Steeking: the final frontier

This post is rated MA for yarn carnage.

I cut my first steek last night. Here, let me show you.


Knitters: "Oh god! The horror!" (fainting)

Non-knitters and advanced, steek-happy knitters: "Uh-huh. And?"

I had no idea whether this would work. The yarn I'm using is superwash, so the fibers don't cling to one another like ideal steeking yarn does, and the edge certainly won't felt. At first, looking at all the little frayed edges, I imagined horrible unravelings and the ghost of the sweater haunting me in my dreams. But no - once I started picking up stitches and knitting the button band, the steeked edge very politely folded itself over and let me work. No unraveling!

The right side of the button bands looks just fine, aside from a slight mistake with the button row that I don't really mind.


This is the current state of the sweater:


I'm going to sew a thick line of ribbon over the steeked edge on the inside of the cardigan once all the ends are woven in and whatnot. I'll miss being able to flash those gory edges at people.