Steeks, beta version, part 3: real world tricks and tips

Today's post, third in a series, shows how to adapt the new faced steek method to the real world. (The first post, an introduction, can be found here, the second post, showing the basic method, is found here.) Today's post shows adaptations for a full length steek in a one-color or striped garment.  (Note added 2024. When first published in 2013, this was a new trick. But it isn't beta any longer: it has been tested and proven.)

Adapting this steek to real life--tricks and tips

converting a purl column
to be a knit column on
the reverse stockinette
(purl) face of the fabric

A TRICK FOR TIGHTER ANCHOR COLUMNS: COLUMN CONVERSION
The facings are anchored into the garment though a purl column (purl as seen from the smooth side of stockinette fabric). To get the tightest possible purl column, don't actually knit the purl column at the time of making the garment. 

Instead, work the entire fabric in stockinette. 

Afterwards, locate, then drop (run out) the correct column, making a ladder (dark green). 

Flip the fabric. Working from the reverse stockinette (bumpy) side use a crochet hook to ladder the run back up as a knit column (darker green). The opposite of a knit column is a purl, so on the front (smooth side) of the fabric, this trick creates a purl column.

This trick of running out a column and hooking it back up from the reverse is called "converting" a column. The purl columns in the original post were converted using this trick. Just don't drop the ladder so far that the foundation stitch(es) come loose.

If converting a column on an existing garment, then once you have live loops at the top or bottom of the column to be run out (more on this below) you can convert the purl column either working bottom-up, or from the neck down, whichever is most convenient.  In stockinette, working against the direction of the original work (i.e.: bottom-up in a top-down knit or top-down in a bottom-up knit) amounts only to a half-stitch difference, a difference very nearly undetectable.

ADDING A FACED STEEK to an EXISTING GARMENT
 If using this method to add a faced steek to an already-created garment, the first issue is to get live stitches, and the second issue is whether you want the top and bottom bands to cover the steeked front bands (called a "discontinuous front band") or whether you prefer to have the front bands run all the way from top to bottom ("continuous front band").  (Of course, a hybrid front band is also possible--different at the top than the bottom.)

For a discontinuous front band, remove the existing neck and bottom band, thus exposing live stitches along the garment edge.  Next, the purl (anchor) column would be converted from an existing knit column, per above. The front bands (i.e.: the faced steek) would be added next. After the front bands have been added, the bottom and neck bands would be re-knit, picking up stitches right through the bottom and top edges of the steek. This seals the steek-tube shut and lays the neck and bottom bands over the front bands. In the illustration to the left, the top- and bottom-band stitches picked up through the facings are indicated by in red. 

For a continuous front band, you would steek right through the existing bottom and neck band.  Best would be to undo the bind off at both top and bottom bands and put these on holders--this gives you the necessary live loops for the purl column conversion, as well as setting the stage for prettier bind off. Once the original band stitches are on a holder, the next step is to convert the purl column (either from the top or the bottom, makes no difference). After the steek and its facings are completed, the top and the bottom of the steek would be open, as indicated by the red stars on the illustration to the right. To close them, you'd pick up stitches through the ends of the steek--in other words, through both layers of the facing, both top and bottom, then bind off these newly-picked up stitches in one continuous line with the band bind-off. This creates one uniform line of bind-off at bottom and top edge, while at the same time closing the top and bottom of the open steek tube. 

What if your garment is made in a textured pattern?  Let's look at the original chart from the previous post (click to enlarge).

In addition to converting the purl column, you might want to consider converting the columns in your garment which correspond to columns 18 and 5, as well as the 14/15/16 set and the 7/8/9 set.  This will yield a smooth front band.  It also surrounds the (converted) purl columns (17 and 6) with stockinette fabric, thus assuring that these columns recede into the surrounding stockinette fabric, the better to hide the anchor anchored-in facing stitches. There is no reason to convert the 12/13 columns, nor the 10/11 columns, they will be hidden inside the steek-tube.

WIDTH
The spacing above yields the narrowest faced steek which will remain structurally stable in use. However, nothing stops you from making the outer facing wider. On the chart, this meansadding additional columns between columns 7/8 as well as between 15/16. There's no need to add additional columns between 10/11 and 12/13, two columns to curl under, either side of the cut is sufficient.  However, you would need to knit more rows on the inner facing to match the width of the now-wider outer facing.

BUTTONS, BUTTONHOLES and ALTERNATE CLOSURES
If you use faced steeks to make the front bands on a cardigan, you can simply sew buttons on one side, no problem. Buttonholes are a bit more complicated. 

Option 1: consider machine-made buttonholes.  Commercially-knit Norwegian-type sweaters often employ this trick. Most sewing machines with a button-hole function can handle knitwear, especially if you use a ball-pointed machine needle meant for knits and loosen up the tension so the feed dogs don't catch the yarn.  HOWEVER, TRY THIS ON A SWATCH FIRST (or get an experienced seamstress to do it for you!) 

