Here's a photo of the front neck steek of my fair isle:

You knit over "x" number of stitches, then put "x" number of center stitches on a length of yarn as a holder. You cast on steek stitches (between the two markers in the photo) and work the rest of the round.

On subsequent rounds, you do your neck decreases on the two stitches outside the markers on both sides of the steek -- doing k2tog one side and ssk the other side to make the decreases slant properly.

I didn't get  a great deal of knitting done because I made these last night:

Brownies for this afternoon's party. I schlepped those and the cookies in on the train this morning. Good thing I wasn't mugged!

Here's another argument for using steeks instead of knitting back and forth for the armholes of your sweater. Picking up stitches for your armhole.  When you have a steek, you've got a selvedge edge of five stitches or so when you pick up your armhole stitches. This folds itself to the inside and makes a facing, You can trim it to a two stitch width, or not, but either way, it adds some stability to your armhole seam. If you knit back and forth, you are picking up stitches for your armhole maybe one stitch in from the edge. It doesn't offer the same stability.

Okay.

I didn't get a lot of knitting done last night because I did this. Chocolate chip cookies. (Those cookies in the sandwich bag sitting on top of the toaster oven? Ian, those are for you!)

Tomorrow we're having an informal dessert party for my boss, who is retiring. We had the "official" party on Monday, but I thought it would be nice to do something on her last day. So I braved the sweltering heat last night and baked cookies. Tonight I'll bake brownies. Air conditioning, I love you.

But I did knit too. See here. I've started the front neck steek.

And I posted a photo of my new sock-in-progress here. Wild, ain't it? Lorna's Laces "bee stripe."

A reader on my tag board asked what the big deal is with purling back on a fair isle? Why do you want to bother with steeks? Good question!

As another reader pointed out, usually your purl stitches differ slightly from your knit stitches. I find this true particularly for colorwork. You might purl a little looser when using two colors.

Another reason: I purl slower than I knit, so knitting every round makes the whole thing go alot faster.

And yet another reason, it's difficult to see the fair isle pattern on the purl side of your work. That'll slow you down too.

Now for arans, I always knit in pieces. There's really no reason you can't knit them in the round, but I can think of some good reasons why you wouldn't want to.

First of all, it's easier to keep track of your cable pattern if you're purling back on alternate rounds. 99% of the time there's no patterning done on the purl side of arans (except maybe for twisting some stitches). So you just knit the knit stitches and purl the purl stitches/

Reason number two is that if I'm making an aran out of worsted or heavier wool, that's a heck of a lot of weight to be dragging around on your circular needle. Puts a lot of strain on your needle, not to mention on your hands.

And the last reason, I think a heavily cabled sweater benefits from having side seams. It adds stability to the garment.

My two cents worth. :-)

I finished a pair of socks yesterday. Look here.

Okay, I'm working on the body of the Fearless Fair Isle and am steeking away. One of the steeks is visible in the new photo to the left.

I love steeks. Why? Because they allow you to do colorwork in the round and not have to stop at the armholes and work back and forth to make the armholes. Because when you cut a shetland wool steek and pick up stitches around the edge stitches, the steeks obediently fold to the inside of your work, as if by magic, and lay there quietly, never to move again. And because once you get to the armhole steeks in your sweater, you no longer have to weave in the ends of your wool when you change color. The color changes at the beginning of the round are in the middle of your steek, where you are going to cut, so there's no need to weave them in. cool, huh?

Check this out:

That's the steek where the round starts and ends, and what it looks like from the inside. Not real attractive, but once you cut it down the middle and trim off the ends, it'll look fine. You can definitely see the edge stitch -- the background color stitch that runs down the length of the steek. After you've cut your steek, you pick up the stitches in between that edge stitch and the first stitch of the pattern. It makes a great guide! Below is a photo of the other armhole steek, the one that's midway through your round.

So be ye not afraid of steeks -- they are your friends!

7.29.2002
Monday. Again.

Once again. welcome to Monday bloggers!

And a lovely hot Monday it is. Supposed to reach 99 degrees today and it's already above 80. AND I have to go out at lunchtime today for my boss's retirement luncheon.

I had a good weekend. Highlights? My cable company changed all the channel numbers and I was awake at 2:00am Saturday to see the switchover. Oooooh. And I started using Crest Whitestrips. Why, Because I want insanely white teeth, of course!

But enough of this silliness. I did some knitting. See here.

P.S. to Margaret -- Yes! I love my ebony needles!