Steeking Techniques | LIVE Tutorial with Michele Lee Bernstein

Hi everyone. I'm Jen Lucas, managing editor of "the Knitting CIRCLE," and I wanna welcome you to today's live Facebook event. I'm super excited to be here with our guest. I have with me, Michele Lee Bernstein, and today we're gonna do something a little bit different than what we've done in past videos. Today, Michelle is gonna teach us all about how to do steeking in our knitting, and it's something that I actually have never done before, and so I'm very excited to try it. That's what I love about doing these Facebook Lives. I feel like there's always something for all of us to learn, and so I think you're really going to enjoy this one. If you haven't done so already, there's a link to our pattern here, which is the boxed heart coasters, and Michelle has written up a beautiful pattern for you, so you can go ahead and click the link in the chat wherever you're watching this, so you can download the pattern and follow along with us, and then Michele is gonna show us all the steps that we need to know in order to make it. And we're gonna learn how to do the steeking and everything, and I'm so excited about it. And then before we get started, don't forget, we do have the chat wherever you're watching from, so you can go ahead and say hello, let us know where you're watching from, and if you have any questions while we're working through the pattern, be sure to go ahead and drop it in the chat, and we will try to get to as many questions as we can. So now that we got that housekeeping out of the way, I want to welcome Michelle Lee Bernstein to our Facebook Live. Welcome, Michelle. Thank you very much. I'm so excited to be here in person- I know, I know. We've been doing these from our home for like over a year now, so it's nice that you and I can be in person, and I'm very excited that you're showing me something in knitting that I have not done yet. And so why don't you, before we get started on this, why don't you tell everybody a little bit how you got started with knitting and how you transitioned it into a career? I learned to knit that when I was 14. My favorite aunt taught me to knit. That's my aunt Rose, and I loved it. I loved the stitches. My first project was a sweater, knitting the round with cables up the front, which, you know, was pretty fun. For a first project? Wow, impressive. That was the first project, but it's just stuck in that, stitching the round, and every once in a while, there's a little cable crossing. That was fun. About 12 years ago, I was already starting to make little patterns, but I didn't really have a way to put them out there, maybe as a little freebie or something, but then ravelry came along and I had a way to be able to sell my patterns, and so that's when I started designing in earnest, and I also started teaching at a local yarn shop, which was very fun. And designing and teaching, they go so nicely together. Absolutely. So I love accessories because three favorite words: gauge not critical. Thank you very much. I know you like your shawls, too. Yes, I do. Don't have to worry so much about the gauge, yup. So I design a lot of accessories, and then the other thing I like, when I'm teaching, I like to use worsted weight yarn because it's a big stitch, you can see what you're doing, it's non-threatening. Right now I'm knitting socks and it's worsted weight because it doesn't take very long. Yeah, awesome. Well, that's awesome. And so why don't you tell everybody that's watching exactly what steeking is because that is kind of an unusual word. People might not know what we're even talking about. So what is steeking exactly? Well, the word steek, you can either be talking about the place where you're going to cut or about the actual cutting itself, but steeking is a way to make flat pieces of knitting. You're actually going to knit in the round, but then you're going to cut it to make it flat. So here's an example of what we're doing today. This was knit in the round, and why would I want to knit in the round in order to make something flat? Well, if you're doing stranded color work, it's really nice to be able to see the pattern that you're knitting the entire time you're knitting, as opposed to purling back across the back, because you can see that it may be not quite as easy to tell what you're doing. So we knit the whole thing from the front, and we make a special place that we're going to cut, and you can see that vertical stripe there, and we're going to reinforce it before we cut because we don't want things to just go wherever they want to, and then we cut, and then we finish our edges. All right, awesome. And so that's what you're going to do. And I love having a new victim, so you are my new victim. Yes, I have done my homework here, and I've already put in the crochet