knitabit

More about Hems

In response to stash and bamboo's comment, I thought it might be helpful to talk a little bit about hemmed edges.

I knew about knit-in hems from my years of doing machine knitting. Knit-in hems work best on finer gauge yarns; they would be too bulky on a worsted yarn, for example. You see them a lot on store-bought knit sweaters. Any sweater you have that does not have ribbing on it probably has a knit-in hem. Go to your closet and check around. (In fact, I like to study my store-bought sweaters - the more expensive ones that are trying to look hand-knit - and try to figure out how they did everything.)

The basic technique is outlined in most any good knitting reference book.

They're very simple: starting from the bottom edge do stockinette for "x" rows, then do one row with the purl side facing out, then stockinette for "x" rows again. Now fold the fabric at the purl row (called the 'turning ridge') with wrong sides together. On the next row, knit together one stitch off the needle along with one stitch off the cast on edge. When you're done, you have a tube. Now just keep knitting in stockinette. A variation is to do a picot edge hem, where instead of purling that row, you do a k2tog/yo all across the row. I don't see why you couldn't do this kind of hem coming from the top down, but I've never tried that.

After writing all of this, I see that Flor has this all illustrated on her site at http://flor.trix.net/tips12.htm.

Hemmed edges won't hug in the way a ribbed edge will, so you have to keep that in mind when you decide to use them. I wouldn't use them for socks, for example, because I think your socks would fall down! (Although it seems like I remember reading on somebody's blog a while back about using this on a sock. Can't remember who it was.) I thought they would make a nice clean edge for a glove. And it absolves you of any sins associated with your cast-on edge - it gets hidden inside the garment! (But do make sure it's got enough give in it.)

You can reduce bulk by using a smaller needle on the hem, and then switching to a regular needle after that.

The machine knitters do it by casting on and knitting a few rows with waste yarn in a contrast color, then switching to the garment yarn to do the hem. Then it's real easy to see the stitch you're supposed to pick up. I don't see why you couldn't do this with hand knitting - and I wish I'd thought of doing it that way for these gloves.

And this is probably more than you wanted to know!

Here's an update on the glove:

Picture taken with my left hand - it took about three tries.

This is so much fun, I feel an obsession coming on! I will now start looking at my sock yarn stash with an eye toward glove-making!

Comments

Karen, Thanks so much for the lesson on hems. I find that very interesting and will try that when the opportunity arises. I saved the instructions to my fav's.The picot edge was really pretty...I love learning new stuff about knitting.

Posted by: Lisa at January 11, 2004 06:34 PM

Nice glove. I like the way it looks and the hem is really smooth.

Posted by: Chery at January 11, 2004 07:24 PM

Pretty!

Posted by: Patricia Tryon at January 12, 2004 01:04 AM

Claudia taught me the picot edge on socks. Believe it or not, they don't fall down! Another trick is to use a smaller needle (one size smaller will do) to knit the facing as it reduces bulk.

Posted by: Kerstin at January 16, 2004 06:49 AM