sweater sleeve seam help

[flyinghooks]

So I assembled my 'crochet olympics' sweater last night, and today I'm depressed. I don't like the look of the sleeve seams. I don't mind taking out the sleeve seams, but I'm not sure what to do differently to make it better. I really don't want to frog & redo the sleeves.

 

 

I can match the stitches side-to-side on the sleeve just fine. The problem is that the increases on the sleeve edges, once assembled, make the seam 'bumpy'. The pattern is V stitches (dc, ch1, dc) separated by another ch1. The pattern calls for increasing one entire repeat every 5 rows. You can see a finished sleeve laid out in this blog post. You can also see the bumps on the edge of the sleeve when it's folded & laid out with the whole sweater.

 

 

http://flyinghooks.blogspot.com/2006/02/olympic-progress-day-12.html

 

 

(If you click on the pictures you can see them enlarged)

 

 

So I simply seamed the edges, matching stitch to stitch, generally putting two stitches per dc edge.

 

 

Honestly if I were to repeat this pattern, I might make a partial repeat increase over 2 rows, instead of the full repeat increase in 1 row... or I might see what it would look like to put the increases evenly spaced in the rows instead of at the ends.

 

 

Any suggestions on a way to seam this without getting bumps?

 

 

Thanks!!

[Luvmyrott'nboy]

The same thing happened to me when I made the eden sweater. One of my books, I think it was "encyclopedia of crochet" suggested using a slip stitch to seam up "stairstep" seams....but I was afraid it would be too bulky of a seam.

 

I actually whip stitched but sort of "eased" the stairsteps". One sleeve cam out great but I had to undo and re-do the other. It seems luck joins skill with us sometimes!

 

I love the pattern! May I ask what it is?

[natalie058]

I don't know what method you're using to seam, but I was going to suggest what Luvmyrot'n did - using the whipstitch. Possibly the mattress stitch, even, and make the stitches tight enough to squeeze the increases together...

 

Good luck! That's a beautiful sweater, and the buttons you chose are just perfect, too.

[flyinghooks]

Thanks guys for the input. I did what I call invisible weaving (aka mattress stitch I think). I think pulling in the low points of the steps made the high points bump out.... so maybe I should ease up on those low points?? I'll redo one sleeve tonight after I get the kids to bed...

[crochetfun]

No idea about the sleeve issue, but it's a lovely sweater and gorgeous buttons:)