Cutting the Steeks
How do you turn a weird tube like this into an actual garment?
- Have a big glass of wine.
- Break out the sewing machine and carefully sew down the middle of the 1st and 3rd stitches of the 3-stitch steeks you put in for the neck and sleeve holes.
- Stitch over those lines again. Seriously. And really go back and forth at the top and bottom a few times.
- CUT THE SUCKERS.
- Put it on and pray it fits, and that you haven’t turned $150 worth of Silk Garden into a big pile of short pieces of yarn.
- Have another glass of wine.
I started with the neckline first, and here’s what I got when I opened it up. It’s like magic! It worked perfectly. Emboldened, I moved onto the sleeves. Once I had those cut, I went back to my shoulder stitches (patiently waiting on scrap wool) and did a three-needle cast-off to create the shoulder seams. Then I tried the sucker on. It actually fits! HURRAH! I’m waiting to cut the front though; I figure there’s no point in doing it until I’m ready to sew in the zipper. I decided to dive right in on the collar rather than start the sleeves. Unfortunately I’m having to improvise a bit here. The stupid Debbie Bliss pattern book doesn’t even SHOW a picture of the collar, nor do they include any schematics so I know what it’s supposed to look like. I also immediately ran into the problem that my neckline is a lot deeper than hers is. (She has an infuriating habit of assuming you get exactly the same row gauge she does, so she doesn’t bother specifying what length things are supposed to be.) So instead of picking up 13 stitches along the side of the neck, I picked up 37. That meant I had to invent a bunch of cables along that side. I think it’s going to look good though…
9 responses
looks great sorry to have missed you last night need to talk sock wars
oooohhh very nice Kris!
I also have to e-mail you about the Guild site, Miss Fee. I’ve had inspiration to go in a whole new direction with the group subsites…
Looks great! Looking forward to the finished pics. I don’t bother with the sewing machine, I just crochet a line up the inside and let rip. 🙂 I’m scared I’ll stretch it on the sewing machine.
Yeah, I thought about doing the crochet because it would look nicer, but I was in such a fervor to sew and cut last night that I didn’t want to waste time looking up how to do the crochet. 🙂
I think it would definitely be a good idea to do on the fronts though. I may bring it to SSK next time and see if you can give me a quick lesson, if you don’t mind…
Sure, I don’t mind. Seeing it’s so thick, maybe you could use a thinner matching yarn. You don’t see it on the front, it turns under the edge. Email me if you want more info. See you next week!
Gorgeous work – you’re braver than I am!
See, now you’ll be hooked on steeking forever 🙂 It’s really not that hard, although the glass of wine certainly helps the first time.
This is actually the second time; I did it once before. But that time I was following a pattern and this time I was striking out on my own! 🙂