Last night I took a steeking class at the Knit Cafe. Steeking is where you cut your knitting. Let me repeat that, you knit up a beautiful piece of fabric and then CUT IT. For a whole host of good reasons – it can make colour work way easier, you can add a neck or an arm hole, or keep stripey colours cohesive across a v-neck. But still guys – cutting my knitting!!

I totally could have read and watched tutorials online to figure this out, but some things are so seemingly scary that it’s nicer to have someone walk you through it in person. Plus it was the ever lovely Robbie teaching and how could I pass those good times up?

I knit up a giant swatch (seriously, mine was 12″ which was longer than I needed. Better safe than sorry?). I did, however, use up some odds and ends of cascade that were sitting in the stash.

First up we practiced a crochet reinforced steek. I have to say that I loved, loved, loved this steek. It looked so finished and I can see how easy it would be to quickly baste down the steek. Easy AND nice looking finishing is a huge win in my books!!

Those two mustard-y yellow lines are my reinforced steek edges. Then comes the scary part – cutting your knitting apart. Eeep! Tiny, very shap scissors make this part much easier.

All done! I have to admit, once I made that first little cut and realized how easy it is I’m wondering why I waited so long to learn. Oh right, because it’s easier to be afraid and hide then it is to grow and learn. Thank you humble little yarn for teaching this mama.

Next up we practiced a raw steek. No reinforcement, no sewing, no nothing. Just cutting right into the knitting!!! I was expecting mine to unravel a whole lot more, but it still looks quite clean. This was a little harder to do as I didn’t have the easy to see crochet reinforcement to guide my cutting (aka it would have been much easier to accidentally snip a stitch!).

Last part of the class was learning how to pick up stitches between the main piece of the knitting and the steek stitches, so that you could theoretically add a button band, sleeves, facing, etc.

I was being a sillyhead, but Robbie persevered and got me to practice picking up stitches. I totally picked mine up going the wrong way – you can see a hint of the blue yarn running parallel to the live stitches on the needle – yeah, those should be on the other side of the knitting. Whoops!

If this was a final piece, I would have ripped back and done them the right way. But, it’s a swatch and it was getting a little late. I was away from my nursling and my breasts were telling me that it was time to head home to nurse (apologies for running out early!). So I left it, haha.

But guys, I can steek! Now my dreams of a stripe-y raglan v-neck are one step closer to completion.