If you do choose this option, perhaps widen the bands per above,, so that the buttonholes need go through only two layers (the inner and outer facings) avoiding the curled ends caught inside. 

Option 2:  This post shows several different ways of adding buttonholes after the fact such as slip-stitch loop buttonholes, or attached I-cord loop buttonholes. The post also shows alternatives to buttonholes such as buttons with snaps underneath--you still get the button look, but no need for button holes. 

Option 3: alternate closures. Here is a post which shows all kinds of alternatives to buttonholes: toggles, clasps, etc. In fact, ornamented pewter or even silver clasps are the traditional method for closing blind-banded sweaters.

Option 4: For real knit-in buttonholes, you'd make the standard narrow facing, then extending the facing PAST the steek and knitting real buttonholes into this extension--see below.

FRONT BAND EXTENSIONS
Suppose, on the grand finale step for making faced steeks, you did not bind off the inner facing loops through the stabilized edge. Suppose, instead, that as you withdrew the waste yarn, stitch by stitch, you pulled one live loop from the inner facing through the corresponding stitch in the stabilized edge as the waste yarn came out. The result would look like this:

Facing stitches pulled through
the stabilized edge, including a close-up of the live loops

Now there's a series of live loops, and, wow--whenever knitting features live loops these allow all sorts of creativity. Here, those live loops would make a lovely base for a front band extension. In other words, once you've drawn the live loops of the facing through the stabilized edge, you would then continue knitting the front band on these loops, each row running the entire length of the front band, using the same yarn as you used for the facing. If you used a non-curling stitch like garter stitch, and a one-row buttonhole like the Tulips buttonhole, the below illustration shows the result. 

Tulips buttonhole on a front band extension. Here, the extension is bound off in the mc, but it could have been bound off in the cc of the extension

To get very fancy, consider a fold-over facing extension, with or without the mc for the fold-line.  Into the resulting double-layer buttonhole band, you can make really pretty buttonholes by lining up waste-yarn buttonholes on both fabric faces of the extension, as below.

 Remove the waste yarn to get live stitches as below.

 If you work the two buttonholes closed together, the final result would be as below.**

 

Naturally, with front band extensions, you'd want to make the garment fronts narrower to allow for this wider band. Conversely, if your garment had somehow come out too narrow, you could widen it via a front band extension, one on each garment front, which is a heck of a good trick to know.***

ZIPPERS
If you consider inserting a zipper my no-sew way, you'll see that the zipper flange fits very very neatly between the inner and outer facings. It would be best to attach the zipper flange to the inside of the facing first, then cut the steek, then trap when attaching the zipper/facing combo to the stabilized edge.  You can use the zipper live-loop method, or the zipper chain-loop method, as explained in the zipper post. For live loops, draw the facing loops through the zipper edge, then continue the 3-in-1-trick as usual. With the chain-loop trick shown at the zipper post, you would draw the final slip stitch of the 3-in-1 steek trick through the chain made on the zipper, rather than through a live loop, inserting the crochet hook sideways--as soon as you go to try this (on a swatch!!) you'll see what I mean.

COLOR and YARN
If you really want a matching-color facing but can't find a matching color in a thinner yarn, consider harvesting thinner yarn by unspinning.

Another option would be to use the main yarn for the facing, but knit on smaller needles. Certain wools compress surprisingly, especially lofty wools.  However, tighter spun or thicker premium yarns do not compress as successfully. Either unspin to get thinner splits, or consider needlepoint yarns.  

Needlepoint yarns are very long-staple pure wools which wear like iron, sold in little skeins or in cut lengths--get the skeins.  These come in hundreds of colors. Even in skein put-up, needlepoint yarns have limited yardage, but for a facing, you don't need much yarn. Plus, being pure wool, needlepoint yarns take very kindly to being felted together (spit-spliced) end-to-end. Further, needlepoint yarns come packaged three strands together. These strands are easy to separate, so you can choose to knit with only two of the stands, or even just one strand, making for a thinner facing as well as greater usable yardage/skein. 

For a contrast color (cc) facing, it's easy--choose a thinner yarn in a contrasting color--sock yarns are a good choice, or needlepoint yarns. The purl row through which the facing anchors recedes amazingly, a little canyon in the fabric. The cc color anchored along the bottom edge of this tight little canyon is almost invisible. You'd have to grab the fabric and stretch to see the cc dots at all. To absolutely avoid peep-through, pick up through the anchor column using a split of the mc yarn, then switch to the thinner cc in the first row of knitting. For the final step (the three-in-one trick from the previous post) you'd switch back to the mc yarn.

...and, the final trick of this post:
A METHOD for IMPROVING the TOP and BOTTOM of the STEEK
The top and bottom of the steek is the area with the most chance for cut ends to show, wear and eventually unravel in a potentially calamitous way. This is because the attachment of the facing and the outer fabric leave a gap at the top and bottom, and therefore provide the least amount of support for the cut ends in these areas.

