If a Seam isn't a Seam

So, if a seam isn't a seam but rather a strut, what does it do?  


A strut by definition is a structural element used to brace or strengthen a framework by resisting longitudinal compression.  Clear as mud, right?  Yeah me too. so let me say it in relation to your knitting.


A strut, commonly referred to as a seam, holds the stitches of the shoulder strap and stops them from growing wider if placed at the shoulder. It might make a back of neck perform a little better.  Stay narrower as the case may be, but it applies some structural stability across stitches not rows.  It won't help to support the garment.  


At the sides of garment, yeah it could be argued that some stability is given to the garment by a seam, but that stability does not go very far back into the garment because of the net nature of knitting.  You might get, maybe 6 stitches wide of relative stability beside the seam but that is about it.  If your project was going to sag a seam isn't going to help a lot.  At the end of the day, that extra layer of yarn used in making the strut might just end up adding a bit more weight to the thing.


Bottom line is this.  The fabric you are knitting is a self supporting net.  If you knit too loosely for the net to support the end weight of the garment, it is going to sag.  And every single fibre in every single weight and make up of yarn is going to be different.  


A lot of people use dressmaking as the reason why you should do seams but knitting doesn't produce the stable relatively unelastic fabric that weaving gives you.  Knitting is stretchy and flexible and has give.  It will round a shoulder and snug to an arm nicely.  You don't have to force a shape, you just have to suggest it by adding a few well placed stitches.  


It is a very different creature and I am all for letting that creature do what it does well.  As poster NewYorkbuilt, says, swatch and murdalise and know what the fabric you produce is going to be capable of and knit accordingly.

What all this means is that I am surely going to have to knit that Bamboo tape tightly.  

In other knitting news, I finished something!!

Also Purple, is a nifty little 6 foot long scarf that is knit like the bottom shaped part of Sally Melville's Shape It Scarf.  Increase 4 stitches at the beginning of every row.  Its only about 6 inches deep.  Jewlery as much as anything!