Knitting plus Sewing, Because Life Is Strange Now

The next legacy project is going to be... interesting. I think it was a kit. I have the pattern - and thank goodness, because it's not on Ravelry. There was no yarn with the project. Fortunately, the knitting is nearly complete. I couldn't match the  beautiful shade of blue that was used, so I bought some navy blue that at least doesn't swear with it. I also bought some matching DMC floss. Floss? Well.

There are two sleeves with side pieces -

- which get attached to the central fabric piece using a (gasp!) sewing machine, and then seamed up like any side and sleeve. Since mattress stitch is invisible, my navy yarn won't show.

At that point all that is left is the knit border around the bottom, neck, and front edges of the fabric. So how do you knit on to fabric? According to the instructions, it involves -  brace yourself - embroidery. That's right. You take the above-mentioned embroidery floss and a needle and make a line of chain stitch around the edges of the fabric, just inside the selvedge.  In case that's not enough mixed fabric arts for your day, you then take a crochet hook and yarn and work a row of single crochet into the chain stitch. Then, and only then, do you whip out your knitting needle, knit into the top of the single crochet stitches, and knit the rest of the border. (Wait. What if I used an afghan needle and Tunisian crochet? Then the stitches would already be on a needle for knitting.)

Head spinning yet? My sister chose to work regular twisted rib cuffs on the sleeves rather than the odd-but-interesting border pattern called for. I just worked up a little of it to be sure it didn't somehow magically look like twisted rib. Nope. So at least once I get through all the mixed fabric arts I can just work some soothing twisted rib for the border.

I might miter the corners. Can one do that in ribbing? It's tempting. It will eventually need buttons. Unless I sew on clasps. What's a little hand-sewing at that point? I draw the line at installing a zipper. That's in my future, along with learning to steek.