sliding down a slippery slope, with scissors

I finally have returned to working on my cruise wardrobe, about time since we are leaving in two weeks.  I was distracted by a desperate need for black t-shirts.  That vacancy filled I am ready to move on.  I decided to sew the periwinkle "pebble weave" knit from Nancy Erickson.

This proved to be a more complicated task than I anticipated.  I washed all the periwinkle knits some weeks ago and folded them neatly without pressing on the assumption that I would end up pressing them again before cutting anyway.  When I got the periwinkle pebble weave knit out and put it on the ironing board I started in the normal way, pinning the selvedge in a straight line along one of the grid marks.  Then I really began to notice the texture of the knit.  The little "pebbles" are little yarns carried purlwise over some knit stitches, making a pattern like waves or pebbles, depending the direction from which you look at the fabric.  When I look at the back of the fabric you clearly see the rows of knits and purls and the selvedge edge seems to be almost biased, as if it was cut about 75 degrees off grain.  This seemed very strange to me, but as I looked at the entire fabric and squared it up I realized that the fabric was not indeed square, and in fact this accounted for the funny jagged edge the supposed "selvedge" acquired on washing. 

I suppose the fabric was knit tubularly and then cut before placing on the bolt; it was apparently not cut with great care or attention, the edges are erratically raveled and whoever cut it made no attempt to see if it was straight or to follow the clearly delineated vertical pattern of the knitted rows.   Perhaps this is all done on a machine and the fabric got twisted somehow, which would account for the cutting.   When I bought the fabric it was cut perpendicular to the selvege in the standard fashion, and I am sure that Nancy did not notice that the fabric was not square.  In fact the nature of this knit is that from the front, the fabric looks "right" from almost any angle, so unless one really analyzed the stitches on would not notice the direction of the knitting.

I have doubts about cutting this fabric on the bias or 30 degree bias, I am not sure this is the best way to cut knit garments, and if I squared based on the selvege that is what I would be doing.  I painstakingly pressed the knitting lines as straight as possible and given the small guage this was quite a challenge.  I placed the fabric eccentrically on the cutting table, trying to mark and pin straight grids to indicate the grain of the knitting, not the edges of the piece, which were about 30 degrees off.

It is proving to be an interesting challenge in cutting.  Luckily  I bought plenty of fabric, because I did not plan to cut the fabric on the bias, which takes extra yardage.  An interesting concept that:  I am almost cutting on the bias as the piece is cut off the bolt, but by doing so my fabric is on the straight of grain.  Life is not always what it seems, is it?

I wonder if anyone else noticed this with this fabric.  I wonder if the same thing will be true with the next piece, the aqua one.  I am glad that I can mark the pieces, be sure that each one is square and trace it directly onto the fabric on the stitching lines.  Then I double check my grain and cut using the offset rotatary cutter.  In fact this is the first time I have used this cutter.  I used to draw the stitching lines and painstakingly measure all the seam allowances with a compass and measuring stick, making little dots and then tracing the cutting line.  This is much faster.  I’ll take anything that makes the process easier without sacrificing accuracy.