Show and Tell
This past Monday I went to my monthly meeting of the Tidewater Knitting Guild of Virginia. We meet the first Monday of the month no matter what. We are a diverse group of both seasoned and new knitters. There are so many creative people there its not even funny. During the meeting we have a program. This month was steeking.

Now I am a pretty new knitter and this totally freaks me out. I have never seen anything like this and it really makes me a wreck when I see scissors getting near a perfectly lovely piece of work. Such was the case at our meeting. Jackie Scott talked about steeking and used a fabulous piece knitted by our President, Linda Johnson. Jackie talked about sewing down the stitches made for just that purpose. You could see the sweater had some stitches that all looked alike in a row. Then to either side were stitches from a sewing machine. Below you will see what happened. Maureen took pictures of Linda's face and I got some shots of the scissors doing the deed.








If you look closely, you can see that some of the stitches where the scissors are look like they aren't quite right. You won't be able to see where the machine stitching is, but believe me, they are there.


In this shot you can see some of the machine stitching if you look really close. Take a look at the blue along the scissors. You can sort of see the stitching. Very scary!

In this shot you can see more cutting. Linda was very brave and I was a total wreck. I kept leaning in to see her cut. She was calm and I was sweating. I could feel my heart pounding really hard.


This photo is blurry. If you can make it out, the sweater is struggling for it's life. It knows what's coming. More cutting...poor thing....

Rats! Jackie won. The steeking was done and then was talk about how to put the sleeve so that the stitches matched. The inside seam where the sleeve is inserted into the hole is folded back and then doubled stitched to insure that nothing comes undone. The finishing is lovely. I hope that Linda brings back the sweater so we can see the finished product.

Before Linda's sweater was steeked Jackie talked about a sweater that she made. The colors were bright and so cute.

I really enjoy going to the meetings. If you link to the blog that is set up for the Knitting Guild you can see other colorful sweaters. Martha (one of our very talented members) taught a class where you can take a sweater for a Teddy Bear and do some math and make a sweater any size you like. I wish I had been able to take the class but I had to work. I am hoping to learn this method from Martha some day.