Wednesday, May 06, 2009

The good the bad and the ugly.

Life has been gettting the in way of blogging lately...but I have a few moments to tell you about the latest sample knit for Shall We Knit!

So this is the good.

jacket and hat

Pattern: Naturally jacket and hat K586
Yarn: Dawn 2 ply in lime green, 3 balls for the sweater and the hat in the premie size.
It is the cutest little baby sweater! The pattern is fairly simple with a little lace detailing.
I must confess that I am a fan of seaming. I love putting the pieces together as flawlessly as possible. Now, I am no professional. I have learned through experience and some on line and book reading.
seaming hat

I wouldn't normally knit a hat flat, especially a baby hat. But, being a store sample I knit it as written. I would suggest knitting it in the round...it is bad enough some babies get a flat spot on the back of their heads from lying on their backs...could you imagine that with a seam line!?!

So here is the bad and the ugly.

bad sweater

This was knit, by me, about 6 years ago. I don't know why I have saved it. It was never worn, thankfully, because Matteo came out as a boy! I really had no idea about gauge...look at how wide it is! And the seaming up is horrible. Oh, it is so bad. But I took photos of it to show you my progression as a knitwear seamer!

Here is the set in sleeve...before
bad set in arm

and after...
set in sleeve

The shoulder seam before...
bad shoulder seam

and after...
shoulder seam

Look at this underarm seam...what was I doing?!?
bad underarm seam

Thank goodness for learning mattress stitch! For those of you who are still in the beginning stages of learning how to seam and finish off your knits (I don't think I will ever stop learning)...there is hope!

19 comments:

Trisha said...

Fun to see the comparison of an earlier knit and one where you have some experience. Your seaming now is beautiful! And the little lacy sweater and hat are beautiful too. Was that the whip stitch on the white sweater? I made a sweater for my nephew and whip stitched it together and I hated how it turned out. Never again! I will be using mattress stitch next time!

Chantal Boucher said...

Mattress stitch? Indeed, it looks great. You give some advice on mattress stitch please?

Brenda said...

What a wonderful comparison. Soemtimes, we think we aren't learning still, but indeed we are.

Joansie said...

That little apple green baby sweater is gorgeous. Is that pattern for sale?

yarnpiggy said...

I live in dread of seaming...this gives me hope!

I adore the lime green sweater -- gorgeous!

MissLucy said...

haha, that looks very familiar! Mattress stitch was such a revelation - like learning to read - big light bulb moment!

Nicole said...

Will you go back and reseam the white sweater?

Jersey Shore Deb said...

g uThat green sweater is so beautiful! I can definitely relate--when I was growing up and my mom taught me to knit, she didn't put anything together herself--she had a woman at her LYS who finished garments for $5! So when I grew up, I tried and tried, took 2 classes, and finally think I am at the place where I can do a pretty nice mattress stitch! It does take practice but can be very gratifying. I'm glad I learned.

Lyz said...

Isn't green such a wonderful colour? The sweater and hat are gorgeous.
It's wonderful to see the learning curve and progress made up close and personal.

Preeti said...

The green hat and sweater set are lovely. I used to whip-stitch-seam everything too until I learned how to do mattress stitch. It's great that you kept the previous sweater to see how much your knitting has evolved! I love all of the things you knit!!!

Cloudberry said...

That's a beautiful jacket!
And I think I've got some sweaters with some rally bad seaming too from my early knitting...

Donna said...

Oh, I'm having sympathy pains just looking at the white sweater - I think we've all been there! The green set is lovely; the beautiful seams are the icing on the cake.

Philosophical Karen said...

Wow! Okay, you have definitely made progress since then! That baby set is too cute.

I don't dread seaming, but it sure does take me a long time to get it "just right".

Cathi said...

That white sweater is pretty adorable tho - all flaws aside. Beautiful green set too.

Anonymous said...

I was at Shall We Knit on Fri. and saw the baby outfit in person. It's adorable and you did a fantastic job. I don't have any babies to knit for but I was tempted anyway. Great yarn shop, though not so local for me.

ritaknitting at hotmail dot com

TracyKM said...

I kept a lot of early stuff, and I posted a series on my blog "Timeless Tuesday" where each week I featured a different item and what i learned. I'm not sure why I had a hard time at first with finishing--I had absolutely no trouble with getting books for the patterns from the library, but never checked out the finishing parts!

stringplay said...

What a beautiful lime green set. SO cute. I'm still afraid of seaming, though.

emy said...

I have those moments as well. I keep wanting to rip back some of those earlier projects!

Unknown said...

Cute sweaters! Love your comparison. There is hope that I'll figure it out someday too ;)