Finishing Begins When You Do!

A little forethought goes a long way in making finishing an easy task rather than a difficult chore.

First, always leave ends at least 5 inches long to weave into the fabric of your knitting.

Never leave a knot in your yarn! The industry standard is 3 or fewer knots per skein. A skein is not defective if one to three knots are present. But each of those knots must be untied and the ends treated as a new skein of yarn.

Next, keep your edges clean. Do any increases or decreases at least one stitch in from the edge and forget what the patterns say about “edge” or “selvedge” stitches if the edge is going to be seamed to another piece. Those “knot every row” or “slipped” stitches merely make the seam bulkier and add difficulty to the already challenging task of seaming.

Try to leave enough yarn at the end of your cast-on edge to sew up the entire seam if one is needed. Or is you are adding fringe, try to have that tail as long or longer than the planned fringe.

Lastly, most of the finishing tricks I know came from practice and the willingness to take it out if it wasn’t right. If you find yourself saying, “No one else will notice” seriously think about doing the finishing again. While many people don’t notice errors in the actual knit fabric, finishes stand out like a sore thumb and really should be as perfect as possible.

Shelli Westcott
Owner

—
—

Heidi
Teacher
—Creative Consultant

We call Heidi “Mohair Girl”. She is so in lust with mohair she would spend her last penny (down to the lint in her pocket) on it. We told her she had to come to work for us so we didn’t have to take her last penny (or pocket lint) anymore!

—
—

Jen
Creative Consultant—
Mad Felted Hatter

Our Famous “Mad Hatter” makes the coolest hats in town. Everybody wants one.

—
—

Purl
Mascot