May 5, 2010

Steek Class

Last week at this time I was in class at Maryland Sheep & Wool. I don't know why I never took classes there before but, now that I have, I'm sure that this won't be the last time. The first class was Child-Sized Stranded Hat with Steek and Katherine Misegades was the teacher. You may not know her because she's rather new to teaching classes like this but she was a great teacher.

In all honesty, if we'd been given the job of knitting our sample as pre-class homework, the class could easily have been shorter and just as effective. But I enjoyed it very much as it was. It was the perfect excuse to sit and knit and talk about knitting all day. You can't underestimate the value of that in a busy schedule.

DSC_0258

The reason I took the class was simple. Now that I can do colorwork that doesn't suck I'm eager to try more and steeking will open up many more possibilities. I'm not a big fan of sewing and I freely admit that although I own 2 sewing machines and I don't know how to use either of them. Never-the-less I was willing to attempt sewing for the sake of steeking.

Imagine my surprise when I found out that the method she was showing us used crochet rather than sewing. Win!

Steeking

My little mosaic shows the project after I finished knitting it, after I added the i-cord edge and crochet reinforcement, after I cut the steek and the completely finished project. I am very happy with the way it turned out. Even better - I feel like I'm up to trying a slightly bigger steeked project.

Katherine Misegades was lovely and a great teacher. She was very open and pleasant to talk to. She brought several examples of the project to show us and help guide us and even brought a sample that was ready to be cut so that we could try it on her work before cutting our own.

It was a great class which accomplished exactly what I had hoped it would. I'd do it again and I'd recommend it to you too.

4 comments:

Carole Knits said...

I'm so glad the class was useful!

Cursing Mama said...

I'm still in the camp that thinks scissors are best kept away from knitting. The whole thing is scarier than Night of the Living Dead!

Laurie said...

That sounds like fun! Getting your feet wet without drowning.

Sarah said...

That sounds like a wonderful class, and a great way to snuggle up to steeking. I have only ever done the crochet-reinforced steeking after reading the tutorials on Eunny Jang's old site.

The tension on your colorwork looks great!