I'm not feeling great today. In fact, I just woke up from a monumental nap, which is why this post is so late.
I've been working on a blanket, which is a series of mitered squares in Cascade Eco Cloud:
I LOVE love the fabric- it's light and warn, and shows the increases well, but my cast off (a stretchy one) isn't stretchy enough, and the middles keep bunching up. I hard blocked them again, and they flattened out, which is what you're seeing in the photo above. Unfortunately, when I sewed four of them together, they looked awful:
The sewing yarn is not stretching with the fabric. I even tried blocking the whole thing together, to get the yarn to stretch more, and it's not working. I'm using a pretty basic whipstitch, and the result is terrible. I do have plans to use a different cast off to try to make the squares even MORE square, which I'm hoping will help.
The thing that bothers me most about this project is that I just want it to be done. This blanket is replacing a really worn lap blanket, so the sooner I can complete it, the better. It's not mentally stimulating knitting, but the squares are small enough and easy enough to take along in a car, to a waiting room, etc.
I have to admit- I've been less interested in working on the project because I'm not happy with how it's going. Does anyone have any advice for me, out there in knitter land? The fabric is just too nice to give up on!
- YX
You could undo the sewing and cast offs, put the stitches on waste yarn, then firmly block the squares without binding off. THEN bind off very loosely with the sewn bind off or something, and then seam them together.
ReplyDeleteI would highly recommend a sewn bind off like this one here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfnavSY2Rug
ReplyDeleteIt is seriously, my favorite cast off ever. for anything. (well, almost anything. but esp things you want to be stretchy.) Once you get a stretchier cast off done, the whip stitch thing should be a leetle better bc you can kinda stretch things out a touch when you're seaming. But really, no matter what, the seaming isn't going to be as stretchy as the fabric as it's doing what it's meant to do and that's be stable. :/ You could always solve that be leaving all the stitches live and then grafting them all together and that would be the ultimate in keeping the stretchy but it would also be a royal pita if you don't like grafting (which, honestly, I don't like grafting at all.)
Sorry for the book. Haha! I just kinda started talking/typing and then all of a sudden I had this long comment written! Oops!
I'm doing the barn raising quilt and had the same problem until I left the last round on scrap and 3 needle bins off the squares together. Much happier with the end result.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tips! I think the 3nbo is going to be my answer... too bad I hate doing it!
ReplyDeleteI tried binding off with the EZ sewn BO and still had the same issue. Better luck next time!