on the one side, and we're gonna do the other side, and you're gonna walk us through everything that we need to know in order to make this. So why don't we go ahead and get started? Okay, so let me start by explaining what we're doing. You'll have your pattern when you download it, and we need two balls of worsted or DK weight yarn, and it's only 50 grams each. You want to pick a yarn that is not superwash because you want a nice, sticky yarn that wants to stick to itself so that your stitches don't run away when you cut things, and a non-superwash yarn is pretty much your best bet for that. You are going to need a little bit of another yarn, and I used fingering for crocheting my steeks, and you'll need a crochet hook. Don't get scared of the crochet hook as a knitter. I'm not a crocheter, but I can do this. Yeah, yes, you can do that. It's not that hard. You'll need a 16-inch circular needle to do your actual knitting. And let me just look at my list. For stitch markers, you're going to need some sharp scissors. Yes. If you've seen any of my things on Instagram or Facebook, or even Twitter, about this little live that we're doing, you've seen scissors. And I just like putting them in the picture so that it looks a little scary, but it's really not scary at all. And I love teaching this as just a little accessory thing because it's pretty non-threatening to cut up a coaster, as opposed to the sweater that you've been knitting for six months. Yes, that is true. And that's part of the reason I'm so excited to be here is I actually have started a color work sweater. It was originally a pullover sweater, and I'm heavily modifying it and I want it to be a cardigan. And so as I'm knitting, I'm knitting this part to do the steek, but I've never actually done it before, so I'm glad that Michelle is here so she can show me on this before I finish that sweater, and then try to steek the cardigan. Okay, so why don't you just go through, and- We're just gonna do it. Great. So again, gauge is not critical. There is a gauge given, but it doesn't really matter. You don't want it to be super loosey goosey because, again, you want it to kind of hold together. I am doing this pattern to make two coasters, and you might wonder why. Yes, it is a little more knitting, but making it two coasters means it fits on a 16-inch needle, so you don't have to fuss with double points, or magic loop, or two circulars, or DPNs, or whatever. So that's why we have two, and the other reason why is it gives you two chances to cut your knitting, and by the time you do the second one, you're going to be very comfortable with it. Yes, okay, great, awesome. Okay, let's talk about how to read a chart. I'm going to- Yes, let's move that. Put the chart here where you can see it. Perfect. This is the chart that we are going to be knitting from. And if you've never knit from a chart before, charts are really great for color knitting because you just count the number of boxes that you need to use to do any particular thing. On this chart, you can tell that it was meant to be knit in the round. And the reason you know that is all of the numbers for the rounds go up one side. If this were a chart for flat-knitting, your one would be here, your two would be here, 3, 4, 5, 6, and you would go across, and then you would work backwards for the backside round, but we're knitting in the round, so that's why we're here. And then on the bottom, I've got numbers for some of the stitches. These three Ss are my steek stitches, and these three stitches, or Ss, are my other steek stitches. Our steek is going to be six inches wide, or not six inches. I'm sorry, that would be very large. That would be a very large steek. Yes, six-stitches wide, and half of them are on one side and half on the other. And the reason I did that is so that the beginning and end of round is not somewhere where it's going to show as a bump on the edge of your coaster. This is going to be turned back and nobody will know that that's where it was. Also, on reading the chart, I would work my three steek stitches, and then you'll notice the numbers one through 10 here, and they're in a red repeat box, pattern repeat. So I'm gonna knit stitches one through 10, and then 11 through 20, and then I'm going to finish with stitches 21 through 25, knit my three steek stitches, and then I go back to the beginning and I do that whole thing over again. Three steek stitches, plus 20 stitches here, five more stitches here, and then it ends the round with three more steek stitches. Okay, great. Yeah, and I agree, definitely when you're doing the color work, really taking the time to practice working from a chart is very important. I know that for some people, reading charts is difficult, but I feel like, especially with color work, trying to read a written pattern, written out