Shapely, Sexy Steeks

You may have heard that is possible to grow a human ear on the back of a mouse. So obviously, in my head, this translates directly to knitting. What if I grew a sleeve on the side of a body tube?

Ripley’s Believe It Or Not

When we knit with steeks, an enormous world opens up with regard to how we create the parts of garments. For example: What if my new Fana sweater were equal parts green with white, and white with green, in a color blocked arrangement? Something like this:

Cardigan by Gudrun Sjoden

I need some sweater parts in both color arrangements, notably left body tube, right body tube, left sleeve and right sleeve. The reversed charts are like this:

And here’s a little sketch for how the color placement might look:

Stay with me now; it’s about to get thinky. Let’s say I want to knit a round where the chart colors reverse in the middle of the round. Each time there’s a single-color round (lots of times in a striped Fana), I’d have to physically switch yarn sources in order to have the proper strand in place when I come back to it in the round. That’s intarsia, which we all know is a Dark Art.

Nope.

Instead, I can make two tubes of knitting; one in each of the color configurations. Each of my tubes will become one half of the body, and one sleeve, once I cut them apart.

The sleeve needs to be longer than the body, so I started it first. Then I cast on more stitches for 1/2 of the body tube with some waste yarn, and joined the round with steek stitches on either side of the sleeve. As I work away, I can decide on the exact sleeve shaping. Since I’m just knitting sweater pieces, which happen to be conjoined, I can make specific decisions about the way each piece is shaped as I go.

About halfway along the first sleeve, I’ve decided I want gathers up at its cap. For that I’ll need more sleeve width, so I’ll start increasing at shorter intervals now. All the while, I’m also making half of the body tube with every round. The body tube halves don’t need any shaping in this case, so they’re just straight-sided cylinders. If the finished garment needed bust darts or waist shaping, though, I could easily also work them on that half of the piece.

For more ideas about sexy knitting engineered by adding steeks, join me online for a thought exercise/adventure! We’ll explore knitted construction that is shaped with the strategic placement of cuts, and I’ll help you understand how to plan them. Oh, and you get to make this super cute thing:

Sign up HERE, and imagine your knitting in a completely new way.

Finally! Just like I promised...

For those of you who haven't (yet) attended my "Stars and Stripes" class: Good News! You can now download the 20-page workbook on Ravelry!  CLICK HERE to get yours.

The companion text to my three-hour class, this e-book will guide you through the process of making your own Norwegian Fana sweater, in any size.

From understanding the elements of Historical, Traditional and Modern Fana, to taking accurate body measurements, through all the calculations you'll need, this workbook covers the Fana Formula comprehensively. At the end, you'll find detailed steeking diagrams, and notes on further reading.

Included are the special star and stripe charts I designed for you: their stitch counts fit easily into Fana of all different sizes. Feeling more adventurous? You can design your own motifs, using the custom gauge-friendly graph paper.

Want more? CLICK HERE to review all my Fana-related blog posts and follow my journey.

I love it when a plan comes together.

Finished Fana

Here is what my Fana looked like last week when I took it to Sandpoint, Idaho to play with the knitters there.  The only things missing are the braid trims and the second sleeve.  That's right. This artfully arranged photo hides the fact that she's really only a one-armed bandit.

I like to make a habit of bringing finished samples to the classes they support, but this time, I just flat ran out of time.  What I didn't know was how useful it would be to show the sleeve-setting in progress.  The cut armhole openings and sleeve-top facings which cover them are routinely the most difficult for me to explain, because once the finishing is done, it's really hard to understand the parts that can no longer be seen.  This little exercise in humility turned out to be a great lesson for me: I need to make a sample which is intentionally unfinished for class. Maybe not full-sized though.

When I got home, the toilet in the master bathroom had come completely loose from its moorings.  Which I had predicted, due to a certain listing sensation we had been experiencing. What I had not anticipated (or perhaps, had tried to deny?) is that the old cracked and grubby tile floor underneath it would cry out for demolition, once I ejected the old throne.  Yep: Before I knew it, I was ankle deep in ceramic shards, swinging a sledge hammer like one possessed.  I hated that floor for almost every day of the eight years since I had (very poorly) installed it. Turns out that ceramic tile (and its removal) is just not my medium.  I've sworn off both for good. Once I had the floor out, I could finally repaint the walls to match the new towels I scored last May.  Phillip has been asking me weekly why we couldn't use the new towels without first changing the wall color.  What an amateur.  Has he not met me before?  The old wall paint was red, for pity's sake.

In the midst of the Bathroom Reboot, Phillip came down with a chest cold that I feared was pneumonia.  It wasn't, but it took a chest x-ray to convince both me and his doctor.  He's recuperating very slowly, all the while barking like a bull walrus.  Seriously, the poor man is rattling the windows.  And yesterday was Campbell's 13th birthday, which I tried my level best not to have overshadowed by the other dramas.  He assures me I did an adequate job of celebrating him, but I still worry that his bar is set artificially low.

Anyhow, the new floor, and the new loo, (and fluffy towels and cheery shower curtain) have definitely improved my attitude.  Eight years is a long time to be mocked by an unfortunate DIY project.  Oh, and I *may* have replaced the doorknobs, too, while I was at it.

With the plumbing, and the patient, and the newly-minted teenager (sort of) all under control, I returned my attention to the Fana.

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As you can see, it now sports two sleeves, each with anatomically-mounted, functionally-buttoned cuffs.

And yes, there are four different trims on it now.  Once I get going, I just can't stop.