Best Knit Finishing Tips

Save time and energy with my best knit finishing tips!

When I first started knitting, the most challenging part of the pattern always turned out to be the part that everyone was supposed to know. How do you sew seams or assemble a sweater? Without a mentor guiding my study back then, I struggled. As a result, some of my first efforts showed it. The pieces were neatly knit, but I simply did not know how to put them together.

Many books and online videos offer great technical detail and I certainly encourage you to read them or watch them, but rarely do they share insights about which techniques will solve what problems. Over the years, I’ve improvised, adapted and tested many finishing techniques. Here are some of my best knit finishing tips.

Know your seaming stitches

Tip #1: Want to know which way to sew a seam? Look at the direction of the stitches. If joining two selvedge edges (usually the side seams of a sweater), use the mattress stitch (sometimes called the weaving stitch) or slip stitch them together with a crochet hook.

Tip #2: When dealing with cast on and bound off edges (such as the shoulder seams) use the kitchener stitch (sometimes called grafting) to join them.

Tip #3: When setting sleeves, you will use a combination of mattress and kitchener stitches depending on which part of the curve you are seaming.

Adjust your seaming yarn

Tip #4: If knitting with bulky yarn, seam using a matching lighter-weight yarn. It reduces the bulk.

Tip #5: Don’t struggle with textured yarns. If the texture of your yarn fights you during seaming, use a matching smooth yarn, such as sport-weight or fingering yarn, to join the edges.

Discover Tailor Tacks

Tip #6: Discover tailor tacks and use them in three ways. First, when faced with a seam over six inches, tailor tacks keep the edges from bunching up as you approach the end of the seam. Second, tailor tacks help you ease in knitting when one side of knitting is longer than another. Third, ease in irregularly shaped pieces using tailor tacks and seam without fear!

Tip #7: To make tailor tacks, cut 4-inch lengths of a contrasting colored yarn. I prefer white #10 mercerized cotton crochet thread to make mine. Cotton thread is very inexpensive. It contrasts with all other yarns except itself, and it pulls out of any yarn fiber without leaving telltale lint.

Tip #8: Use tailor tacks to mark division points along an edge. Find the center point of an edge by folding the edge in half or by measuring. Attach a tailor tack at this point by inserting a small crochet hook at the point and catching the middle of the tailor tack. Pull just enough of the tack through to show a loop, then catch the two ends from the other side and pull them through the loop. Pull to close the knot. Locate the quarter points and mark in the same way. Then, mark the eighth points, sixteenth, and so on. Keep going until tailor tacks divide the edge equally into two or three inches sections.

Tip #9: When picking up stitches along the edge, compute how many stitches should be picked up in each section. Divide the number of stitches to be picked up by the number of sections to get the magic number! Then pick up the stitches! To pick up a stitch, insert the left needle in the desired place, insert the right needle in the same place and complete a knit stitch.

Tip #10: Baste the sides together with tailor tacks when joining one edge to another. Mark division points along both edges. Then match the points on the two edges to each other and hook them together with a third tailor tack. Sew the seam, making sure to ease the sides together before the next tailor tack is reached. If you get bunching between tailor tacks, you only have to rework a few inches not the entire seam. Remove the tailor tacks as you go.

Finish your projects!

By trying a few of these knit finishing tips, you will save more time and energy than you can imagine. I’ll even bet your seams will go in perfectly the first time. You may even look forward to finishing your projects!