like, "Knit two in main color, knit three in contrasting color," it becomes very, very, very wordy very fast, so just taking that little bit of time to learn how to read the charts. We do have some videos on "The Knitting CIRCLE" about reading charts. I think, actually, you did some of the videos on "The Knitting CIRCLE" about reading charts, so if it's something where just in this short amount of time that we have, if you're still not sure about reading charts, be sure to just visit our website, theknittingcircle.com, and you can find some videos that Michele did so you can get a little more practice at it. But yes, especially for color work like this, I think it's really good to work from the chart, for sure. Okay, let me see. I want to talk a little bit about the pattern. When we start knitting from the pattern, it starts with knitting flat, and the only reason why is because I want it to have, let me see, I don't know if you can see this. Yes, you can see this because here's the- Okay, because I wanted the edges of my coaster to be in garter stitch, and if it was in the round, that would mean you'd have to purl the next round, and then knit around and purl around. Well, we like garter stitch because it's all knitting, right? Yes, yes, we do. So we're just gonna knit back and forth until this border is done, and then we'll join in the round, and it tells you where to join in the round, so it's not scary. And then all of the rest of this, where we have the color work, is all stockinette stitch, so there's no purl knitting, and then when we get to the end, we are going to go back to knitting back and forth in order to get that last little bit. Awesome. I would like to demonstrate for you just a little bit of stranded color work knitting, in case you haven't done it before. Okay, that's really great 'cause yes, I know for a lot of people, this might be a totally new technique to them. Maybe they haven't done color work before, and I know that you do knit a lot of things that involve using multiple colors at the same time, so. Okay, so when you're doing stranded color work, it's really nice if you set one color on one side of you, and the other color on the other side of you, and then, let's see, I just finished five of this color. So according to my chart, and you don't really need to see it right now, but it was five stitches of one color, five stitches of the other color, just alternating back and forth. So I need to change my color to the other color, so I'm gonna drop, whoops, drop my old color right there, and pick up the new color, and then I just knit my five stitches. Doesn't matter what hand you hold it in. And then I'm done with that color. I'm going to stick my needle into the next stitch, drop that yard, pick this one up, and knit my next five stitches. So you don't have to twist the yarns around each other. Some people think that, "Oh, I'm doing stranded color work. I have two colors, I need to twist so I won't get a hole." That doesn't happen in stranded color work. If you were knitting intarsia, where you're doing like picture knitting, then you would want to do that, but you don't have to here. And then I'm going to change colors again. And I like to put my needle into the next stitch before I change color, and the reason why is that if I don't, if I just change my color and I start knitting, it can get squinchy, and then you're gonna have puckered fabric. I don't like that, so I'm getting set, I spread my stitches out a little bit to make it so that the new color is going to have a little bit of room there to breathe. Yeah, it's important when you're doing that color work that you don't let your stitches get too squished up on the needle, right? 'Cause otherwise you do get that, the puckering from the stitches being squished up, and then that doesn't look very, it doesn't look great. So across the back, we wanna have just really nice long floats. Yes, great, and yeah, so I do have a question. I'm gonna interrupt you. So with this particular pattern, we're only doing at most five stitches in one color and then switching. So like you said, there's no twisting. What about if you were doing some other color work pattern where you had, I don't know, 12 stitches, and then you had to switch, do you personally catch the yarn like halfway through or something to- Yes, I would. Yeah, you would, 'cause otherwise you'd have that big, long float. And you don't want a 12-stitch float. The rule of thumb, I guess that's the term that we use and don't use anymore, is that if it's going to be more than an inch, then you would wanna twist your yarns around each other and then keep going. Okay, okay. But I always write my patterns so there's never that. You don't have to worry about it. No, I don't want you to have to do that. You don't have to do that. Okay, that's great. So