Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Fully Finished

A few weeks ago I knit  an orange vest  on my knitting machine.  The first machine knitting for me  in quite some time.  Knit with a vision rather than a pattern there were more than a few false starts.  When you saw it here, the knitting was complete, but not the sewing up or the trim.

Even at that mostly complete stage, I encountered 'issues'.  It was too long.  Bamboo, being a yarn with drape, caused the vest to  grow in length.  I put it in  a 'time out' until I could decide how to treat the length issue.   In the end, I decided to sew and cut.  I  sewed a line of tiny zig zag  stitches about two inches from the bottom, then cut off the excess.  That was an obvious fix for length, but then I struggled with how to finish off that cut edge. 

Yesterday I worked two rows of single crochet down the fronts and around the arm holes

 all the while thinking about how to finish the bottom.  Good old fashioned hemming seemed to be the best solution and in the end that is what I did.  A half inch hem.  Sewn in place with the yarn itself.

 It worked and blocked out beautifully.


The vest is bright!  A sort of 'in-your-face',  'here comes Brenda'  bright.  But, it matches my shoes!
How cool is that?

5 comments:

Sandra said...

Very Cool! (as are those shoes - très chic! Love the Blaze orange colour (happen to be wearing a bright orange batik top today myself!) And love the fix - as a sewer (sewist? Person who sews?) I love the idea of a quick hem. I find it adds weight to the bottom nicely.

Anonymous said...

It IS the Pantone colour of the year!! And I also love the shoes.

What kind of knitting machine do you own and what weight of yarn can you knit on it? I have an old Singer 328 that I haven't used in years, but seeing your projects may get it up and running again.

Needles said...

OH. My. GOODNESS. Gorgeous!

I think if you are careful enough, you can steek anything. The perfect solution to an overlong garment.

Sel and Poivre said...

Well that vest is cool but those shoes!!! Fabulous!

Yarn and Ivories said...

Great with those shoes! Nice finishing, too. I have trouble with bamboo...