If you want to put a steek into an already-knit garment, then you will have to resort to needle and thread to sew down the top and bottom right over the edge of the fabric.  Then, either sew the bottom of the facing-fabric sandwich closed, or pick up stitches for the bands right through both layers (but not the cut edges) thus knitting the opening shut, as discussed above (continuous bands).

However, if you are knitting a garment with the purpose to steek it later, you can substantially improve the top and bottom of the steek if you are willing to do just a few rows of flat knitting before and after the circular (tube) knitting into which you will cut the steek.  These few rows of flat knitting (back and forth) create a little notch at the top and bottom of the steek. Because the sides of this notch are ordinary knit edges (i.e.: not cut-edges) they will not (in fact, they cannot) unravel, and the problem is solved. When you do this trick, you still run the anchor columns all the way to the top and bottom, it's just the top and bottom of the steek itself which is notched. 

--TK
_____

**These buttonholes were made by simply pulling the live stitches through one another, each through the next, all the way around, then tacking off the last loop. You could also Kitchener-stitch the buttonholes closed, the front one to the back one.

**If making a steeked garment bottom-up, try the tube on BEFORE you get to the height of the armholes. If it turns out that it is going to be a bit tight, work your design so that the steeks for the armholes are placed in the correct location to make the garment BACK wide enough. In other words, the armhole slits will not be situated 180 degrees apart from one another, because the back will be wider than the front. After steeking, widen the front to match the back by adding front band extensions. 

Steeks! BETA part 2: the basic method for a faced steek

Overview

The first post of this series laid out what steeks are, what a facing is, and what yarn is best to use. 

This post shows the step-by step tutorial for a faced steek with no sewing involved. Instead the edges are stabilized with a crocheted slip-stitch, then cut, then covered with a previously-prepared knitted facing. This is the sort of steek you might put into a striped or one-color sweater. 

 If you choose to try this method on a garment, proceed with the warning that this is a new trick, not yet fully garment-tested. 

(Addendum, many years later: at the time this series was written, the process was experimental, but now it has been time tested and proven to work.)

 Intro

Everything about this trick is driven by the fear that, once cut, the cut-edge is liable to disintegrate. Although long-fiber and "rustic-type" wools can take a certain amount of handling after cutting, the more common soft and lofty "Germantown-type" wools are more delicate.  And with any kind of yarn, over-handling or pulling can turn that cut-edge into a truly terrifying mess of loose ends.

To minimize the amount of time during which the cut-edge is exposed, there's a lot of set-up before the cut, followed by steps to quickly seal the cut-edge afterwards. Many steps overall, but resulting in a sturdy professional edge with no further finishing other than running in the tails, and no chance of unraveling.

 Materials

• Main color (mc): a half-ounce of a soft and lofty multiple-ply wool yarn in worsted weight--the kind of yarn usually knit at 5st/inch.  Some common brand names of this type of yarn are: Ella Rae Classic, Cascade 220, Pattons Classic Wool.* The sample swatch is knit in an mc of Cascade 220 in green.........
• Contrast color (cc): a quarter ounce of a lighter weight yarn in a contrasting color for the facing. The sample cc is a sport-weight lavender ........ wool of unknown origin.
• knitting needles correctly sized for the mc yarn
• another set of knitting needles three sizes smaller than the one used for the mc, as well as a small crochet hook
• bright-colored waste yarn, a few yards, in a color unlike mc or cc. The sample uses a single strand of blue ........ needlepoint wool.
• scissors

Order of the work 

• Using mc and larger needles, knit the fabric swatch, color coded in this post in green ........
• Using crochet hook and smaller knitting needles, locate the purl columns (also color-coded green ........)  which act as an anchor for the facing.  Use that column to pick up the stitches for one long edge of the facing ........ then knit the facing, but do not bind off.  Repeat for the second facing.
• Using the crochet hook and the waste yarn ........ we'll fold and stabilize the garment edge.  Once the garment edge has been created by the folding, it is shown in bright green ........ 
• Cut the steek--the scissors!  In the illustrations the cut is signified in red ........
• With the crochet hook, immediately attach the unbound long edge of the facing ........ to the garment edge ......... This step--the grand finale--is a nifty three-in one trick which  binds off the facing ........ PLUS permanently stabilizes the garment edge ........  PLUS hides way forever, the cut edge. Note that the two columns either side of the cut are called the "cut-edges" and are symbolized in light gray .........

Click any chart, schematic, diagram or photo to make it bigger.

Knit a swatch

Rather taking time to knit a tube, this tutorial shows the steek on an ordinary square of flat-knit fabric.  Once steeked, this swatch winds up in two separate pieces. You can imagine that steeking a tube by the same method would leave the slit tube opened flat into a single rectangle featuring two faced edges.