Michelle's looking out for you when she's writing her color work patterns. Yes, I have looked out for you. Okay, great. Okay, the other way you could do it is if you can knit Continental and English, then you could just keep a yarn in each hand. So I've got one in each hand, and here's my five. Let's have you move your hands up just a little bit. Oh, sorry, thank you. There we go. Thank you for watching out for me. Yes, I'm watching out for you. Three, four, five, and then you would just start knitting with the other color from the other hand. And I am not a great Continental knitter, but it works. And there you go, or, oops, wrong color. Or you can carry two colors in the same hand. And if you want to see that, I have a video on my tutorials page. So PDXKnitterati.com tutorials. I have a lot of tutorials about a lot of things, but you can see that there, too. So I've got my two colors. I've got my index finger between the two. I'm gonna come back into the frame. And then I would turn my wrist a little bit so that I'm gonna kind of hook that yard up over and knit my five stitches. And then when it's time to use the other colors, I can put my needle in, spread those out, and I just turn my hand the other way and throw the urn over, kind of the way I always do. So that's something that just, if you wanna try to do that, just, it's like anything in knitting, it's just gonna take a little bit of practicing, yeah. It does take practice. Yeah. You could also hold both colors in your left hand. I can't do that. I can't demonstrate it for you 'cause I'm so bad at it. Yeah, no, I agree. I also knit with the yarn in my right hand, too, and I'm somebody, when I'm knitting the color work, I am just picking up and dropping each color while I have the yarn in my right hand. I actually found for me, that's personally the fastest, but yeah, there's so many different ways that you can hold your yarn. They even make these little tools. They're like the rings, have you seen? Where you can like run the yarn through the ring and have it on your finger, so there's lots of different things you can try to figure out which way color work works best for you, basically. Yes, and on this coaster, you have just enough time to practice. Yes, exactly, yes. And it's not a huge investment of time. Right, yeah, that's awesome. All right, so you've knit your entire piece of homework, and Jen has her entire piece of homework there. I have my entire piece of homework right here. Woo hoo! Yes, oh my gosh. I've never, I'm nervous, I've never cut my knitting before like this. So let's talk about our steek. Yes. Our steek in this particular pattern has six stitches across, and I've seen lots of different ways to do steeks. You can have five stitches, six stitches, seven stitches. I've seen someone do one with one stitch up the middle, just one purl stitch up the middle, and that's Icelandic, I think. I like to feel very comfortable knowing that there's a lot of places where things could go wrong and I could still manage to salvage it, so I need six stitches. Yes, you like that little bit of wiggle room that you get by having the six stitches in between. Okay, cool. I need security. Yes, I agree. I'm with you. I, yeah, one stitch that sounds, I mean, maybe we'll do another live some time where we'll try it. I'm gonna try at home first 'cause I don't want- Yeah, that day is not today. We're not gonna start that way. That would be terrible. You can use all sorts of different stitch patterns on a steek, and no matter what it says in your pattern, if you're knitting something else, you could still set it up this way. I saw this recently in a book by, I think it's the one by Mary Jane Mucklestone, "150 Scandinavian Stitch Patterns." Yeah, that's a great book. I think it was hers. Where it's set up like this. So I've seen it done as a checkerboard, which makes it a little harder when you're crocheting into it to find the right place 'cause at one point, one color is closer to you, and the next stitch the other color, and the next stitch the first color, and that's harder, or just plain one-color stripes, but this I thought was brilliant. So here are my six stitches. It starts with this dark one here. So one, two, three, and four are the same color inside, and then there's the light one for five and the dark one for six. So that means it makes it super obvious that you are going to be cutting up between two stitches of the same color. And then also your edge stitches of your steek are going to be the same color. I really like symmetry, so that means when I pick up along there, it's going to look the same on both edges. All right, awesome. Okay, great. All right, different ways to reinforce your steek. I was gonna talk about those. Yes, I would love to talk about that. So if you're doing a sweater, you could do that reinforcement