Wednesday, October 3, 2007

A preview

Dear friends,

I have become a very bad blogger for the last couple of weeks. I left the last post with a teaser about steeking, and then cheerfully went about my life, not steeking at all. Shameful. In my defense, there have been issues, namely:


  • I didn't have a zipper yet, and I wanted to buy the zipper before I steeked.

  • It has been raining, and the light has not been good for photos.

  • Ravelry is the biggest time-sucker ever invented.

  • When I finally bought the zipper, I got it home to find out it's not the kind that separates at the bottom.

  • Job, family, housework...

So I steeked my swatch, which is what I was going to do first all along.

Before:After:

I used a crocheted reinforcement, described by Eunny Jang in this amazing tutorial. And that link is just one article of seven on steeking. The crochet added a good bit of structure, and it was just a matter of carefully snipping, one at a time, the strands between the two lines of crochet. The fabric has held together nicely, despite being turned into a headscarf for the cat, who did not want to wear it (sorry, didn't get any pictures of that). What I haven't done for this swatch was to turn the edges under and tack them to the inside. I'll do that for the sweater itself.

So, really, really, next time there will be pictures to document each step of the sweater steeking itself. As long as it's sunny.

2 comments:

Jo at Celtic Memory Yarns said...

Well done you for taking the plunge! I simply have not had the nerve to steek - I see it as a bit like open heart surgery and DIY ear piercing combined... But you make it sound almost feasible, for which my thanks!

Joanna said...

Looking good Kim, can't wait to see the steeked sweater, going to be as smooth and silky as chocolate!