What They Don't Teach In Knit School

It is a fact, firm and true, that my patience for research is lacking this morning.   What they don't teach in knit school is how to attach one picot hem to another picot hem in such a way that: a) the result is a series of little holes and b) it looks awesome.

For a while, I gave some thought to knitting the Rae dress in one fell swoop from hem over the shoulders and down to the other hem.  That idea was discarded simply because it was too daunting and left little room for error without resorting to tear filled frogging should something go off kilter.  In fact, I gave it so little thought that I don't think they teach that method to make a picot infused neckline  in knit school either.

First, note how lovely and perfect is the inner hem for the neckline.  I am very pleased with the flatness of the bind off that results from Lucy Neatby's Modified Conventional Bind Off.  

If you don't already have this twist on the old BO in your repertoire, I highly encourage learning it as soon as possible.   Lucy's method should be taught in all knitting schools.

So, with the knitting done to satisfaction, I had to figure out how to sew together the shoulders.  What follows is how the sewing was done.  But I sure do wish that some internet search had resulted in a better method.  Making up what you don't know is not always the wisest approach to this knitting thing.

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Pay absolutely no attention to color.  I don't know what happened.  One photo is grey, one is teal, and frankly at this point I don't care.

Note the way in which I ended up sewing together the picot points.  

*  Come up on the left side of a point 

*  Go across to the matching point on the other hem and insert needle from left to right through the point

*  Come back to the first point and insert needle from right to left

*  Tug to tighten enough to close space but not so tight as to collapse the points.

*  Repeat motion on same section so as to reinforce 

*  On this second round, in order to go to the next picot point, insert needle from right side of lower picot and down between the hem layers, emerging on the left side of the next picot point.

This shows how important the tension is when wrapping the picot points.  The whole goal is to have the little spaces still evident and show a delicate join that is filled with hidden strength.

Caution:  yanking on the sewing yarn will collapse the picot points!  

Yeah, I know.  That whole color thing again.  Get over it.  I have.

A seam is complete.  Please pay more attention to the lower section where the picot "holes" are more open.  What you don't see in the photo is me tugging slightly so as to mimic a bit of blocking.    I am quite pleased with this.  The strong seam is a result of double wrapping each picot and I am convinced this will matter in the wearing.  

It is possible that there exists a better and more correct way to sew the little buggers together.  If there is, please do not berate me for lack of skill; rather  point me to a good resource and I'll go back to knitting school.


Now - off to finish sewing the sides and to recruit a model for the next photo session.