after thoughts...

although I was excited about the prospect of a totally new project – the intarsia thing - there was unfinished business. I had been halfway through number 12, button-front lace hoodie in the remaining denim Yeoman’s Twister http://knitwords.blogspot.com/2021/06/it-worked.html with that large lace diamond pattern, Lacy Twin - I couldn’t abandon it midstream – you probably know this, it’s like a death sentence to put something like that aside – so much harder to get it back on the machine later so I was determined to finish it off before allowing myself to get into the new stuff. Got all the knitting and assembly done, the machine parts anyway and then I could toss it aside, saving the darning in and buttons etc. later.

I’m picking it up again, sort of a consolation prize between the intarsia grief!

And here's something I can share about the handwork of finishing. Mostly, it's just tedious but here's my tip to maybe make it a bit easier. For seaming the doubled stockinette bands at the bottom edges and joining the hood band to the tops of the front bands, this is what I do: with long straight pins, thread one through the half outside edge stitch of each piece to uncurl the ends. This allows you to steam them flat before attempting to hand stitch them together.

This steaming defines the edge stitches, making the whole thing easier to handle and see. Then, using the longest tail available from the inside edge, hand stitch from the top/outside, through half stitch from one side, across to corresponding half stitch of adjoining piece, to next half stitch on same piece, across to opposite side, next half stitch, etc. (going into each half stitch or bar only once) to end and thread the tail in the inside of the band. This makes a nice, flat, almost invisible, no bulk join/seam, when done neatly, blends right into the band, making it continuous, both inside and out!