Work the square swatch like this:
Using the green mc, cast on 22 sts.
Row 1: k5, p1, k10, p1, k 5, turn work.
Row 2: p5, k1, p10, k1, p5, (Row 2 is actually just another way of saying "purl the purls and knit the knits.")

Below is a chart and schematic The color coding and column numbering are explained as we go along. 

As seen from the smooth side of the stockinette fabric, columns 6 and 17 are purl columns.  From the reverse side, these are knit columns, per photos below.

Below are photos which translate the concept into the real world--photos of an actual sample swatch "in the wool," showing front (left photo) and back (right photo).  This swatch is around 30 rows high.  The green arrows point to the purl columns. Although purl columns are practically invisible from the front, they're quite prominent on the back, appearing as knit columns on a reverse stockinette (purl fabric) background.

Knit the facings

The next step is to knit the two facings. Here is an entire post about how to pick up fabric for a facing through a purl column.  I'll wait here while you read that.

Back again?  Good!

The below photo shows the direction of picking up the stitches for the facing ........ through one of the purl columns ........ (either column 6 or column 17). Note that the swatch has been turned sideways, so that the outer edge of the swatch (either column 1 or 22) is at the top of the photo. Stated otherwise, the stitches for the facing are picked up so that the live loops point towards the center, where the cut will soon be made.  The facing is worked on these loops.

The method of the work is to draw a lavender-colored loop through the purl column with a crochet hook, then immediately transfer it to the waiting smaller knitting needle.  In the below photo,  the crochet hook is in the act of grabbing the running yarn to draw a new loop though the purl column, while the previously-drawn through loops are parked on the smaller knitting needle stationed under the purl column.

Once you have the anchor loops for the facing drawn through along the entire length of the purl column, work 4 rows of stockinette, then transfer the live loops to a holder.  ("Work 4 rows" means four rows of knitting above pick-up loops, with the fourth row remaining on the stitch holder to await further action later.)  Repeat the entire pick-up-and-knit procedure on the second purl column.

The below schematic conceptualizes what the fabric looks like once both facings have been picked up and knit.

 Note how the facings are picked up through the purl columns.

This photo translates concept to reality. The smooth stockinette side of each facing shows against the bumpy reverse stockinette of the swatch.

Back view of swatch, both facings finished and pointing towards the center

Again, in the schematic, as well as the photo of the sample, the facings point towards the center, and are not bound off.

Fold the garment edge and stabilize with waste yarn

By the bright green color-coding ........, the stitch chart at the beginning of this post shows columns 9 and 14 are going to become the garment edges once the steek is completed. Before going further, let's figure out why these particular columns will be the garment edges. For simplicity, we'll only look at the right side of the eventual cut, but, of course, the identical situation applies on the left.

If you look at the chart, the cut ....... is made in the trough between columns 11 and 12. Counting center-wards from purl column 6  ........  you can see that after the cut, 5 columns of fabric will remain: columns 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11.  Column 9 will therefore be the center column of the remaining fabric between the cut and the purl column.

Once the cut is made, it will run alongside column 11.  We will therefore call columns 11 and 10 the "cut-edge."  ........   Due to a happy accident of knitting (called "stockinette curl") this two-column-wide cut-edge is going to flip right under columns 8 and 7.   Stated otherwise, columns 8 and 7 are going to become the outer fabric, column 9 is going to become the edge of the garment, and the cut-edge columns 11 and 10 are going to become the stuffing in the sandwich, trapped between the outer fabric and the facing .........  

By isolating the garment edge (column 9) two whole columns away from the cut-edge,** and by covering up the isolated cut-edge with the facing, that cut-edge is never going to come under tension .

There is another factor, too, which works to isolate the cut-edge. Column 9 runs along the top of a vertical fold.  That fold is going to be permanently locked shut via a line of crocheted slip stitch. Result?  Even if the cut edge could somehow come undone while sandwiched between the facing and the outer fabric, the resulting loose end of yarn would have to somehow wiggle through a locked-shut 180 degree fold.

The fold is the heart of the trick, and here's how it's done.  If you fold your swatch vertically, with column 9 (or 14) as a single column of knitting along the edge, it will resemble the bright green ........ single column in the diagram below.

Once you've got the fabric folded at the correct column, you want to slip stitch this fold into place, using the waste yarn, as shown in blue, below.

(For more information about how to slip stitch, go to this post, which shows how.  Although that post is about slip stitching along a garter-stitch edge, the actual slip-stitching is the identical process to that here.)

Here is a photo, showing the slip-stitch process in the real world.

the column of stitches along the folded edge has been colorized bright green in this photo

This slip stitching is temporary, and will be replaced in the grand finale--the last step, right after the cut.

The below schematic  conceptualizes what the fabric will look like once both folds are locked down with waste yarn ......... Note the edge column of the bright green fold ......... Note also that the loop of fabric caught under/between the two lines of slip stitch is now colored light gray ........ showing that this will become the cut-edges of the fabric.

