Steeking

Sunday, February 01, 2009

Long ago I promised a post on my steeking experience but when it came down to cutting the steek the camera battery was dead so I had to resort to taking pics with my phone camera because... well, I wasn't going to wait to charge the camera battery.

I have to preface this all by admitting when I heard what steeking was my first thought was not "Yikes!  Cutting knitting!  Oh, the horror!" it was "Whoa, that's so cool!  I have to try it!"  I'm a process knitter and steeking is a damn cool process.  I just wasn't expecting my first try to be on such an involved project... I pictured it more like a swatch or something.

So when it came time to cut the steek on Little Birds, the instructions said if I had used a nice, hairy, sticky yarn I didn't need to reinforce the steek.  I used the recommended hairy, sticky yarn so I didn't reinforce.  I just took the scissors, and cut.

I held my breath and was half-expecting the yarn to unravel even though I'd seen how crazy sticky this stuff was throughout the knitting of the sweater.  I can assure you that it didn't and even now that I've worn it several (many) times, it's just gotten more sticky rather than less.  This sucker isn't going anywhere.

I wish I had taken a picture as I was picking up the stitches for the collar because it was amazing how beautifully the steek stitches folded back and flattened down.  I still find it a little amazing how nicely this all came together.

Here is me proudly wearing my finished, sans buttons, sweater for the first time.  ...and you know the rest of the story.  This is my favorite sweater ever.  I highly recommend Ysolda's patterns as they are very well-written and well worth the effort.

------

Current knitting: still working on my sister's mittens and sort of working on a hat/bonnet thing for myself.  Thinking about starting some new socks.