I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: folded hems are one of the unsung heroes of the knitting world.
The Flux Hand Warmers by Martina Behm for Confident Knitting. Photo © Jesse Wild.
This month’s Confident Knitting pattern by Martina Behm uses a folded hem to make a delicate cuff on a pair of springtastic hand warmers. But folded hems can work in so many situations. They can be a lovely alternative to rib on a sock or lend a professional finish to the neck, sleeves or hem of a sweater. For the Flux Hand Warmers we have used the same yarn to work the inner and outer portions of the folded hem. But you can use contrast yarns for folded hems to introduce fun pops of colour or a bit of softness … in the past, I’ve used an extra soft yarn on the inner hem of a hat brim for added comfort.
Once you start adding folded hems to things, it can be hard to stop … Photo © Jesse Wild.
Chances are, if you start adding folded hems to enough things, you’re going to happen on a situation where you’d like to finish off with a folded hem, not just begin with one. So today I thought it’d be fun to throw around some ideas for doing just that.
When it comes to finishing a knit with a folded hem, the headline elements are all the same. You’ll work your outer hem to the length you require, work your chosen turning round, whether that’s a picot edging or plain knit or purl round, then work your inner hem on smaller needles. The problem is, of course, when you finish the inner hem, it needs to be folded down to and attached to stitches you’ve already worked, rather than knitted together with stitches you are yet to work (as is the case when you begin with a folded hem). While you can always simply sew your cast-off edge down**, it’s not nearly as fun (in my book at least) as seamlessly joining your hem up. The solution lies in the three-needle cast off … the challenge is where to find the stitches!
Idea 1: Pick up stitches
One option is to work the outer hem, the turning round, and your inner hem, and then pick up stitches along the inner circumference of your knitted object to which you can join your live hem stitches. So, say your hem was 10 rounds long, you’d have your 10 rounds of outer hem, the turning round, then the 10 rounds of inner hem. You’d then use a small needle to pick up stitches where your hem began (so, 10 rounds below your turning round). Once you’d done that, you’d fold your inner hem down and join the inner hem stitches and the picked up stitches together using a three-needle cast off. You’d almost certainly want to do all this with your knitting turned inside out, especially if you’re working a small circumference! Inserting a lifeline at the start of your hem might also make it a bit easier to pick up those stitches!
Idea 2: Create stitches
Another option is to create some live stitches to which you can return to join your inner hem once it’s folded. So in this situation, before you work your outer hem, you could work a kfb (knit into front and back) into each stitch on your needle. Then, before going any further, you would slip every other stitch onto a bit of waste yarn. You’d then work your outer hem — we’ll stick with our 10 round example — work your turning round, then drop a needle size and work 10 more rounds. You’d return your held stitches from the beginning of the hem to a needle, fold down your hem, and once again, work a three-needle cast off to join your live stitches to the held stitches. While it involves the extra step of increasing and placing stitches on hold, this approach might be a bit less fiddly than picking up stitches, especially when working across a small circumference.
For both of these approaches, I’ve suggested using a three-needle cast off … and we, of course, have a video for that: Three-Needle Cast Off Tutorial on YouTube. If you’ve worked the joining round of the Flux Hand Warmers, you’ll find working a three-needle cast off to be really similar! You could also graft your live inner hem stitches to picked up or held stitches … thanks to folks over in our CK March: Folded Hem knitalong for sharing that idea! We also have a video for that over on our YouTube channel.
Jen’s Nut-Hap scarf uses the increase stitches approach combined grafting the stitches together for a totally seamless finish. The orange tuck is the final folded hem and you can’t see the join on either side.
I’ve just begun my second hand warmer and am already thinking about what hems I might fold next! If you’ve been bitten by the folded hem bug too, we’d love to see you what you’re working on over in our March knitalong at The Knitalong Hub!
** A quick note on sewing folded hems. No matter if you’re beginning a project or ending it with a folded hem, you always have the option to fold your knitting and just sew the cast-on/cast-off edge down. This can be handy for certain situations — say, if you’re working your inner hem in a different weight yarn, over a different number of stitches, so that knitting a joining round isn’t all that convenient — or it might just be what you prefer to do. And that’s, of course, all good too!