The below photo translates the conceptualization, showing what the actual swatch will look like at the end of this step. The bright green arrow points to the the folded edge ........ which has been colorized to be a brighter green than the surrounding columns. The blue arrow points to the line along which the waste yarn has been slip stitched ......... The fabric to become the cut-edges is visible through the slit, colorized gray.

top view of swatch showing both waste yarn folds 

Cut

The stage has been set: the facings are knit, live loops a-waiting.  The edge has been temporarily stabilized with waste yarn.  It's time for the cut .......  (the "eek" part of the steeking process).

As stated above, stockinette fabric wants to curl under. Our job in cutting is to preserve the stockinette structure as much as possible, so that the cut edge will curl the heck out of the way, to stay forever trapped in the facing-sandwich.

Therefore, the cut is made right up the trough between columns 11 and 12.  In other words, don't cut through the stitches in the columns, but rather, carefully separate the columns of stitches by putting the cut right up the middle.

Here's the schematic of the cut being made

Here's the photo:  you can see the curl is so strong that it actually follows the scissors: the instant you cut, the cut-edge wants to curl under.  On this photo, as well as the schematic above, the folded edge is colorized bright green and the cut-edge fabric colorized gray.

The natural curl of the cut-edge is reinforced by the waste-yarn fold. That fold pins the curl tightly against the underside of columns 8 and 9.  In fact, this is one of the reasons the waste yarn is inserted in the first place--to control the location and tightness of the curl exhibited by the cut-edge.

Here's one more look at the cut edge curling under--a schematic side-view showing the sandwich surrounding the curled-under cut-edge. The cut-edge is the stuffing, the facing is the bottom layer and the upper fabric (columns 8-9/15-16 on the chart) is the top layer.

The 3-in-1 trick:

trap the cut edge/bind off the facing/permanently stabilize the garment edge

We're now at the grand finale stage. If you think about it, everything is done, except for sealing up the remaining long edge of the facing, thus forever trapping the cut edge inside the sandwich. This final seal is created using a crochet hook and a running yarn, creating a line of slip stitch right through the edge column, almost exactly the same way done previously with waste yarn. This time, however, we're not only going to stabilize the folded garment-edge, but also catch the live loops of the facing at the same time, thus binding them off. Of course, the edge is already stabilized with waste yarn.  So, we have to remove the waste yarn, stitch by stitch, to make room for the permanent slip stitch along the same edge.  Removing the waste yarn stitch-by-stitch serves as an exact guide for which column to follow in this finalstep.

The below schematic shows the 3-in-1 trick in action.

On the both schematic and photo, the waste yarn ........ (A on the schematic) comes out one stitch before the permanent yarn (B) goes in through the garment edge ........ and the facing .........

In both the schematic and the photo, the live loops of the facing are colorized red. As the crochet hook passes by the knitting needle holding the waiting live (red) facing-loops, the hook catches the next loop in line.  It is then inserted upward through the folded edge column, there to catch the lavender running yarn. The photo shows a red loop already caught around the barrel of the hook and the hook already inserted through the edge, ready to draw down a new loop from the running yarn. When the running yarn is drawn down through both loops on the barrel of the crochet hook, the red loop simply disappears under the resulting slip-stitch at the edge. This attaches the facing to the edge, and binds off the facing at the same time, thus trapping the cut ends in between--a real 3-in-1 trick. A single stitch is left around the barrel of the crochet hook, and the whole process begins again by catching the next red loop from the waiting line.

Final result

The finished result--a faced steek, with the cut edges forever tucked out of harm's way.

The back, showing the completed facing (Hmmm--looking at this photo, it seems the lavender wool was splittier than I thought!)

Above: back.  Below: front

Front. Close up, there's a "stitched" appearance to the lavender yarn along the garment edge. However, the purl anchor-column remains hidden, almost invisible.

In real life, you might make a facing a different color than the sweater: a scarlet facing on a plain gray sweater would be a fantastic design element, for example.  However, it would probably be more common to use a thinner yarn in the same color.  The lavender-on-green theme of this post was more for demonstration purposes. However, if you did want a contrasting color facing, you could avoid peers-through from the contrasting color by working the pick up row in the main color, then changing to the contrasting color on row 2. Here is a post showing how to harvest color-matched thinner plies from your main yarn. 

* * *
Here is a link to a Ravelry page where this trick was used with modifications to install a zipper on a Henley-neck.

 * * *
--TK

* IMHO, of the three common brand names of wool listed, the Patton's Classic Wool is the grabbiest, the Ella Rae Classic the least grabby and the Cascade 220--the green mc yarn used for the sample swatch--of intermediate grabbiness. The cc I used, the lavender sports weight wool of unknown origin, was both grabby and splitty (sports weight = a weight of yarn, thinner than DK weight, which is normally knit up at 6 or 6.5 st/inch).

