Hand Sew a Knit Garment

Hand Sew a

Knit Garment

with Tina Bury

Hand Sewing Knit Garments

Materials Needed

Button Craft Thread

Made with a polyester core and polished cotton exterior allowing it to more easily

glide through fabric. It is the strongest thread and when hand-sewing a knit

garment, we want strong thread to keep our garments together.

Knit fabrics stretch and put a good deal of stress on the seams. Sewing machine

thread is too thin for hand sewing knit fabrics.

Embroidery oss is okay used to embellish your shirt, but not for construction.

Word of caution: thread weakens as it ages, vintage thread is never a good idea in

a garment or sewing project that will get use.

Needles

I like to use a Sharps #7 or 9 or a Milliners #7 or 9

Really it’s all personal preference and as along as your needle is thick enough to

accommodate button craft thread and thin enough to not leave visible holes in your

fabric and to move through the fabric with little effort, use what you prefer.

Fabric

Any knit fabric with enough stretch to accomodate your pattern and some amount

of structure will work. I nd that rayon and rayon or bamboo blended fabric are so

drapey that they aren’t as suited to hand sewing.

Fold-over elastic and/or knit binding to nish your edges

Depending on what pattern you choose to use, you will want a binding to nish off

the edge of the neckhole or fold-over elastic for a skirt.

You can choose between a variety of widths when it comes to fold-over elastic, 1/2”

- 5/8” (1.3 - 1.8 cm) are good starting points. For a neck binding, cut a strip of

knit fabric along the cross grain 1- 1 1/4” (2.5 - 4 cm) wide by the length of your

opening.

When converting a knit garment sewing pattern to be sewn by

hand...

• reduce all of the main seam allowances to 1/4” (.6 cm)

• remove the waist facing or neck seam allowance when using fold over elastic

binding your opening with a knit band, as applicable

• if leaving the hems /sleeves raw, remove the hem/sleeve allowance

Hand Sewing Knit Garments

Stitching

Rules of Thumb

Use a length of thread that, when held double, measure from your ngertips to

your elbow. Any longer and the thread is likely to tangle and cause all sorts of

havoc and irritation.

Once on the needle, run your thread through your ngers 5 or 6 times. This

works out the twists and puts a bit of natural oils from your hands on the

thread. It also encourages your threads to work together as you sew.

Sending some positive thoughts into the thread may help too!

Use a double knot on your thread to begin and end your stitches. (you need

around 3 inches of thread left in order to double knot your stitches at the end.)

Leave a 3/8-1/2” tail on your thread (any shorter and your stitches may come

undone over time)

Your stitches should be between 1/8” and 1/4” long. Smaller and they are

prone to pulling through the knit fabric, any larger and they can snag during

everyday use.

Stitches

We will construct the side seams and shoulder seams (if applicable) using a

running stitch. Running stitches, back stitches and blanket stitches don’t stretch

and should be used only on seams that do not encircle a body part, like the neck

opening or waist.

Running Stitch

A simple straight stitch where you either stab your needle up from the back of the

fabric and return down through the fabric an equal distance away (known as stab

stitching) or build your stitches up on your needle and pull the needle through

after you have several on the needle.

A short running stitch between 1/8-1/4” per stitch is what we are looking for. A

long running stitch is a basting stitch used to temporarily hold your fabric together.

Hand Sewing Knit Garments

Use a stretch stitch on all seams/stitching on the circumference of the garment or any

seams that need to be able to stretch. (hem, sleeve nish, neck band, waist) These

seams need to stretch and move with body and thus need a stitch that allows that to happen.

Stretch Stitches

(any stitch that is formed with a back and forth motion and stretches when pulled along the

seam of a knit fabric) Test your stitch on your fabric to ensure it stretches.

Cross Stitch: 1. Bring the needle up at a, down at b and back up at c

Form all of these slanted parellel stitches and then come back and do the cross stitch

2. Moving in the opposite direction, Come up at a, down at be and back up at c, crossing the

stitch you previously made. (this is but one way to do the cross stitch)

Cretin Stitch: 1. Bring the needle up at a, down at b and back up at c , keeping the thread

under the needle 2. Down at d and back up at e,. keeping the thread under the needle...

begining again

Herringbone Stitch: 1. Bring the needle up at a, down at b and back up at c

2. Down at d and back up at the next a...beginning again

Parallel Stitch: Bring the needle up at a, down at b and when it comes back up it will be at a

again.

Additional stretch stitches mentioned in how to video...

snail trail, rosebud, chevron, feather stitch

Hand Sewing Knit Garments

Constructing Your Knit Garment

Before you begin sewing your garment, you’ll have several design elements to consider.

Like...

• Do you want the seam allowance to be on the right or wrong side of the garment?

• Do you want to fell the seams to one side (keep the seam allowance together and top

stitch them down), with the seam allowance either on the inside or outside?

• Do you want to open the seam allowance up and stitch each side down separately?

• Would you rather keep it simple and simply sew the seam allowance only, letting the

allowance oat free?

• What stitches do you want to use to nish your seams - your side seams and your cir-

cumference seams?

Order of Basic Construction for Most Garments and Stitches to Use

1. Shoulder Seams - Sew your shoulder seams (if applicable) using a running

stitch and then fell the seams towards the back of the bodice and top

stitch the seams down using a running stitch. (When machine sewing, I

use elastic in the shoulder seam to give the shoulder seam support, but I

nd I don’t need to when I sew it like this.)

2. Sleeves - Insert your sleeves using a running stitch (if your armhole is snug, you

might want to increase it’s size a bit as the running stitch doesn’t

stretch) If you choose to top stitch your sleeve seam, use a run-

ning stitch with the seam allowances folded towards the bodice.

3. Side Seams - Stitch your side seams using a running a stitch. If

sewing a top/dress, stitch from the sleeve hem all the way to

the garment hem. Top stitch if desired, with seam allowances

pressed towards the back.

Hand Sewing Knit Garments

4. Waist of Dress - If sewing a dress with seperate bodice

and skirt pieces, sew the bodice to the skirt using a stretch

stitch of your choice.

5. Finishing the Neck - Attach the neck binding, if applicable,

by ironing the binding (1-1 1/4 inches wide by the length

of the opening) in half lengthwise and enclosing the neck

edge with the binding. Stitch down with the stretch stitch

of your choice...applying a slight bit of tension to the bind-

ing as you go.

6. Attaching Fold-over Elastic to a Skirt -

Attach the fold-over elastic to the skirt waist. Begin at

the back and enclose the waist edge inside the fold-over

elastic. Sew the fold-over elastic with the stretch stitch of

your choice. Apply a bit of tension on the elastic as you

sew it. Overlap the edges of the fold-over elastic and sew

down.

7. Hem - leave the sleeve and garment hems raw, or un-

stitched, if desired.

Otherwise, you can fold the hem allowance up towards the wrong side and

stitch them down with the stretch stitch of your choice or creatively nish

them with a binding much like the neck binding. *note - I nd that you need

at least a 1” hem allowance when folding it up and stitching it down to keep

the edge from rolling.