Steek it.

Steek it good.

Today was steek-cutting day, since I finished the shoulder straps last evening, late. Then this evening I fit it to the husbeast, figure out what I'm doing with the neck, and after that it's just button bands and finishing. It may actually get done by Friday (now that I've said that, something disastrous is going to happen and it will take six weeks to finish the button band, I should know better).

Anyway, I used the crocheted steek (discussed in "Sweaters from Camp" and "Meg Swanson's Knitting", both by Meg Swanson. There is a variation on it in "Color" by Sally Melville). First thing you do is knit a checkerboarded steek. You only need three stitches for it, which is a major improvemenet over the machine-stitched steek because I can't sew a straight line and need at least seven stitches, or nine, to machine stitch one. Plus I don't have to drag out the sewing machine. And a crocheted steek has a little more stretch to it.

Sooooo, all you really do is use single-stitch crochet and work two columns of stitches together, making sure to get one stitch of each color, each time.

Unfortunately the damn photo came out blurry... this camera can't do closeups. I've yet to take a single one that looks good.

Anyway, after you chain-stitch both sides of the steek, you carefully cut the little cross-bars of yarn left between the chains:


Go get one of the books and read, then look at the pictures. It will make sense. I promise.

Anyway, once everything was cut, I laid out the jacket, and it looks good! Yay!

At this stage, the decrease method calls for more back-and-forth, like a giant shoulder strap, at the back of the neck to raise it up. But I'm wondering if a nice wide collar/button band would do the trick (this is the part that turned out wonky, the last time I did this decrease method). That's the decision that gets made tonight when the husbeast tries it on.

And now, the blue scarf. Yipee. And then the purple one. And then...