Awhile ago, I finished the knitting portion of Gilipeysa (designed by Hélène Magnússon), an Icelandic yoked cardigan for Joey. I think I’ve previously mentioned that it’s all Anzula Cloud, which is one of my favorite yarns. We then went on a pretty fantastic trip to London and Bath for the Curious Handmade Bath retreat in 2018, during which time I finally learned how to steek a sweater.
Steeking is a technique where you knit a sweater around, and then cut up the middle to make a cardigan. You have to reinforce the edge, add either a binding or closure of some sort, and ta-da! you have a cardigan. It’s part magic, part pure, unadulterated fear. But I did it!
Unfortunately for me, I finished the sweater in the few weeks leading up to Rhinebeck, thinking I’d have plenty of room in it for her to enjoy it for the rest of the winter. And we did, indeed make it to Rhinebeck:
But that was about it. She outgrew it moments later, to my ultimate despair. Perhaps I’ll frame it for my eventual wooly gallery wall in my eventual studio. As it is, my studio is a playroom and I have a sad stack of crafty art that isn’t ready for prime time.
I’ll leave you with the above photo, which is one of my absolute favorite images from the trip. It includes the best girl and the best bakery I know. Now I’m getting nostalgic for fall!