Thursday, December 20, 2012

eeek! I did a steek!

 Every Winter I wish that I had knitted a Christmas sweater. This summer I started one. I did the majority of the boring mindless knitting in the hot summer months and this Fall I began the Fair Isle yoke. Knitting a bottom up sweater in the round makes Fair Isle knitting fast and fun. But I like cardigans, this required cutting the thing up the front. It's called steeking. Whenever I talk about steeking it strikes fear in the average knitter. Well I'm here to tell you that it wasn't all that scary!

On the right you see me with most of the knitting done.
(click on photos to make 'em bigger)
Next I needed to make teenie tiny stitches with a needle and thread (two rows of them) up the column of stitches next to where I would cut the steek stitches. I marked them in pink in the photo below.
Then came the exciting part. I took a pair of sharp scissors and carefully cut....stitch by stitch. Nothing came apart. Nothing bad happened. In fact, a simply 
lovely cardigan happened.

I even held the video camera in one hand and cut with the other.
view the action below:

 



Ta Daaaa!!!! After picking up stitches all along the folded cut edge for the ribbed button band and sewing on the pewter Christmas tree buttons I now have the sweater I imagined.

pattern found on Ravelry: Plum Frost Cardigan
yarn: Brown Sheep "Nature Spun DK"

3 comments:

  1. Hi Peggy! Happy new year! I like the christmasy-scandinavian style sweater! I was wondering if you ever knit Jeff any hats. I'm just getting started knitting and wanted to do a Jeff inspired pattern if you have any ideas! :)

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    Replies
    1. Hello Gloria- I didn't start knitting in earnest until 2000 so I hadn't made him a hat. If I were to picture him in a hat I guess it would be a slouchy beanie. Keep up the knitting!

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  2. You are brave! I still haven't done a steek, although it's more out of laziness (knitting a sweater takes me a long time) than fear of it unraveling. Did you use regular sewing thread for the stitches?

    ReplyDelete

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