Joining The Blocks

  

  



I didn't realise joining double knitted blocks would be difficult to get a nice looking seam on both sides.  A quick look on youtube had only one video showing how to join double knitted blocks and while it looked quite nice, it added extra stitches between the blocks and I didn't need to make mine larger than it was going to be. The side seams were easy, I don't know what the stitch is called, but you take the needle from the back to the front on one block then the back to the front on the other block.  When you pull the thread/yarn it all joins and the sewing yarn disappears.  Very nice.  But the top and bottom of a block are different with the cast on/cast off edges.  Doing the same stitch as at the sides results in a bit of a mess and the sewing thread can be seen and it's all a bit wonky.  So what I did was mattress stitch on one side just taking a little material from the top half of the blocks, then flipped it over and did the same to the blocks at the back.  This encased the edges.  The side that was worked first ends up being flatter than the second join, so I made sure all the first seams were one side and second seams the other, end result is that each side is consistent.
For the edging there was the same problem, if you worked from one side the other was a bit messy.  So I did a row of double crochet on the edge of the top blocks all around, flipped it over and did another row of double crochet on the edge of the bottom blocks, then held these two together and worked a third row of double crochet through both loops of the first two rows.  Made for a nice edge that looks the same on both sides.
I would benefit from blocking but I don't have anywhere large enough to lay and pin it out.  So an iron with a wet cloth will do for now.