Form and Function

What do you want from your garment hems?

Do you want the edge of your garment to cling to your hips? Do you want the edge to roll or not?

The familiar ribbing, whether a 2×2 rib like the one above, or a 1×1 or any other variation of alternating knit and purl stitches will control the curl and pull in a little. That is why they are used so often. This is the function of a hem or edge.

You can use other ways to do this and by doing so you can completely change the garment – kick it up a notch or two

You could use a broken rib.
This might not ‘pull in’ as much but it won’t curl. In fact any pattern that uses approximately an even number of knit and purl stitches will prevent the edge from curling.

• 

• 

Another popular stitch is Garter Stitch. It too does not curl – but each stitch takes up more room than a column of Stocking Stitch stitches. In other words it does not pull in at all, but does the opposite. So if you decide to use a Garter Stitch hem you need to decrease the number of stitches you use, and probably reduce the size of the needle as well. At least 10% less stitches will do the trick.

Test it by making a piece using the hem, in Garter Stitch, followed by several inches of your pattern stitch. Then you won’t waste a lot of time making the garment and finding the hem rolls up because it is too wide.

Here is another Garter Stitch Hem. This one borders both a Stocking Stitch section and a Reverse Stocking Stitch section. The Garter Stitch is thicker than the reverse Reverse Stocking Stitch section – although they look very similar at first sight. If only Reverse Stocking Stitch had been used, that part of the hem would have rolled inwards to the private side of the garment, and at the Stocking Stitch section it would have rolled out. Ah ha! Perhaps that is a technique to explore.

Here’s another way of using Garter Stitch that I have been very pleased with. This time I worked a strip of Garter Stitch to fit around my hip, grafted the edges together and picked up the stitches along one side to work the body of the sweater bottom up, towards the shoulders. This has kept its shape over a couple of years of wear already.

Yet another simple edging is Seed Stitch. This does not curl either as it is alternating knit and purl stitches across each row, and it doesn’t take up extra space like Garter Stitch does.

• 

• 

Are you still with me? This is all pretty standard stuff. Now it gets a bit more interesting.

There are faced hems that can be very useful when you don’t want any attention given to the lower edge of your garment but want the focus to be on other elements further up. Here I will show the front and back of the hem. Using a thinner yarn, or half the plies of your yarn, and smaller needles, all help to keep the hem from flipping up. I haven’t found a perfect way of stopping these hems from wanting to flip up, so both sides may as well be beautiful.

In case you are wondering why this garment is “fuzzy” it is because the yarn contains some silk. Note the neat purl “turning” row along the edge. On the back of this garment the hem is caught down with slip stitches

Here is another faced hem, this time with a contrasting colour for the facing as well as the purl ‘turning row’ that keeps that edge crisp.

The back of this hem was held in place with grafting in a matching sewing thread. Thanks to Lucy Neatby for showing me this trick – the grafting, not the sewing thread. I used the thread as I thought the yarn too thick, and the sewing thread was a good colour match.

The path of each stitch has been followed by the sewing thread so that the stitches lie flat against the garment. In some places I stitched twice into tthe same stitch, just for added strength.

The choice is yours as to which of these hem catching techniques you prefer.

Now it gets a bit more interesting.

You can skip the basic ribbing that your pattern came with, and replace it with something more interesting – lace perhaps.

When I designed this cardigan in mohair I wanted an edging that would still look good if the garment grew or stretched a little. Ribbing tends to stretch out, and as Mohair has no “bounce back” like sheep’s wool does, a lace pattern seemed ideal. The lace holes would just get a little bigger and no one would know any different.

If your stitch pattern does not curl, and if it has ‘close to a balance of knit and purl stitches’ as this broken rib does, you can take it all the way to the edge. Test it out before you begin, to be sure.

Or you could try something completely different – use a non-rolling stitch pattern like this one: Daisy stitch

I found it in Barbara G Walker’s book A Treasury of Knitting Stitches. I can’t put my hand on my copy right now so I cannot tell you the page number. Sorry. There are lots of places to find it on the Internet, including this demonstration on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lV9Adh4sGuA

I have worn this cardigan a lot and you can see that the Daisy hem still looks great. It is quite a dense stitch, and quite slow to work, but, for a hem these factors are a positive characteristic, and a minor issue.

So explore your stitch dictionaries for new ways to construct hems.

There are even books on this exact topic. Nicky Epstein has written several – of especial interest I recommend Knitting on the Edge

Changes like these will make your sweater your own- individual, unique. Isn’t that one of the joys of knitting?

It’s lonely back in my room – let me know if you found this helpful or thought provoking. I’d appreciate that.