Friday, February 20, 2009

Steeking is Scary (but very fun)

I am knitting a cardigan for Brielle. It is a Starsky Jr. cardigan which has a pretty leaf cable down the front. I don't like using a cable needle, I prefer to use travelling stitches, and I find it much much easier to do this from the right side of the work. So, I decided to knit the jacket in one piece in the round for the body. To do this I had to Steek the work.

I joined the front of the work with 4 stitches down the middle - two purl stitches down the very middle bordered by a knit through the back loop either side of them (ala EZ in Knitter's Almanac). I also cast on 4 stitches after the initial castoff on the arm holes and did likewise.


I sewed three lines of very small machine sewed stitches down each line of ktbl stitches - I was using a very slippery cotton/bamboo yarn and it was likely to pull out with a crocheted edging or a single sewed line.

Then, I put a book down the middle (so as to not cut the back piece like I would otherwise). Got the scissors out......

And started cutting........
Oh my goodness, my heart was racing cutting into perfectly good knitting like that. I was so worried about doing it wrong and stuffing it all up. But it ended up just fine.......


3 comments:

  1. Oh my gosh! You are way braver then I am! I saw this in a magazine the other day and was just flabbergasted. You did a great job!

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  2. How weird. I was reading a knitting book the other day and heard about steeking for the first time (and was suitably horrified by the idea!!!), and now you are writing about it. How are a braver woman than I am.

    By the way, I suck at short rows. I thought I was doing everything right, but they definitely don't look right. Everything else on the longies seems to be going OK though.

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  3. Gulp. I remember my Granny doing her steeking....the whole house would wait with baited breath! Shannon, you are a braver woman than I. BEAUTIFUL colour too......

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