When I talk amongst knitters there seems to be an over whelming percentage of knitters who really despise sewing up at the end. Some brave knitting warriors sew in the ends as they go along, but they don’t seem to be happy about it. So whether we are sewing up seams or just sewing in a couple of ends, it isn’t a task we enjoy doing.
With all of this negativity in the knitting community, there is elsewhere an entire community dedicated to just sewing stitches – embroidery! In an attempt to understand a little more about this task that we knitters put off I recently bought a starter embroidery kit to get me going.
The kit I bought was from ohsewbootiful and it was the Rainbow Sampler Kit. Perfect for a newbie to learn her stitches!
Lesson 1: Sewing is a Worthy Skill to Add to our Repertoire
So my embroidery kit came with quite a few stitches for me to learn. But it was interesting to learn them. As knitters we should embrace the different ways in which we can sew up our seams with kitchener stitch and mattress stitch. There are embroidery stitches we can adorn our knitted fabric with. Let’s not just hash it together anymore, but flaunt our new skills!
Lesson 2: Take Your Time
When you sew up your knitting, you feel like you’ve already done the good bit – the knitting. You just want to get this next bit done as quickly as possible so you can start your next bit of knitting. At least this is how I usually feel. But why? Taking the time to make our stitches neat improves the overall appearance of the finished garment. And if you are sewing up a seam that you want to be invisible then you need to take your time, otherwise the sewing can be seen and it detracts from your wonderful knitting!
Lesson 3: To Reduce Stress – Don’t Delay
A common occurrence I’ve found is that knitters delay sewing up garments, because they don’t like sewing. Instead they start the next project right away. Having the unfinished project around does two things. One, it remains in our knitting boxes/ stash/ bag, thus taking up valuable space that could be filled with new wondrous projects. And two, the most stressful, it stays in your mind. Just sits there, rent free, causing you stress. Oh I need to sew that up. Oh I need to finish that. Oh all these unfinished projects that bear down on me day after day. You may have heard the “is the cup half full or half empty” expression. Here is a new take on the glass of water for you. The longer you hold it, the heavier it gets. Try it. Stop carrying around unfinished project baggage and get it done.
So maybe it is time we started taking pride in our sewing stitches? Whether we want to adorn our knits with bonus skills, or make them disappear into the seams. After all, if you can’t see the sewing then our knitting gets to take centre stage, which is what we wanted all along, right? And please, please, do not give yourself the stress of carrying around the burden (physical or psychological) of unfinished projects.
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