Late But Not Forgotten

This post was supposed to be all about the trials I went through to complete that "easy" knit-in-the-round hoodie. Well, by altering the pattern to knit it in the round, I lulled myself into thinking it was going to be a breeze. By the time I stopped knitting endless rounds of stockinette, I realized I was two inches past where I should have broken for armholes. I ripped out two inches and continued to complete the back, the front, the three-needle bind off at the shoulders, and was halfway finished with the hood when I realized I hadn't been 2 inches off after all. I was five and a half inches off!

I panicked for a minute, then considered my options. I could rip out all of my tedious work, which involved a fiddly neckline, shoulder seams, and different balls of yarn attached in different places, or...I could steek.

I have never steeked before. This was a very scary thing to consider.

I emailed my brother. He was freaked out too.

But one of my goals this year was to learn how to steek, so it might as well be now, right?

With some help from Eunny Jang, I made a practice swatch, reinforced the steek line with crocheted stitches, and cut it:

Since I was making the sweater with fake side seams (a column of purl stitches on each side), I knit my swatch the way too, and added a yarnover at the top of the column. I cut the steek, and it was kind of fun! The crochet stitches held the cut ends very tightly. In fact, The Brain took my swatch and tried to stretch it and rip the stitches out, but they held on.

So, I learned a useful new skill, and more importantly, I learned that it's not scary! I plan on using steeking a lot more in the future. :)