on a sewing machine. I didn't bring a sewing machine with me. You can also take needle and thread and backstitch your way up the edges of your steek. I really like having yarn in my hands. I am not a needle and thread person. It's tiny and, you know, it's tedious and whatever, so I like crocheting because it's, I mean, I don't crochet very well, but I still have yarn in my hands and it's kind of fun. Then I ran into an idea. I saw it first on "Modern Daily Knitting," and I don't remember who had suggested it. You can needle-felt a steek. You know, needle felting with those barbed needles. Oh, yes, yeah. And you just take your knitted piece and put it on top of a block that you use for needle felting. Yeah, like the little foam. Yeah, the little foam. 'Cause you don't wanna steek this all the way through. Yeah, you'll felt the whole thing together. Not what you want. But then you just keep stabbing it until it's felted together, and then you can cut it without worrying about it coming apart. That's really interesting, and you can get all your rage out, too, while you're- Yes! That's what I love about needle felting. You just stab something repeatedly. I've made a cute little white love bird, needle felting, and it had little bloody spots on it, so needle felting's probably not my best. Yeah, so would you say most of the time when you are doing this kind of steeking, you're doing the crocheted steek? That's like your number one preferred way to do it. That's my number one preferred way. Okay, cool. Okay. All right, well let's this. So I think we're gonna do it. I am going to pull out my pattern, so I know exactly what I told you. Yes. And this is on page four of your pattern, if you're following along, and you'll get there. There's a little diagram. I don't know if it's gonna show up very well. There it is, but it's got the numbers of the stitches, one, two, three, four, five, six, and we are going to get our crochet hook and some yarn. I'm using a slightly lighter-weight yard, actually it's probably a lot lighter. This is fingering. I used it for a feral hat, and I'm trying to keep the bulk down under here, and let's get my crochet hook. So we are going to pick up a stitch, and we're going to attach- Let me start from the beginning 'cause I always like to have all of my numbers together. We're going to cut between stitches one, two, three, and four. And we, before that, are going to attach four and five together, one leg from each stitch, and then we'll turn around and do the other side, but I'm going to turn this sideways, so the cast-on edge is facing the right, and I am going to pick up my yarn between stitches four and five, which would be between two colors, and that is the lightened and dark. Okay, I'll just get my cast on . And I'm just gonna poke in there. I'll put my yarn on this side. You know how, when you're getting started- Yeah, it's always a little awkward right at the beginning. I'm just gonna pull up a loop here, and I didn't tell you that you needed to secure it, and you technically don't, but it might make you feel better if you just make a loop over and pull it through. Okay, right along the cast-on edge. Yes. Okay. Then we're gonna fold our knitting along that edge. So you can see that I have the light color facing me, and the dark color is right behind it, and as we crochet our way up to attach one column to the next, you're going to go under one leg of each color stitch. Oh, I see. Okay, so you're like picking up, like in my case, I did mine in purple and pink, so it's like one leg of pink, one leg of purple. Yes, and it won't be at the very beginning because we have this edge where we use all- Where we used all the same color, right? So, but you can tell where it is because, you know- Yeah, it's pretty easy, especially 'cause we used that longer yarn. And we're doing single crochets here, right? We're gonna do single crochet. So let me get my hands set up. So I've gone under two legs of stitches four and five, one leg from each, and I'm gonna pull the yarn up to make a loop, and then we're gonna go back and get another loop and pull it through. That's one single crochet stitch. Gotcha. I'm gonna go under the next two legs, and I have to upturn this up so I can see where I'm going, but I'll turn it back. And I've got one leg from each column, and pull up a loop, and then get another loop and pull it through. And here we go again. I am now at the point where I have one of each color. I have to pull this closer to my face to see what I'm doing, but then I'll put it back. So do you see how I've got one of each color here? Yes, yes. Pull up a loop, and then get another loop and pull it through. I feel like this was the hardest I've ever had to think during one of our Facebook Lives. So I have a question for you. So we're doing a single-crochet steek