True Confessions

My confession for the day is that I hate to seam. I blame this on two things.

The first is a lack of patience on my part when it comes to knitting. (This would be a good time to note my philosophy on knitting. As a graphic designer, my life is full of fiddly details. I am constantly moving an image 3/16ths of an inch and altering the leading between lines to be 11 pts. instead of 11.5 pts. When I knit, I want to keep it simple. I like patterns that are easy to follow, produce quick results and have clean lines and little decoration. Basically, I don't want to have to think about it much.) That said, seaming takes time and invovles un-doing and re-doing work that was already done in order to make sure the seams don't pucker. Additionally, my brain has a hard time computing the intricacies of attaching one piece of knitted material to another (especially when the yarn is fine), as well as the need to count the exact number of rows on each knitted piece so that they line up "just so". Does anyone really do this? If so, you are my hero. I don't count rows. I barely count stitches. This is why I have such issues with lace.

The second thing I blame it on is my first sweater. My first sweater was knit in the round. Once you knit in the round, and see how easy it really is, you don't like seaming. Why would you? It's extra work. It involves purl stitches (I don't like purling either) and sewing. Both of these things are eliminated when knitting raglans, or even socks. I love raglans. I really love socks. Granted knitting in the round doesn't always eliminate purling, or even seaming...but it certainly cuts down on it. I hear that my knitting hero should be Elizabeth Zimmerman, and because of that I have ordered all of her books from my local library. I want to read what she had to say on the subject, and see what her patterns entail. I have a feeling I am about to fall in love.

It is because of my fear/hate relationship with seaming that I am always dissapointed when I come across a pattern that is knit in pieces. I know that my finished product will not look as good as the one pictured, and that frustrates me. SO: I recently made it a point to knit something that required seaming. I chose this pattern. It is all in simple stockingnette, so it should be easier to seam than some. Unfortunately, I haven't gotten very far into it. In fact, it is just a back at this point (that's it, blocking in my shower). This should be a sweater for my husband for Christmas, but with the Christmas Knitting list looming, I don't know if I will have time to finish it.

Luckily, my LYS offers seaming help on Friday afternoons/evenings. I do think I'll need to schedule an appointment once the pieces are all knit. (Cue the choir of angels singing the Alleluia in the background.)