** Separating the fabric edge from the garment edge--as we are doing here--is a long-time theme here at TECHknitting blog. This series explains further (link goes to part 1).

You have been reading TECHknitting blog about steeks.

Steeks BETA version, part 1: background

---guinea pig no longer! It works

This post gives the background to steeks: what they are and why to use them. 

It's also the first in a series showing a new way of creating and facing a steek to secure the edges and hide the cut ends.

Because it's new, it hasn't been time-tested.  However, at a recent teaching event the participants indicated real interest, so I'm writing it up. If you choose to try this trick, heads up! You're a guinea pig in the real-life test lab of knitting.

I believe it will work. I'm pretty sure it won't come out. Further, it's less bulky than many other methods for hiding a cut edge. Yet, I want to stress one more time that, unlike most tricks on this blog, this one is a beta version (beta=testing version). 

If I haven't scared you away, here's some background about steeks.  The actual method starts in the next post after this one.

Addendum, 11 years later: The faced steek method works, it's not experimental any more! Many thanks to those pioneers who tried it and wrote back over the years. 

WHAT'S A STEEK, ANYHOW?

* A STEEK is a trick for slitting an opening (usually a front opening or armholes) into a garment which was knit circularly.  In other words, a sweater might be knit in a tube right to the top, with the front and armhole openings being slit open afterwards with a pair of scissors.  As you can imagine, the main trick with a steek is to prevent the knitting adjoining the cut from coming loose, while at the same time hiding the cut ends forever.  In the trick to be shown in the next post, these important functions are performed by a strip of fabric added alongside the steek-cut, a strip called a FACING.

* A FACING is a LINING along a VERTICAL opening.  In this series of posts, we're assuming a facing on the inside of the front band.  The illustrations shows the inside edges of a steeked garment turned outward, showing the facing (in red) which runs up both inside edges of the steek. As stated above, this facing is the part which prevents the knitting from unraveling along the cut steek line, while also hiding the cut edges of the steek-cut.

ADVANTAGES of STEEKING
Why would any sane person take a scissors to a project as labor-intensive as a hand-made sweater? Why not just knit pieces in the first place?

Steeking is a traditional method, and the old-time knitters were no fools: they couldn't go out and buy sweaters at the mall. They had to have had good reason for everything they did. In fact, there are several good reasons to steek.

Knitting on circular needles (making a tube) means you never have to purl. So, if your flat knitting "rows out," working a tube will solve that issue.

Stranded color knitting and circular knitting go together really well, also.  You're always working on the front face of the fabric: easy to see the pretty patterns developing correctly.  Further, you never have to purl back in stranded knitting, and stranded purling is worth avoiding.

STEEKING HAS SOME DOWNSIDES, TOO
While steeking has many advantages, there are disadvantages, too.  In the comments, reader Uehltje points out that cutting is permanent.  While there are other ways to restyle a poorly-fitting garment, it is unquestionably true that you cannot restyle a steeked garment by pulling out the yarn and re-knitting it.

Another disadvantage is that any steek, no matter how cleverly constructed, is going to be bulkier than an ordinary knit edge.  This is because the cut ends of the yarn simply must go somewhere, and there's no place for them to go other than the vicinity of the cut edge itself.

Further, some steeked sweaters are going to wind up bulkier than others. Specifically, a faced steek on a one color garment is going to be less bulky than on two-color knitting.  This is because, in stranded knitting, two strands have to be hidden for each row knit (one strand of each color in that row), whereas only one end has to be hidden per row in a one-color garment.

While some bulk at the front opening of a garment might not be too troublesome, an armhole steek puts bulk in the underarm area, an uncomfortable drawback with no really good solution.

Because of the bulk issue, it's best to try out a steek in the yarn you want to use for the garment, before knitting an entire garment and then discovering the steek is too bulky for your taste. The next post is a tutorial showing the steek worked up on just such a swatch.

BEST YARN TO USE
Steeks are traditional to knitting cultures where wool is used, most famously northern climates, such as Norway.  The reason is twofold.  First, at that time and place, almost all yarn was wool, so when this technique was invented, wool was it.  Second, wool actually works best for this trick, and by "wool," I mean plain ordinary non-superwash sheep's wool.  This is because wool is, well, woolly.  Each strand is essentially a stack of scales.  When bumped or rubbed, you could see how such scales would hook together.

Wool fibers **

Contrast this to polyester, acrylic and all other oil-based yarns: oil is slippery, and so are its babies.  Further, oil-based fiber is extruded (squirted out) through shower-nozzle type devices, in a single smooth scale-less strand. Even if artificially crimped, as some newer synthetic yarns are, this stuff is slick at the most fundamental level.

Silk is just as slippery as oil-based yarns, being also completely scale-less.  Further, just like extruded oil-based yarn, silk, too, is an extruded fiber--it's just that a silkworm is doing the extruding, not a machine.

