Introducing Assembly Tab Edging (specific directions coming next week)

I was wondering how to add a knitted edging to a piece of fabric so that the cut edge would be neatly encased.  There is probably something brilliant that Alasdair Post-Quinn has discovered about double knitting that would work here, but Assembly Tab Braid came to me as I was getting sleepy one night.  Dan named it Assembly Tab Braid on a later morning when I was showing him my Dayflower edging sample, I was excited that I’d figured out something in lace, he was interested in the 3D tabs.  He was right, the tabs are cool!  I’d wanted something like Mary Thomas’s Picot Cast On, but doubled.

It works this way: you knit a garter stitch strip with a two lines of holes in it, bind off when it’s the right number of holes, then fold it in half.  You either pick up and knit stitches from the pair of holes, or work an applied edging to it.  What about the bind off edge?  I haven’t figured out a way to use the Assembly Tab Braid as an applied edging, but you can graft it to the end of your other knitting.

Some design considerations: the ratio of braid holes to stitches or rows might or might not be a perfect fit.  Garter stitch is stretchy, especially in wool, but it’s always good to compare blocked samples first, then determine how to match them up.   The formula for even spacing will help.  (Thank you Shirley Paden!)

It’s not necessary to use the same weight of yarn for the braid and the edging, or to match their colors.  The open look of the holes might not be appropriate in all applications, but if the braid is made of a finer yarn, and the edging from a heavier or hairier one, the holes will fill in.

When you want to attach the knitted edge to fabric, you fold the tabs around the edge and sew through all layers.  Or you can sew the braid to an edge of fabric and then pick up and knit the stitches, or work an applied edging to it.

Now, whenever I introduce an idea I’ve had, I always wonder if it’s truly new (and worry that someone will inform me harshly that it isn’t.)  I’ve never seen this braid before, but if any of you readers have, please let me know in the comments, because I’m interested in whatever else that source has about edgings.

I’m planning to give the specific instructions for Assembly Tab Braid next Friday, photos of using it after that, and the instructions for Dayflower Edging later on as a New Year’s Present to Knitters.