It's been a big knitting few days around here. I decided I'd knit my mom a sweater for Christmas...But not really deliver until her birthday in April. Mind you I've never knit anything bigger than a hat. She picked one on the Sunday after thanksgiving, it didn't look too hard except for the use of several techniques I'd never tried.... When she said "Do you know how to do this?" So being a rip the bandaid off or jump in the deep end of the cold pool sort of person, it didn't deter me in planning a Christmas gift that I would need to learn new things that many people wait years to try. I answered sure...and if not I know the instructions are on the internet I'll be fine.

That said.. Monday I bought the yarn and cast. In a bit over a day I knit my first sweater sleeve, complete with color work...and started the next one. But the whole time I had been filled with terror about steeking the front of the sweater...aka taking that nice pullover you just finished and cutting the front with scissors! For an explanation of this terror see knits article. The pattern I'm using is knit in the round and has you purl two stitches at the front center all the way up...So you never lose track of where the center is, and you know how/where to cut it.

A bit reckless you say? Well yes..However I'm also sort of a plan for the worst hope for the best type... and rather than ruin a sweater I'd just pushed for weeks to finish in time for Christmas(note I'd already forgone the idea of taking until April to finish) I went and knit a little tube out of a scrap of leftover lopi from some old project... 24 stitches or so.. (K22p2 in the round for those who care) and about that many tall.... Basically it looked like a wrist band. I purled two of the stitches (because that's what I'm supposed to do on the sweater and I took it to the sewing machine and did what the pictures looked like I should... and low and behold!!! I had sewn four little lines of stitching in two rows of purling.

Then I took the scissors to it... and it stayed knitted.

So... now that's one less terror. If you're scared of steeking may I recommend the make a little thing and try it method....after all it took maybe half an hour to knit the tube. And it isn't your precious sweater you might mess up. I would knit a tube much larger in diameter than the one I used though, especially if you aren't really comfortable with your sewing machine... and try high contrast sewing machine thread so it's easy to see what you did....so long as you're just screwing around. It wasn't half as scary as I thought it would be...but then again it was half an hour's worth of knitting not a sweater I was about to ruin. I'll now push forward once again rendered fearless through experimentation

Pictures of all of this to follow eventually.