Plant-derived yarns, such as cotton and linen aren't as smooth as silk and oil-based yarns, because they do have growth rings, twists and other natural irregularities.  However, these don't compare to the irregular scales of sheep's wool, so these yarns, too, are slippery.

Bottom line: if you're planning to steek, the inherent grabbiness of ordinary sheep's wool is your ally in the fight against unraveling, whereas the inherent slippery-ness of the other fibers would be one more thing to fight against: if you haven't clicked any other link, click this one to check out a side-by-side close-up photo of the various fibers.

PREVIEW of the TECH-METHOD
The TECH experimental method shown in the next post is based on the crocheted slip stitch.  The finished product includes a facing which hides the cut edges, and prevents any stress being transmitted to the fragile cut edge. The next post is a tutorial of the new method, as worked on a swatch.  See you then!

Until next time, good knitting --TK
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** The illustration of wool fibers is from the copyright-free book "The Chemistry of Hat Manufacturing" by Watson Smith, available through Project Gutenberg. 

A new trick for fixing errors in color knitting--"controlled drop"

Here's an "unvention" called "controlled drop" which can be used for correcting errors in color knitting.

The problem

Suppose you're working stranded two-color knitting,* and notice a mistake somewhere several rows down.  Theoretically, you could drop (run out) the column of stitches in which the mistake lies, fix the error, then latch the column back up.

However, when you try this trick with color knitting, suddenly, there's a problem. The stitches you've dropped form a ladder, yes, but the strands of the other color running behind also form a ladder.  Trying to re-latch the correct strands in the correct order is like playing cat's cradle.

Today's post offers a way to drop columns in stranded knitting with confidence, easily keeping track of which strand goes where.  I call this new trick "controlled drop." It is a variant on the ordinary drop-column method of fixing fabric. In fact, the two methods are so close, it makes to start with a review of column-dropping in ordinary knitted fabric.

Background: the drop column method

on regular (one color) knitted fabric

 As the illustration shows, any one knitted stitch (red) lays along a column (dark purple).

Columns in knitting

In fact, if you've ever had a ladder in a nylon stocking, you already know about columns in knitting.  When one stitch comes undone, the stitches below it are released from their interlocked state, and return to being simple lengths of yarn, the "rungs" of the ladder, we might say.  These rungs are shown in red below. You can fix errors made several rows earlier by purposely running out a ladder and fixing the error. You then re-latch the ladder, using a crochet hook, as shown.

Latching up ladder rungs (red) to re-form knit stitches

There's more stuff you can do with the drop column method** but this little review is all that's needed to set the stage for the color knitting trick.

Fixing mistakes in color (stranded) knitting

Below is an illustration of an error--a (red) inadvertent purl--in color knitting.

An error in color knitting, several rows down--
more complicated to fix than in plain knitting
because of the more complicated nature of the fabric

As you see, if you were to freely drop a ladder, you'd have two sets of strands going.

When the stitches are freely released, it's easy to get confused
between the back strands and the strands formed by
the newly released stitches

Which the heck strand should you pick up?  Sometimes the back strands are above the stitch strands, sometimes below.  This illustration is bad enough, but in real life, the strands are far more bunched together, often behind one another, making them invisible unless you flip the fabric. So, what's the cure?

The way I think about it, the confusion in picking up happens because, when you freely run out a column, what you're really losing is information. Before the drop, the column contained important information: the stitch-stack order--that is to say the color and position of each stitch in the column. Behind the column lay an ordered set of strands. Once the stitches are freely dropped, not only is the stitch-order information lost, but so is info about the relationship between the stitch yarn and the strand yarn.

Recapturing that information means you have to remember/look up the order of the original stitch-stack.  However, simply knowing which stitch ought to come next isn't enough--you'll also need to grab the correct length of yarn from the tangle of released stitches and back strands. X-ray vision would also be handy, so you could see both fabric faces at once.

In a nutshell, the problem is that you have to drop the column to fix the mistake, yet by so doing, you lose the information the column encodes. As is evident, what's needed is a way to drop the column, yet retain the information. That's where today's unvention comes in, a trick I called "controlled drop."

Controlled drop

A ladder in stockinette fabric is capable of being latched in either direction. So, what if, as soon as you released a stitch at the top of a column, you took a crochet hook in hand and instantly re-latched it into a new, upside-down column? With this trick, each stitch is loosened only for the amount of time it takes to unpick it from the original column.  It's then instantly latched up again, this time going the other way. Also, with this trick, the strands are never involved, so they can lay quietly undisturbed on the fabric back.

Instantly re-latching lets you drop, yet saves the information.  Stated otherwise, when re-latched upside-down, the stitches are reversed, yet each stitch's order (relationship to other stitches) remains undisturbed, as does the relationship of the stitch to the back strands.

The process is called "controlled drop" because the dropping process is controlled: the column is let out stitch-by-stitch, rather than a freely dropped column of the kind you would use in plain (non-color) knitting.

