This week I finished up knitting the body of my stranded vest, and prepped to steek. As anxious as I was to slice it open and see if it fit well, there were a few steps I needed to take beforehand to keep it all neat and tidy.
The many many loose ends from the start-of-round color changes I snug up to get the stitches tensioned evenly, loosely tie in pairs and, lay out horizontally. Then I tacked down lightly with a couple strands of waste yarn to keep them out of the way.
Next I gave the whole vest a light steam block from the reverse side.
I did a little bit of needle felting of the steek stitches for good measure, and took to the snips!
And just like that, a wonky tube turns into a vest! The beauty of this method is that all those multicolor ends just come away when the front is opened. No weaving in necessary 🙂
Next step- picking up stitches for the button band (4 stitches every 5 rows)
then the tubular caston for the doubleknit buttonband (15 stitches)-
I’m not quite halfway around now, but took a little break to find some suitable buttons
I’m really enjoying how the white buttonband looks so crisp against the changing color stripes. I changed out my original yarn choice for the buttonband to a little bit lighter selection- a new spin fresh off of Marjorie the CPW and chain plied on Sophie. Its the Diné fiber that I picked up at the PNW Fiber Expo a few weeks back.
So that’s this week in wool. Hopefully will have something to model for y’all next time-
Your knitting expertise always blows me out of the water! If we were neighbors I would be spending as much time as you’d allow to grow my skills and use up my yarn stash, both handspun and commercial.
aw, thanks Michelle- I don’t feel like an expert, but have definitely gotten more confident with the steeking!
That’s amazing!!! I love the colors and especially the buttons. Good work. Cutting the steek stitches is always scary.
thanks Donna. I’m pretty excited about how it’s turning out. The buttons are so fun to mix and match- especially with something like this where there are so many colors.