my favorite new skill
Crocheted steeks rock. It's a lot quicker and less fiddly than I anticipated. So far I've done the neck steek and one of the armholes, using leftover Wildfoote sock yarn. (Sparkly purple - enough contrast that I can see it well when crocheting with it, but similar enough to the sweater colors that it wouldn't look out of place if you caught a glimpse of the inside of the sweater.)
I decided to use the Schoolhouse Press method, which meant using slipped stitch crochet stitches (instead of single crochet), and going up the left side and down the right side. I interpreted the advice for securing the bottom and top stitches in the steek sections (the cast on row and live stitches at the top) as best I could. There's a technique described in Sweaters From Camp that involves grafting the live stitches at the top, but I wasn't clear on how that would really help me, or how it would act when I made the cut. I decided it would work if I just crocheted into those live stitches at the top, which for me was three stitches on either side of the center stitch that was to be cut. It seems to have worked just fine.
All of the photos have notes in Flickr, so if you're confused about what part of the photo is what, click on through to the Flickr page.
Post-crocheting, pre-cutting
I didn't cut more than 2 stitches at a time. I wanted to make sure that I didn't even come close to cutting the crochet.
This is the top right corner of an armhole steek. You can see how I started crocheting at the top right edge of the steek stitches (into the live stitch loops at the top), then made a 90 degree turn and crocheted down the steek.
The right side and wrong side of the cut fabric, showing what the crochet looks like from either side. Neat, pretty, and secure!
(The more I type the word "crochet", the weirder it looks.)
I decided to use the Schoolhouse Press method, which meant using slipped stitch crochet stitches (instead of single crochet), and going up the left side and down the right side. I interpreted the advice for securing the bottom and top stitches in the steek sections (the cast on row and live stitches at the top) as best I could. There's a technique described in Sweaters From Camp that involves grafting the live stitches at the top, but I wasn't clear on how that would really help me, or how it would act when I made the cut. I decided it would work if I just crocheted into those live stitches at the top, which for me was three stitches on either side of the center stitch that was to be cut. It seems to have worked just fine.
All of the photos have notes in Flickr, so if you're confused about what part of the photo is what, click on through to the Flickr page.
Post-crocheting, pre-cutting
I didn't cut more than 2 stitches at a time. I wanted to make sure that I didn't even come close to cutting the crochet.
This is the top right corner of an armhole steek. You can see how I started crocheting at the top right edge of the steek stitches (into the live stitch loops at the top), then made a 90 degree turn and crocheted down the steek.
The right side and wrong side of the cut fabric, showing what the crochet looks like from either side. Neat, pretty, and secure!
(The more I type the word "crochet", the weirder it looks.)
posted by Rebekkah at 12:01 PM
5 Comments:
I still feel like hyperventilating whenever I see steeks...probably because my first experience with it was so disastrous!
Your work looks terrific! Great, great job.
Looks great! A really close colour, but different enough to be effective....too bad all the colours in mine are sooooooo amazingly different, else I'd give that idea a go, myself.
I'm envious. I've been sooo slow on my vest **hangs head in shame**
I've used this technique before, but never thought about doing the 90 degree turn - will have to remember this for next time.
I looove crocheting steeks so, so much. I was kind of sad when I had finished all of them on my sweater. I got too excited with mine, though, and on the very last one snipped too much and spent two hours fixing the damage. Ugh. Much better to be careful.
Thank you for the photos!!! Now I understand what you meant about crocheting around the top of the steek. Want to bet the second steek on this SFC sweater will be a bit neater?
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