March 22, 2010

Why oh why do knitters hate seaming?

I don't really understand it.

The griping and the moaning about seaming is enough to burn the ears right off, how can they hate it so much? All I hear about when presenting a new pattern is - how much seaming is there?, I hate seaming how can I eliminate it?

Innovation in design; this is a worthy pasttime to be sure, creating new methods of construction to furthur enhance the process of knitting and yes perhaps eliminate a small amount of construction time. However would you really pass up a pattern because it required some seaming? Would you forgo Fair Isle because you had to work in ends?

What part of seaming is so different from knitting, both involve yarn, both involve needles, both require an interaction with each stitch , one after another. Why is a knitter completely prepared to knit miles and miles of yarn up into fantastic garments, working with two sticks and loops of string. And then when it is time to use a few metres of string and one stick with a hole to hold the string everyone gets all whiney?

It amazes me that despite our culture of instant gratification we have a knitting revolution going on behind the scenes, the knit underground, the youth practising techniques that have existed for centuries and almost were lost. And now we have this amazing reclaiming going on, we are willing and able to devote hours and hours of time to a few small motions that make very large things. But we aren't willing to follow through, that final step is too hard, too long, after spending so much time knitting the object gratification is far too close to actually stop and take time to seam properly. And so we stumble in our haste and have bulgy bumpy seams, or.. some don't finish at all.

Can't the knitter just fall into the gently rhythm of the needle pulling through each thread , one ladder, the next, one ladder, the next, mattress stitch could be the new Zen. Isn't it satisfying to have two pieces of knitting match up together and appear as if they were knit as one? Can't working in those final threads be just as wonderful as cast-on a new project? Why not Cast off using EZ's casting off casting on method, why not do it on a 300 st blanket, why not?

Ah well, I guess no one really loves it the way I do, but perhaps I could be spared the whining, the moaning, and whimpering, really, or I'll have to design something really nasty, in thirty six pieces, all Fair Ilse, with beads.