Wurm 1

I let a badly-written sweater pattern steal my knitting mojo for months.  Don't you hate that when a pattern is highly rated by a few (15) people on Ravelry, possibly only the designer's friends, and the instructions are incomprehensible?

I am not a novice knitter, but this pattern defeats me. I downloaded it in English first. It made no sense. I downloaded it in German to see if something was lost in translation. It still made no sense.  (I learned how to knit while I was an exchange student in Germany so I learned to read German patterns before English ones.)

I don't mind the 5.90 Euros as much as the time wasted.

These past few weeks have been so stressful, I need an easy knitting project to help calm me down in the evenings.

Wurm, with 12,837 projects on Ravelry, looked like an easy and useful make.  The pattern is free and well-written.  I stopped by Shuttles, spindles and skeins on the way home last Friday to get 100 g of something DK, non-scratchy, and machine washable.  Almost done!

Views & Social Media

I've been super-busy preparing for the talk and workshop next week. I'll just post some pictures of my past two weeks, with very short comments.

I'm tweeting more often, especially about science and women in STEM. If that interests you, follow @gspeng. Twitter, and email are the quickest ways to message me if you have a question or comment.  Comments left on this blog also get forwarded to my email.

I've also joined Instagram as bmgmlax. Instagram allows people to open accounts without verifying their email address. A young man used my personal email address to sign up for Instagram and was quite active on that site.

I couldn't get Instagram to delink that account to my email address. Finally, I took control of that account using the "forgot my password" option and then deleted his account. I felt bad about that for about a millisecond. The squatter using my email address and Instagram deserved it.

Twitter is is an extension of my professional life.  Instagram is for my off-duty life.

Waiting for a meeting to start.  That's the outdoor patio of the cafeteria.

Leaving work the day after the storm that just missed being classified as a blizzard because the high winds and zero visibility did not last 3 continuous hours.

Another shot as I left work.

View from my office window.

View from my neighbor's window.  You can see both my current office building up on the mesa top and my former campus tower office.

Mariposa for my reading nook.

I can see Long's Peak from my kitchen and bedroom windows. I'm told that I can see Pike's Peak from my office window, but I haven't learned how to recognize the shape yet. We had ~35 inches of snow in one week (3 storms). Each snowfall was preceded by half an inch of rain. The town is a soggy and muddy mess. The views are beautiful, but I've been putting in my miles on the treadmill indoors lately.

Flat-fell seam tutorial

Lab was closed today so I worked from home. I'm reading, writing and testing in preparation for an upcoming talk and workshop, so a day spent testing on my home computer is actually useful.

No commute time = time to write the flat-fell seam tutorial I promised to Ms McCall.

Years ago, I learned this technique from Margaret Islander videos.  This was included in both the Shirts, etc! and one of the Galaxy of Sewing Techniques videos, which I watched in VHS back in the day.  They are so fantastic, I might ask Santa to buy the full set of DVDs for me.

Keep in mind that I forgot the specifics of measurements from the cut edge, but I do remember the technique quite well.

I sewed reference lines 5/8" from each cut edge.

Pink lines 5/8" from each cut edge.

You can fold the bottom layer's edge before or after (as I did here) the first sewing step.  Lay the top layer's edge 1/4" to the left of the edge of the bottom layer.  Then stitch 1/4" to the left of the top cut edge.

If you fold 1/4" over before stitching, then it's hard to see if you have butted the top layer right up against the fold line.  However, then you can sew a scant 1/4" so you catch all three layers (white+green+white).

Try both techniques and pick what you prefer.  There is no reason why you can't sew one line through two layers, press the fold, and then sew right next to that line through three layers.  These lines of stitching won't show on the outside.

Lay one layer 1/4" inside other edge, then stitch 1/4" from second edge (green).

Press together to embed stitching, then carefully press the seam allowance to the side (fell).   The bobbin side of the first line of stitching will face up after pressing to the side.

Stitch right next to the fold of the white fabric, catching all layers.  I stitched from the wrong side, with green thread in the needle and navy thread in the bobbin.

On the wrong side, you see both the first row of stitches (navy bobbin thread) and the second row of stitches (green needle thread).

Both rows of stitching from the WS.

On the right side, you will see the bobbin thread with the folds centered between my 5/8" markings.

Second row of stitching from the RS.

My sample uses medium-weight cottons and produces a fat 1/4" (1/4" plus turn of cloth, TOC) flat-fell seam centered between the 5/8" reference lines. My reference lines ended up 1/2" apart.

If you want a centered seam, then keep the seam allowances even between the two pieces you are joining.  Make samples because the spacing will depend on the thickness of your fabric (TOC) and how fat you want the seam.  For jeans, I would try 3/8" as a starter and adjust from there.

If you want the seam allowance to lay to one side (on a sleeve cap), then trim one seam allowance 1/4" narrower and add it to the other side.

For instance, you may want to trim a shirt body SA to 3/8" and give the sleeve cap a 7/8" SA. Stitch with a 3/8" fold/SA and you will end up with a FF seam pressed against the shirt body.  You'll find this easier to do if you gather the sleeve cap with a running stitch and a hand needle first.