Leigh's Fiber Journal: steeks

Showing posts with label steeks. Show all posts

Sunday, March 08, 2009

SSC: Finishing Touches

By Leigh

Two things remain to be done before I can wear my Shetland Sampler Cardigan:

1. Sewing on the buttons.

2. Finishing the raw edges left after sewing and cutting the steeks.

You can see all the cut yarn ends on the left when I fold back the front band. Apparently there are several ways to deal with these cut edges. In her Essential Techniques for Serious Knitters Peg Arnoldussen described knit-in facings to cover them. When I read that part of her booklet however, I didn't really comprehend what she was saying until now (sort of an "Oh! So that's what she meant" moment.)

Another option would be to handsew a ribbon facing over the raw edges, but I was concerned that these wouldn't have the give that the knitting does. The edges can be covered with crochet, but I wasn't certain how to do this. Finally I opted for the method Alice Starmore describes in The Celtic Collection. This involves a cross-stitching over the raw edges.

Tacking down the raw edge with cross-stitch.

The raw edges have been trimmed and I'm tacking them down with cross-stitch. It's not easy to get a self-explanatory photo of, but hopefully you get the gist of what I'm doing.

OK. I'll finish these little things up and then get a photo of the finished garment!

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Wound Neck Steek

By Leigh

Now that chilly weather has arrived, I have resumed knitting on my Shetland Sampler Cardigan.

You may recall that I put it down for the summer after completing the Siamese Sleeves. Besides the sleeves, the body of the sweater was largely done. Since it is being knit in the round, it was just too hot to work with in my lap. Now it's pleasant to have such a project on my lap (with or without cat).

I first contemplated knitting this project with steeks when it was still in the planning stages. With the help of a little book called Essential Techniques For Serious Knitters by Peg Arnoldussen (click here for more info on that), I've been able to muddle my way through checkerboard steeks for the front and sleeve openings. Those were fairly easy to master but now that I'm to the neck, a different type of steek is in order; a wound one.

Here's a first look at my somewhat sloppy wound steek.......

At first I thought I'd have to wind yarn the length of the neck opening, but it occurred to me, no I don't. The wound yarn ends up as waste anyway, so only a couple of winds around the needle are actually required. Because of that it doesn't lie flat for a photo, but that's okay too.

Since I'm not following a written down pattern, I'm pretty much having to wing it with just a written description of such a steek. I bound off the top of the front checkerboard steek, and also for the front neck shaping.

Now that I've gotten over the mental effort that the figuring out of this took, it's coming along fairly quickly. Before I know it I'll be ready graft the shoulders. I decided to go ahead and graft them, in keeping with Fair Isle knitting tradition (which this project is technically not.) After that comes the dreaded cutting of the fabric! (Or should I cut first and then do the shoulders? More decisions!)

I believe that this is the fastest I've ever knit any sort of sweater. If all goes well with the cutting, sewing, and band knitting, I may actually be able to wear it this winter!

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Siamese Sleeves Done!

By Leigh

I'm even amazed at this myself, because usually once hot weather arrives, I tend to abandon sweater knitting. But here they are:

The sleeves for my Shetland Sampler Cardigan. One of the steeks goes right up the center in this shot.

For some reason, it seemed that this was faster than knitting the two sleeves separately. This must be psychological, as I had to knit the same number of stitches either way.

Besides ripping out those two dark colors that I knitted too close together, I made one other color adjustment:

The two browns just didn't have enough contrast for that section of the pattern. Embroidering over the old stitches was quick and easy.

I'm not going to cut them apart until I finish the body of the sweater, which is knitted a little beyond the bottom of the sleeve opening. Then I'll do all the cutting and sewing at the same time. After I put all the pieces together, I'll do the cuffs and bands. The end if almost in sight.

Related posts:
A Contemplation On Knitting Sleeves - Which method?
Ready to Start Those Sleeves - Discovering Siamese Sleeves
Starting the Sleeves - Sleeve Increase Calculator
Technically Not Fair Isle - Defining Fair Isle Knitting
SSC Sleeves & Cuffs
Shetland Sampler Cardigan Complete!

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Starting The Sleeves

By Leigh

The Shetland Sampler Cardigan sleeves are officially begun!

The first thing I did was to click on over the The Knitting Fiend's online Sleeve Increase Calculator. By plugging in the number of rows to be knitted and the number of stitches in the first and last rows, instructions for the sleeve increases were automatically calculated for me. Here's what I got (click on the photo for an enlargement).

Should enlarge if you click the image

My next stop was Lucy Neatby's website to double check the instructions for the Siamese Sleeves.

Since I am knitting both sleeves at once, I had to double the number of stitches to cast on and add steeking stitches between the sleeves. This number of stitches was cast onto my 16 inch US2 circs with waste yarn (see "A Shetland COWYAK")

After a couple of rows of waste yarn, I started knitting with the yarn for the sleeves. I decided that I'd better use stitch markers to mark the beginning and end of both sleeves "just in case."

As long as I keep track of which row I'm on to get the increases properly placed, I should have properly fitting sleeves.

The other thing I've started on is the steeks for the armholes. These are technically checkerboard steeks, though as I mentioned before, the checkerboard effect is lost with the one color rows. The blue yarn marks the beginning of the steek, which is six stitches wide.

Wool Enough commented that the pattern appears to have black faced white sheep facing a brown fence. Can you see it? I'm delighted with that observation because like her, I too am rather wool obsessed!

Related Posts:
Ready to Start Those Sleeves - Discovering Siamese Sleeves
A Shetland COWYAK - Casting on with waste yarn.
Siamese Sleeves Done!
SSC Sleeves & Cuffs
Shetland Sampler Cardigan Complete!

Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Spinning & Knitting Update

By Leigh

I haven't blogged about spinning or knitting lately, because there really hasn't been much to write about since my last spinning and knitting post. But today I have two things to report:

1) Sunday, I finished spinning the last of the Shetland ...........

2) While contemplating the Fair Isle cardigan I plan to knit with it, I googled "Norwegian sweater patterns." Though I still have Fair Isle on my mind, I've been intrigued with Norwegian steeks every since I read this post on Alison's blog.

I have never knitted anything with steeks. It's been the sort of thing I have deliberately avoided. The idea of cutting into one's knitting is bad enough, but even worse, is the thought of having to weave in all those ends! Norwegian steeks however, use a different technique.

Thanks to my Google search, I found this little book, Essential Techniques For Serious Knitters, by Peg Arnoldussen. What a treasure this little volume is; it immediately took up permanent residence in my knitting basket.

This publication is actually a compilation of three earlier booklets by Peg, and more. I bought it for the section entitled "Scandinavian Cut Tube Sweaters," which explains the "how-to's" of Norwegian steeks: planning, placement, machine sewing, bands & plackets, and more.

Other sections in the booklet include: Cable Cast-On; French Hems; Seaming Techniques; Intarsia in the Round; Invisible Bind Offs, Cast-Ons, and Short Rows; Jogless Stripes in the Round; Kitchener Stitch; Knitting on Bands; Design Equations; Knitting Tips, and more.

Now that the spinning is done, my next step will be to finish measuring my yarns and to start planning where to use the colors. Then I can actually begin knitting! I'm very happy with the idea of knitting this in the round, but still a little nervous about the idea of the steeks. However, one can't walk on water if one doesn't get out of the boat, so here goes!

Pages