Mystery Blocks Tutorial: Sewing Up Part 1

Inside the Sudwala Caves near Sabie, in Mpumalanga in South Africa.

Hi everyone!

The day has finally arrived....(drum-roll etc...), the first part of the sewing up of the Mystery Blocks Toy is here!! I am sure that you have managed to knit up all the squares and rectangles , and are raring to go :) I have been a busy little bee, and managed to accomplish a good deal of catch up at our knitting club this morning! Imagine what the other patrons must have thought...(we meet at a local coffee shop), I was blocking away quite merrily, leaving the thick towel with blocked and pinned squares and rectangles in the sun to dry...

My dear friend Linda was quite unfazed (all credit to her!), by all this odd activity... :)

We really had a lovely time, Wednesdays are special!

Onto other things...

Mystery Blocks Tutorial: Sewing Up, Part 1

Step 1. You won't need the foam blocks for today's post (yet!), but I include a pic to remind you to get some, if you don't already have 8, 5x5x5cm blocks. Since your knitting will be quite dense, it doesn''t really matter what colour foam they are. Just be careful if you are going to make up a set of block in a light coloured yarn...

Step 2. The next set of steps are going to look a little confusing, but please let me reassure you, just follow step by step and all will be fine... The wip looks a bit like a doggies breakfast, but it's just because the loose ends haven't been worked in yet. Ok, above is a pic I set up to show the order of seaming. It's best to set out your equivalent pieces as I have (ie if your Colour A was not blue like mine, but purple, just follow the order as you wrote down when you started the project...remember this?) So the areas marked by the number "1", will be sewn up first, the areas marked "2 ", sewn up second, etc

Step 3. The areas marked "3" will be sewn up after the blues have been sewn up to the yellows.

Before going into a detailed photographic account of the sewing up, I have added some pics just to show how I sew up the edges. I insert my tapestry needle through BOTH loops of the block edges (essentially oversewing). This gives a nice edge without too much of a fuss and bulky seam...

Step 4. I have tried to use the tails of yarn hanging from the square/rectangle as far as possible...(the ones you left after casting on/off), it just prevents extra tails all over the place, BUT if your tails are not long enough, by all means, cut off a piece of yarn in the appropriate colour, TIE it to the tail that is too short, and sew up. You will work in all the tails eventually anyway... :)

Step 5. I have worked through adjacent stitches (both loops remember ;) ), and being careful not to pucker the seam, pull gently tight.

Step 6. When you have sewn up to the end of the two bits you are seaming up together, I like to tie the sewing piece of yarn to another tail that is loose at the corner where your seam stops. It makes the corner sturdier, but if you prefer , just end off by working a double back stitch to anchor your seam/yarn.

Step 7. Here you can see that I have reached the end of the where the blue square is attached to the yellow rectangle. I have used the tail from the other end of the yellow block to sew up this seam, and will now tie it to the blue tail which was laying fallow at the corner of the blue square.

See how neat the seam looks when you work into the two loops? :)

Step 8. Knotting the tails together...

Step 9. Ok, well done! If you look back at the initial pics of this tutorial, you'll see that you first sew up the blue square to part of the yellow rectangle ( "1") , then you do the "2" seam, ie the blue rectangle to the rest of the yellow rectangle (as above). Make sure that the two blue pieces abutt nicely, with no gaps in between... and finally you'll sew the orange squares to the yellow rectangles...

Step 10. The pic above and the next set of pics shows the progression of the sewing up of :

1. first the Blue square to the yellow rectangle


2. second the Blue rectangle to the other part of the yellow rectangle


3. repeat this on process four times, so that all are joined as shown...
   

Two of the four "time's of sewing up" are done! (pic above)

Step 11. All of the blues are now sewn onto the yellows as shown above...please don't be perturbed if it looks very confusing, when you have finished with this project, I am sure you will have managed it well, my friends, and if not, you are going to email me and receive clarification on what you are unclear about...promise!

Step 12. Sew up the orange squares to each outer end of the yellow rectangles.

Step 13. All the orange squares are sewn onto the outer edge of the yellow rectangles...There is a mish mash of flopping around parts in the middle of the blue area...this is right for this stage of the process, we'll get to those seams next time...

Step 14. Flop the orange squares over onto the blue rectangle as shown. The edge where the blue and orange meet on the far right off the wip (work in progress), is what you'll sew up next.

If this is not clear, have a look at the next set of pics to see how it should end up looking and come back to this step.

Step 15. Repeat the flopping over story on the other side :)

Step 16. Ok, I have sewn up the orange/blue edges as described before, and on the right (in the pic above), I have popped the just created corners up, so that you can see how the blue/orange bits fit together. When you repeat this seaming on both left and right sides of the wip, and pop the corners, your work should look like the pic below...

Step 17. If anything is unclear, just lay all your knitting out, as I have in the tutorial, and work through it slowly again...it will make sense as you actually do the seaming... :)

At the end of today's tutorial, you will have two loose bits of knitting, mirror images of one another.

Please send me a mail if there are any questions...

Off to bed...

Sleep well :)

Lots of Love

Heidi :)