Steeking a Sweater

Forget skydiving, cliff jumping, or rock climbing to get your adrenaline pumping.   Steeking a sweater is by far one of THE scariest things I've done to date. {o.k. not really, but it's definitely nerve racking}  I do it all the time with my upcycled sweaters, however, it's a little different putting scissors to 20 precious hours of knitted fabric.

Steeking is an old Norwegian term for turning a sweater knit in the round into a cardigan or jacket {especially useful for those of us who loathe purling}, by cutting right up the middle!  In this case, it's a jacket for Cole.  He spied a similar version displayed in our local yarn shop and begged me to make it for him!

To steek a sweater, begin by finding the exact middle front.  With a contrasting yarn and a large blunt needle, weave in and out up the middle row.

Next, you sew a straight line {or two for extra measure} down each side of the orange yarn.  This will keep your ends from unraveling.

Now gently pull the orange yarn out {or you can cut right through it} and with a very sharp scissors cut up the line in between your machine stitches.

That's it, now you have a cardigan! {with no purling necessary} Exhilarating isn't it.  Next, I have to put in a zipper~

3 comments

  1. That is pretty cool! Thanks for sharing this, I've never seen it before.

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  2. Yes. I was following a Norwegian pattern for a sweater with a lot of colorwork. A friend asked if I was going to steek the arms??? I had no idea what that was, but sure enough the pattern called for it, (I was ambitious in my naivety)and it worked out, but it took me a couple of weeks to build up the courage to put a scissors to my knitting :) I still haven't tried sewing in a zipper... Your son will love it! Nice work
    ~Nikole

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  3. Oooh, steeking arms might be fun! Maybe I'll have to try that with my next sweater:)

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