- our needle working it’s way up ‘two stitches/bars’ at a time

If you find that you have a side that is a few rows longer than the opposite side, there is nothing wrong with occasionally travelling up three stitches on one side, and two stitches on the other. This will ease the seams into one another nicely, without looking too obvious. You don’t want to try easing all of your extra stitches in at once, as this will create some unsightly bulges in your side seam. So be sure to spread the extra stitches out across your seam, and no one will be the wiser.Mattress Stitch

Once you have sewn up your side seams, you will want to weave in your remaining ends. Sometimes knitters prefer to wait until they have blocked their sweater before weaving in ends, but we prefer to do it now. That way, when you have finished blocking your sweater- you are done!

When weaving in your ends, you want to follow the horizontal path of your stitches from the back side of your work. Do so for about an inch, and then snip the yarn, being careful not to snip your sweater! We prefer to leave a little bit of a tail, just so that we can avoid that from possibly happening. Leaving a bit of a tail also prevents the ends from poking through to the right side of the sweater. We also find ourselves weaving some ends up the side seams as well across the rows. Mattress stitch tends to leave a slightly bulky seam on the inside, so there is plenty of fabric in there to weave an end or two up the sides.

To watch a great video on how to weave in ends, click here to check out Knit Purl Hunter’s YouTube video. 

And then finally onto the last step- Blocking! The last time that you did this, would have been with your swatch. And if you found that satisfying, you won’t believe how satisfying blocking your actual sweater can be!

Since your sweater has been seamed, and your collar has been knit- let’s give it a little bath! You will find that your seams will relax, your stitches will even out, and your picked up stitches will look less visible. Blocking your knitting forgives a long list of imperfections, so make sure that you do it!

We like to fill a sink/big bowl with some tepid water, and a dash of wool wash- such as Eucalan or Soak. Let your sweater soak in the suds for a minimum of fifteen minutes, (we tend to leave it longer), gently squeeze it out (do not rinse!), and lay it flat to dry on some towels.

If you are finding that your sweater is a smidge too short or too narrow across the chest, you should be able to gently pull it out to the desired measurements- of course, within reason. If your sweater is significantly too small/large, then something likely went wrong in the swatching… and it’s a little too late to do much about it now. So embrace your large-ish sweater! It will fit someone, someday! Knit happens… and honestly, there are worse things in life than a sweater that is a little too large.

We find that with adult sweaters, it is often best to block all of the pieces in a similar fashion before seaming them together. In the case of this particular garment however, we felt as though this was the best course of action.

Once your sweater is bone dry, you are finished! Take it somewhere pretty and have a fun photoshoot with it, then send us the pictures with all of the yarn information that you have! That way, your name will be entered into the draw for Monday, May 4th. In the meantime, we will be sharing some of the photos that you folks send us! So keep ’em coming! You can email us your photos at lynn@estelledesigns.ca or marsha@estelleyarns.com

To access a PDF version of today’s pattern, click here. Estelle Yarns KAL Week Six

Cascade KAL sweater
Photoshoot time!

To all of you who have made it this far- we want to say a huge THANK YOU! We have had SUCH a great time knitting this sweater with you, and we are so thrilled that you decided to spend your precious knitting time, knitting with us!

If you haven’t cast on yet, but are thinking that you would like to join in- it’s not too late! You have almost a full month to churn through this baby sweater, snap a few pics, and send them our way. We hope that you will!

And last, but not least- CONGRATULATIONS ON A SWEATER WELL DONE!

We are already looking forward to the next KAL, and would love to hear any suggestions that you may have. We are all ears! Please do not hesitate to contact us. It is always a pleasure to hear from you.

In the meantime… Happy knitting everyone!

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