here. Is that the standard? Can you do just like slip stitches up your project? Like do like crochet slip stitches. Yes, you can do- Yes, you can do that, too? Yes. Okay. And I took a class to review my steeking last, you know, pandemic time, whenever it was, with Mary Scott Huff, and she does the most beautiful stranded color work and she steeks everything. She makes up places to put steeks. I am not there yet, but I tried several different things. And so I had this swatch where I had like six places where I could cut, and I tried some with single crochet, and I tried somewhat slip stitch because I tried doing slip stitch because I wanted to make it even less, just less bulk there. Yeah. I liked the single crochet better than the slip stitch. Okay, yeah, I was just curious. I just didn't know if you could do one or the other. But you know, you have two chances to cut on this, so if you wanted, you could slip stitch on the other steek, and that would work fine. That would be- I might take this out and slip stitch. Yeah, okay, you slip stitch. I'll slip stitch. And if you, you know, we're kind of going over the crochet part, Michele's shown you how to single crochet, we actually do, on the CREATIVE Crochet CROCHET website, which is one of our other websites, you can find free videos on how to do the slip stitch, how to do single crochet, and so if you need a little brush up on some of the crochet, and you also can rewatch this video afterwards to see exactly what Michele is doing up close to review those crochet stitches 'cause I know sometimes as knitters, we get kind of scared of the crochet hook, but don't be scared of the crochet hook. I think a crochet hook, actually, is one of the most important tools a knitter should have in their notions box because you could pick up drop stitches with it, do stuff like this. Actually, the crochet hook has a lot of places in knitting. It does, I use mine a lot. Yeah, I do, too, I do, too. For picking up a dropped brioche column. Oh, yes. The crochet hook is your friend. Yes, that's true. You do do a lot of that brioche as well. I do, I love it. Okay, so I'm gonna try doing a slip stitch on this side of mine. I'm just gonna show an example of a slip stitch, and then I'll pull it out. Yes, please, yes. Please do. So I go under my two legs, there we are, and I pull up my loop, but I don't go and get another loop. I just finish taking this loop through the first one, right? So that is a slip stitch, and it works fine, and it has a lower profile. Yes, it is less bulky. I'll do that one more time and then I'll take those two out because, you know. So I bring up the loop and then I take that loop through the first one on my needle. See how it's a little bit shorter already? Right, I'm gonna take those two out because I would like this to be consistent. I told you I like symmetry and consistency, and there we are. So it's just gonna take me a minute to go ahead and finish this row up. Okay, great. I'm not seeing any questions about our steeking yet, in our chat box, but I just wanna remind everybody, if you do have any questions while you are watching us, about color work knitting or the steeking or anything like that, be sure to go ahead and drop us a comment or a question and we'd be happy to try to answer it for you. Or make something up. Yeah. It's kind of like, I wonder what would happen if. That's how a lot of my designing goes, it's trial and error designing, I love it. It's like, what if it was like this? Yeah, I mean, and that's the thing is, really, once you get the basics down with this particular coaster pattern that you're providing, I mean, people really could take a piece of graph paper or something and draw out their own little design and make another coaster, doing some other sort of color work design, or, you were talking about that book earlier, there's tons of different books with different color work motifs in them that you could incorporate into something just as simple as coasters. And you know, we're sort of getting now into that, we are in now, we are in the gift giving season, and so if you're looking for something really quick and easy to do as a gift, I mean, really, you can have these done pretty quickly. Yeah, sew a cute mug and a coaster, and maybe a gift card to your favorite coffee shop. Yeah. That's a nice little gift for a teacher. Yeah, that's a nice little gift. Yes, and, I mean, I'm a pretty fast knitter, I mean, well, 'cause I knit as my job, so I am a quick knitter, but really, this little bit of knitting, I mean, this for me was one evening while watching TV, you know? So it really doesn't take long. Even if you consider yourself a slow knitter, you really can have this knit up very, very quickly, I think, just a night or two in front of the TV watching cheesy holiday movies on cable. All right, this is