Sewing My Swatches Together

Advice, Please
1

Hi Everyone.
In order to decrease my stash a bit I have decided to sew up my swatches. I would love to know tips, tricks, etc for sewing up various weights of yarn, different patterns, needle sizes.

Initially I started mattress stitching them together and there is a certain mediative state that I get in doing this, but it is slow. The second way I started to knit up the swatches was to pickup stitches knit four rows but I want to add another swatch to it so that it is swatch, garter stitch, swatch garter stitch and then join the columns together. I am just not sure how to do this part. how do I garter stitch and pickup stitches from the next swatch?

Any words of warning. I did try to unravel a bunch of swatches but that ended up getting tossed because it would not rip out easily. One of the ends was always screwed up.

Any help gratefully received.

Patty

2

Hi Patty!

For the swatch/garter stitch/swatch/garter stitch idea, you could do a three-needle bind off to join the next swatch. If you’re needing to join swatches of different sizes, you could do a couple of different things. You could work short row wedges of garter stitch to fill in the gaps or you could just add a few rows of garter stitch, log-cabin style. I’ve seen some gorgeous blankets that use the short row method to great effect. Good luck!

Pamela

2 Likes
3

thanks, I am hitting the lys on Thursday. I want to know all my options!

Patty

4

This was my first thought. Also, you could crochet them together, which is easy to rip out if you want to move them. I have a bag of swatches and have toyed with this idea for years. I can’t wait to see how yours comes out.

5

Also, if my memory serves, a darker yarn in a lighter weight is probably safest.