Cutting up perfectly good knitting

This week in WIP Wednesday!

Steeking

Scary but fun.  It goes like this:

You knit (and knit, and knit) planning ahead for things like arms and necks and torso openings. 

One yarn in each hand so that you end up with a beautiful tube like this.

In some places, instead of a pretty pattern you just knit with one after the other, making a sort of checkerboard pattern

Then you use your sewing machine and run stitching down either side of the center of that checkerboard.

And then. . .

You cut!!!!!

ahhhhhhhhh!!!

no, actually it's going really well

See how it's not unravelling?   If you look closely you can see black thread where I stitched down the steek. 

When done, you have knitting that looks like something vaguely resembling a vest that you can then pick up stitches around to finish the edges. 

More to come, as the edges are knit! 

Man, I need to clean my craft room.