How to Set in Sleeves

re: How to Set in Sleeves

christine0207@sbcglobal.net — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 00:15:32 GMT

Great tip IrmaS to crochet the sleeve in instead of sew. I, too, pin, pin, pin start at the center, etc. However, I think Elizabeth Zimmerman had the best idea - pick up stitches at the shoulder and knit in the round. NO SEWING necessary.

re: How to Set in Sleeves

IrmaS@2 — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 13:41:32 GMT

I agree with oxid8 that we often don't pay enough attention to row gauge. In any case, I have always had difficulty and poor results with mattress stitch seaming. When I became a professional knitter making prototypes for Vogue Knitting and several other knitting publications, I began using a crochet slip stitch when finishing the garments. It works like a charm, gives a beautiful finished seam and if you need to make any alterations it is removed quickly and easily without damaging yarn or garment.

When it comes to setting in the sleeves, I do as several others mentioned, sew shoulders first, with right sides facing, line up and pin center sleeve cap with shoulder seam, do the same at each side of underarm and then pin evenly spaced around. It's important to work with the sleeve side facing you. Begin at underarm and working one stitch from the edge with a crochet hook comparible in size to the needles used, slip stitch all around. Once sleeve is in, the side seam and sleeve seam can be worked as one long seam.

TIP: when pinning, set pins back from edge about 1/2". It will be easier to check that patterns are in line on right side.

re: How to Set in Sleeves

jdeak — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 03:26:11 GMT

I usually use a back stitch for seams, much easier than the mattress stitch, but a little bulkier seam. The trick is to do it so that that you go thru between stitches, keeping one stitch at the edge as the seam allowance. I work from the inside, but check the outside frequently to make sure the seam line looks good. That way no matter how that last stitch was done or how it looks, it's inside, out of view. And the seam line on the outside becomes invisible, except where there are increases or decreases. In doing the back stitch be careful not to do it too tight - it should still have a little give - I usually pull each stitch fairly snug, then pull it out to loosen a little so I can feel how much give it has.

Re: whether to sew the side seams first - I've done sleeves both ways. I was a sewer before being a knitter, so I learned to set in sleeves with the side seam closed. But I just finished my latest knitting project sewing the sleeves in first and it worked fine. In either case, the most important thing is to line it up right and do any easing around the top, not the underarm. I pin /clip the the top center, then the underarm edge up to where it straightens out, then the top curve from center to each side and then down the straight edges.

re: How to Set in Sleeves

ElaineD@11 — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 14:27:56 GMT

I was a seamstress first..so I sew the side seam and sleeve seam first. I use tiny children's hair clips to position my work and then attempt the mattress stitch...I would prefer to use a different stitch (don't really like the result of the mattress stitch)..have even considered sewing the sleeve on with a conventional sewing machine method..is that blasphamous?/

re: How to Set in Sleeves

RobinH — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 17:00:52 GMT

Add me to the 'pin before sewing' contingent.

I find the center of the sleeve and pin it to the shoulder seam, then pin the armhole edge, then find the midpoint between the shoulder and sleeve edge on each piece and pin it there, then take half the distance between the pins and keep halving distances and pinning until I have the whole edge tacked down and any differences between the two are very evenly distributed.

And note that if your garment has reverse stockinette on the edges, mattress stitch <i>looks awful!</i>. You have to use the reverse stockinette seaming method if you want an invisible seam. I just found that out on my latest sweater- had to google 'how seam reverse stockinette'- I found the links at the Vogue knitting site and the TKGA site most helpful. Fortunately I stopped seaming almost immediately when I spotted the problem, and so I didn't need to rip much when I figured out how I should have done it. MUCH happier with the second effort.

re: How to Set in Sleeves

morijay — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 04:23:12 GMT

I agree with judyofks1. Because of the shape of the shoulder, all ease should be worked in the upper area, not the underarm. You need the room to curve over where your arm meets your shoulder to lay nicely and not pull. The underarm needs to be flat when worn so don't ease it there. This is normal garment construction whether knit or woven.

re: How to Set in Sleeves

jfjohnson5 — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 02:37:40 GMT

Check out the Mattress stitch on Youtube.

re: How to Set in Sleeves

sdhobbs — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 21:56:13 GMT

Do we block before setting in the sleeeves?

Thank you,

Shannon

re: How to Set in Sleeves

sdhobbs — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 21:38:56 GMT

Hi Kathleen, I am new to knitting garments and have avoided sleeves for fear of this problem. But reading your tips gives me courage to try! As I was reading this, I had an idea: why not sew up the inside seam following the length of the arm first, then turn the bodice inside out and put the arm inside the arm hole and loosly pin to determine easing and matching seams before finishing it up? That is what we would do with a woven fabric garment. Would that work for a knitted garment as well?

Thank you,

Shannon

re: How to Set in Sleeves

Laverne@1bc.org — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 20:58:23 GMT

I use KNIT KLIPS to hold sections together. They are easitly moveable and work for all kinds of seams.

re: How to Set in Sleeves

oxid8 — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 19:15:43 GMT

I have had the problem of the armhole and the sleeve cap not being the same even though I followed the pattern too. I read somewhere once that it could be row gauge. Even though we get the stitch gauge we don't always get the row gauge of the designer and that could be changing the sleeve cap measurement. Now I use the Pythagorean Theorem to figure the sleeve cap using the gauges I get.. I like Debbie Stoller's book Stitch and *** Superstar for how it teaches sleeve cap calculations.

re: How to Set in Sleeves

GerdaP — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 19:09:40 GMT

Thank you Kathleen, I set in sleeves in this way as well, I refer to the ease process as taking a bigger bite on one side of the project than the other, not as technical but similar!

Happy knitting,

Gerda

re: How to Set in Sleeves

dare2wear@aol.com — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 19:03:01 GMT

When knitting sleeves, I knit both of them at the same time, on the same needle. I use 2 skeins of yarn and a stitch marker, if I need to put it down.

By doing both, even if you make a mistake, they will turn out the same length.

I pin before sewing, easing extra stitches at the shoulder seam.

Jill in Florida

re: How to Set in Sleeves

KarenD@20 — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 18:08:52 GMT

The very best way to help yourself set in a sleeve is to NOT sew the side seams of the sweater first. Join the shoulders only. Now you have the entire sleeve cap edge free to manipulate. Match the center of the sleeve cap with the shoulder seam and pin. Pin the underarm edges of sleeve and sweater together. Pin the remainder of the cap edge to the sweater edge in even intervals. I use about 3 more pins per side. Then use the matress stitch as indicated to ease in fullness.

Finally, sew the sweater side seams FROM the wrist to the armhole and down to the waist. Starting at the wrist makes it much easier to sew the tighter area together. Start by picking up only one bar at the wrist, and then alternate with two bars, side to side to end up evenly at the armhole.

PS - Always make your increases for the sleeve ONE STITCH IN FROM THE EDGE OF YOUR PIECE. This will make the sleeve much easier to sew together as you will have an even track to stitch in with no annoying increase bumps to accommodate! Karen

re: How to Set in Sleeves

SharonL@3 — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 17:31:33 GMT

I also start at the shoulder for the seam but I don't use a separate piece of yarn for each sleeve half. I just estimate how much I need for the entire sleeve seam, and use half the yarn for the first half and then go back and pick up that long tail to work the second half. I pick up a whole stitch (center of stitch to center of next stitch) on the sleeve and then pick up a bar from the body. Usually after every 3rd bar I pick up 2 bars to keep the two pieces aligned. When you get to the underarm the shaping matches so no adjustments should be needed there.