It’s possible to have been doing a thing for so long, and know so many big and little things about it, that you forget something useful and incredibly basic.
Case in point: a baby blanket I knit last summer: the Pack & Play. I started with Lorilee Beltman’s Sinkmates Suite dishcloth pattern, and supersized it. I just kept going with the mad, irregular, and addicting stripes in Rowan Handknit Cotton, having the time of my life. I thought to myself, surely I’ll figure out a good way to join these four big dishcloths into a blanket—I’m smart! I can do things!
When it came time to join the pieces, I tossed and turned about which seaming method would be best. I went so far as to do one of the two short seams using one of my favorite blanket-joiners, the 3-needle bindoff method.
It was perfectly fine—which means that I wasn’t satisfied with it. But I couldn’t think of a better idea. I needed to ignore it for a while and wait for the right idea. (That’s a legitimate problem-solving strategy, in case you don’t know. It only looks like project abandonment.)
A full year later, and I had the same four super-sized dishcloths on my porch table as I’d had last year at this time. So I asked myself, what quality or qualities do I want in this seam? And realized that what I was really craving was a flat seam, to preserve the plain-weave vibe of garter stitch.
But the only flat seam I knew—or thought I knew—was a whipstitch seam, where you lay the pieces edge to edge and you know, whipstitch them.
But my whipstitches always look a bit chaotic. You see what I mean about tossing and turning? I can think a problem like this to death, and still not have a baby blanket to show for it.
Then I remembered: Ann and I wrote a book about basic knitting techniques, Skill Set: Beginning Knitting.
We also made videos demonstrating these techniques, one of which is: Mattress Stitch on Garter Stitch. Ding ding ding!
I can hear you saying, but mattress stitch is not a flat seam—it leaves a visible ridge on the wrong side.
That’s correct, of course. But I tried working it even closer to the edges—on the last stitch of each row—and guess what: it’s flat.
On the left: right side. On the right: wrong side.
For this blanket, I greatly prefer it to whipstitch, or regular mattress stitch.
A trip through the washing machine and dryer, and off to a baby she goes.
The moral of this story is: whether you’ve been knitting for six minutes or sixty years, Skill Set is here for you. Bookmark the Skill Set YouTube channel for free knitting help, and to remember things you knew but forgot.
We’re super proud of these short, clear videos, and they cover a lot.