Seaming My Caddy Cardigan

Yesterday I hinted that there'd be lots of pictures coming today.  Well, here they are.  I got my cardigan seamed together yesterday using the mattress stitch (see the link in yesterday's post).  This worked wonderfully.  I stood at my washing machine for about 3+ hours since it was the right height for me to work on.  Wednesday night I made a mad dash to JoAnn's to buy one of these:

It's a fabulous folding Ott Lite that runs on 3 AAA batteries.  It's a must have item -- on sale right now for $9.99!  I used it to shine directly on the pieces as I sewed them together.

I started by washing the pieces of the cardigan in the kitchen sink and then partially dried them in the dryer.  They were HUGE when I washed them so I was worried but the returned to their original sizes -- thank goodness!

I don't exactly have blocking boards (yet!) but I made do with the June Taylor mat and my ironing board.

Once the pieces were dry I began to stitch them together.  Here's the finished shoulder seam:

It's not the sweetest seam ever because the front is in pattern and the back is stockinette.  I can live with it.

I used these handy-dandy hair clips (couldn't find my fancy ones that are actually for putting sweaters together) to line up my sleeves with the body:

They really worked well and made the process much easier.

Here's the finished sleeve to body seam:

Pretty sweet, eh?  Now I'm ready to pick up and knit the neck edge and button bands.  After that I need some buttons and I can wear this cardigan!