awesome. Are you ahead of me? Is it a race? Oh, we are- That's the other thing I always like to say, "It's not a race," and however long it takes you is just fine, but I think she's ahead of me. There's another idea for a future Facebook Live, some sort of a- World's fastest knitting things? That would not be me. Yes, yeah, yeah. I feel like, sure, you could learn to knit faster and, hang on, I'm looking to see where I'm supposed to poke my needle, bring it right up to my face. The whole point about knitting for me is that it's fun and I like it and it's relaxing, so it doesn't have to be fast. However long it takes is however long it takes. Right, I'm the same way, too. It's really just enjoying the process and yeah, even if it took you a week to knit these coasters, who cares? You're gonna have something really cute at the end of it. And why not, and it's something that you get to learn something new with, too. Yes, yeah, I do knit some color work, but I really don't do a lot of it, so even doing this for me was really fun because I don't knit or design a lot of color work patterns, and so it was really fun, sort of, to go back to it 'cause I hadn't worked, I had worked on that color work sweater in a while, so it was fun to work on this, for sure. And I see that Jen holds her her hook differently than I do, and it doesn't really matter how you hold it either. As long as you get it done, it's fine. Yeah, exactly. She's got an overhand hold, and I've got kind of a pencil hold, and it's the- Yeah, both work. Hold it in, my aunt Vivian taught me. Oh, all the aunts. Yes. You have crafty aunts. Yes, yes. So I'm at the end and I'm just gonna go under that bind off edge here, and I'm gonna bring up a loop, and I'm gonna go make my single crochet stitch, and then I'm going to cut my yarn, and just pull that up all the way through. Okay, great. So I have one side done, and I'm gonna show you how to start the other side, but I won't make you watch me do the whole other side. Yeah, we don't, yeah, we don't have to sit here and do the whole other one. We just wanna talk about where the yarn goes and where you are. So that was between stitches four and five, and on this side, it's between stitches three and four. So it's going to be the light on this side, and the dark is part of the middle column, and I'm gonna put my needle hook. What do you call this? This is a hook, right? Hook, this is a hook. Okay, this is crochet. We're in crochet. So I'm gonna put my hook between stitches three and four, and I'm gonna turn this. Remember we were working this way before? I'm gonna turn it so the bind-off edge is facing me so that I can go in this direction. I guess you, no, don't do it. In one of my classes, someone did go in the opposite direction, and doing it the way that I'm showing you means that your two columns of crochet are gonna lean away from each other, and you want them to lean away from each other to show you where your cutting is. You don't want things leaning in over your cut line. Ah, got you, yeah. So you turn it this way and when you crochet, it goes to the left. Yes. Now, if you are a left-handed crocheter and you already know that everything is backwards, do whatever you have to do, but you want them to lean away from each other. You want it to lean away. Okay, yeah, this is great. So yeah, I did the single, I don't know, maybe you wanna bring mine in here. So I did my single crochet on this side and then here I did the slip stitch, and you can see exactly, there is way less- So here's a single crochet. I think I prefer the single crochet there. I think having that extra bulk is helpful 'cause I feel like it's very obvious on that single crochet side where I need to cut. Look how far apart they're leaning from each other. Yeah, I agree. And then this one, it's pretty flat, but I think what's giving us most of the bulk on our actual coaster isn't from that single crochet. It's from the two layers where you've got the facing folded. So I'm glad you checked that out for me, and I quite agree. Yeah, yeah. I do like that. We do have a comment from Deb, and she is watching us from the "CREATIVE Crochet CORNER" Facebook page, and she says, "I am not a knitter. However, I am enjoying watching and listening. This is very fascinating." And I suppose I haven't, I guess like with crochet, I'm trying to think, 'cause I do crochet, but I'm not an expert crocheter, I guess there probably are some places in crochet where you could maybe use a similar technique to this. I mean, the thing about crochet is that you can kind of go in any direction anyway, so, but this would be something, yeah, you could probably play around with this in other projects as well. Okay, all right. I like crochet for edgings on hats, too. Yeah, I do. That's the thing I do love combining the knitting and crochet a