How-to

Start at the top.  Once two stitches have been released, insert the crochet hook under the second "ladder rung" and draw the second rung though the first.  This maneuver creates the foundation for the upside-down re-latch column you'll be making.

The first step in creating the upside-down
"controlled drop" column

Continue in this manner, drawing each stitch released from the original column into the new upside-down column.  As you can see, it's possible to unlatch and re-latch in a single motion.  The red circle shows how this is done--the crochet hook unlatches the stitch from the original column by grabbing it where it arises out of the fabric (the side of the stitch).  When this part of the stitch is yanked, the stitch-loop pops free, turning into a single strand of yarn (a "ladder rung") which can be instantly re-latched into the new upside-down column of the controlled drop.

A single stitch being drawn from the original
(right-side up) column into the (upside-down)
"controlled drop" column

Using this method, you keep un-and-re-latching until you get to where the problem stitch lies, and can fix the error.

With the problem solved, you reverse the process.  In other words, insert the crochet hook into the loop of the newly-corrected stitch--the hook will now be be the bottom stitch in the original, right-side up column.  You then loosen and re-latch the upside-down stitches, one by one, from their portion of the column.  This restores the original direction of all the stitches in the column.  At the top, the last loop is returned to the knitting needles.

Once your column is safely corrected with the top loop secured, stretch the fabric around the fixed column several times. The fabric will settle down to look exactly like it did before you released the column: the stitches will be in the correct order, the strands remain undisturbed.  The only difference is, the error is gone, fixed by you at the interface between the controlled drop and the original column.

Good knitting, TK

* For more on the basics of stranded color knitting, here are some links:
Color knitting how to, part 1--background 
Color knitting how to, part 2--two colors, one in each hand
Color knitting how-to, part 3--knitting with two colors on one hand AND three color knitting 
Color knitting how-to, part 4--multi-color knitting, one color at a time, also called multiple-pass knitting 
Color knitting how-to, one color at a time: slipped stitch knitting 

**If you do find that you want to know more about fixing knitted fabric via the drop column method, here are some links:
Correcting errors in the rows below, part 1: moving a decrease
Correcting errors in the rows below, part 2: moving an increase
Correcting errors in the rows below, part 3: adding an increase
Correcting errors at the side edges of your knitting 
Fixing a run in garter or seed stitch 

PS:  The whole idea of knitting encoding information is not original with me.  The best-known example of encoding comes from the Tricoteuses of the French Revolution, among whom the fictional Madame Defarge  was the most famous.  True, these knitters were encoding a different kind of information (spoken words in a sort of a morse code vs. the order inherent in the fabric itself) but the concept is similar: stitch order encoding information.

PPS:  Controlled drop is not only for color knitting: it can also save your neck in the case of having to drop a single column nearby to complicated shaping.  See, a giant ladder in a lace garment is a headache, especially if YO's are involved, but if you're only dropping a single column to correct a mistake, you have a better chance of setting order out of chaos if you use controlled drop.
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A post in which TECHknitting appears at various places in the knitting world

Even though I recently wrote that there would be no posts for a while, as I (try to, anyhow) work on new ways of color knitting, life does not stand still.  TECHknitting has recently popped up in a few places around the internet and in the print world, so I'm briefly breaking my self-imposed silence to offer up some links to these--

1. Knitpicks Podcast Interview with TECHknitter (that's me!)

Recently, Knitpicks blog posted a podcast interview with me about the concept of keeping track of lace patterns via a TECHknitting unvention: chart-charts.  I had no idea my voice was so high, or that I talked so fast...   Ah well.

Kelley Petkun, the owner of Knitpicks, did the interview.  Kelley started the podcast with a very succinct definition of knitted lace, then followed up with some mighty fine questions.  Hear the podcast interview here.

2. I am not Anna Zilboorg (although I am sure she is a very lovely person)

Also recently, Knitting Daily posted a teaser for a pay-to-view buttonhole video by Anna Zilboorg.  Accompanying the teaser were some TECHknitting illustrations about sewing on buttons from a buttonhole article I wrote for Interweave Knits in 2010.  In the comments, some folks were wondering whether I am, in fact, the same person as Anna Zilboorg. I'm confident Anna is a very lovely person, and an excellent knitter, and I'm honored by the speculation.  And yes, those are my illustrations accompanying the teaser.  However, the fact is, I'm not Anna and Anna's not me.

 If you want to see Anna's buttonhole, you can follow this link to download her ptv buttonhole. If you want to see my tulip buttonhole, it is here, for free.

3. Late to the party

Not so recently--back in January, actually-- Yarnwise Magazine (a British publication) had an article by me about fixing errors in knitting.  If in the US, it's still on the shelf at Barnes and Noble (excuse the crappy phone-photo, please, that's all I had when last at B & N). If in the British Isles, it might be in libraries, even though, because I'm late to the party, the January issue probably isn't for sale at the newsstand (news agent?) any longer...

Good knitting--TK