Read the pattern!

You know how patterns usually ask you to read all the instructions before you start? If you are like me, you never do.

I have started work on the wedding present. What seemed like a relatively simple pattern – knit a lot of chevron scarves and sew them together to make a blanket – has me baffled. Maybe I should start to read the pattern before I buy the wool!

I cannot figure out how I can join all the scarves without ugly seams on the wrong side of the blanket. Maybe I am being overly particular, but I like my blankets and quilts to have two relatively attractive sides. Is there a way to sew two scarves together without a lumpy seam on one side and without taking away from the chevron effect (as a crochet or similar join might do)? I have investigated Bickford seams, but even they do not seem up to the job. Or, perhaps more truthfully, I am not sure I am up to the job of sewing them!

To try to end my confusion, and even though I ignored the ‘read the pattern’ instructions, I have been making test swatches.

On the first swatch I tried:

• starting with a chained cast on and ending with a traditional cast off for matching tops and bottoms (all good!)
• picking up and knitting the garter-stitch border (nasty lumpy join on back)
• crocheting a border (neater than picking up and knitting, but not the effect I want)
• creating the striped effect through intarsia in place of sewing (much neater).

My tension also passed the test. I am fortunate to rarely have tension problems.

My first swatch was just to test the borders, tension and intarsia.

The back of intarsia is neat enough for me – and far neater than a seam would be.

On the second swatch I tried:

• knitting the garter-stitch border as I go, instead of picking up stitches and knitting it last (no lumpy join)
• knitting slip-stitch selvedges (perfect for the garter-stitch border)
• changing colour right on the edge of the border looks (fine).

A helpful explanation of these neat selvedges can be found on the Detroit Knitter’s blog.

I really like slip-stitch selvedges for garter-stitch edges that are not to be sewn in.

The slip-stitch edge did not look so great on the stocking-stitch side. Perhaps it just needs a press?

For the third swatch, I am working on the chevrons and testing the increases and decreases.

Finally, I am testing the chevrons.

Do you unravel your test swatches? I do! I photograph them and take notes, and then I unravel, reclaiming the yarn for the project.

At the moment, my swatches seem to be telling me that I will be knitting a very messy tangle of intarsia yarns, with a large number of bobbins or balls attached at any one time. Sigh. A friend suggested sticking with the scarves-sewn-together method and sewing a backing fabric to the underside of the blanket to hide any messy joins, which definitely has merit.

Are you a knitter? What would you do? Persevere with a tangle of intarsia yarns? Chuck the whole thing and find a new chevron pattern (probably crochet!)?

In other news, the quilting blog hop I am taking part in next month has started. If you want to meet some new and creative quilters, click the button below and hop on over!