lot, or there's some people who will do beautiful shawls, like knit a shawl and then do a crocheted edging on the bottom of it, that's, yes. More Facebook Live ideas, I guess, right? You know, I think Jen is just continuing to talk 'cause she knows what's coming next. I think so, I'm stalling. Okay, I'm stalling. All right, are we doing this? Are we- We're gonna do it. We're gonna do it. Okay. And in real life, if you wanna stick, you can either stick something in between your layers so that you don't cut through two layers. Yes, yeah, that's true. Or you can just hold it up and do your cutting that way. So it doesn't matter which direction you cut from. Okay, oh boy. Let's take a really good look at this. So I've got my two crocheted edges, and they're leaning away from each other, and do you see there's half of one stitch from column three and half from four, and we're gonna cut right up the middle of those little ones Vs. Yeah, so it does, even though it's half a stitch of three and a half of four, almost, when you're looking at it, it almost does look like just a column of stitches, basically. Yes. Yes, okay. Okay. All right, let's do it, I guess. I've got scissors. I want you to document this moment. Here we go. I wanna see yours too. Okay. So- Here we go. Does this look scary? I've got, in the- Yeah, it does look scary. Make sure your ends don't get part of it. Yeah, let's keep that apart. Let's see where that ends up. All right, are you ready? Yeah, I'm ready. I'm gonna make the crunching sound. Okay, uh-oh. This feels wrong, but it's right. I'm gonna put my hand up here, and still right up that middle. All right, the cutting is happening. I'm almost there. Look, look, look, look. I'm going so slow. I have tiny scissors, too, but... I can give you these scissors back. No, that's okay. That's all right. Jen brought me these scissors because I wanted to do all carry on when I flew here, and I couldn't pass . Yes, I drove, okay, thank you. I'm gonna give you those. All right, I'm almost done. But look, it's open, nobody died. Okay, I did. I cut my knitting. It finally happened. The day came. I survived. May I borrow your knitting and put that here, too? Yes. I'm gonna turn it this way so you can- I feel a little sweaty after that one, woo. So there it is. Looks good. Is it done? No, 'cause you can't just leave it there. It doesn't look very done. So what are we gonna do next? We are going to pick up stitches and knit some edges that will match our edges up here. Okay, great. And I am going to hand you yours back. Okay. So we're going to go back to knitting. All right. And let me look at my instructions 'cause I wouldn't wanna contradict myself and tell you something that wasn't what I said. Right, exactly. That's not what she said in the pattern. Yeah. Oh, it says voila. Everything holds and repeat for the other steek. We'll do that part later. Yeah, we'll do that part later. We'll do that tonight. I'm going home with finished coasters, for sure. All right. Great. You're going to take your, did I call it main color or dark color? Anyway, oh, main color. Main color. You're gonna take your main-color yarn, and go ahead and turn your coaster so that we're going to be picking up in that very first or last, this is actually stitch number six, column of the steek. We're going to pick up in half of the stitch, the half that's closest to us. So pretty much we're hiding everything that belongs to the steek. So we're like pushing, basically, the steek, and the extra little steek stitches, we're pushing those, basically, to the wrong side of the work. Yes. Okay, got it. And I would be using my main color but I was packing up yesterday, and I thought, "Oh, I'm done with that part so I can put this away," and so I am going to show you with this color instead. If you wanna have contrasting-color edges, you can. You can do whatever you want. It's your knitting. You're the boss of it. That's right. Okay. Plus it might actually might be easier for everyone to see what you're doing 'cause you are using a different color anyway. Okay, so. And also, this is superwash wool 'cause that's what I was demonstrating with for just showing how to do color. This wool needs to be woolly and sticky, but for the edging, it's not gonna matter except for, it'd be nice if the color matched 'cause I'm into the matchy-matchy. Yeah, you like the matchy-matchy. Okay, so... So we're gonna pick up a knit, you said, right? Yes, so I'm identifying right here, that is in this dark column, and I'm gonna go all the way down to the bottom here, and pick up a knit. So I've gone in and I bring a stitch up. I don't do anything particularly special when I add color, I just start knitting with it and then we go on. And I've given you a number to pick up, it's, how many did I say? 23, but it doesn't really matter. All you wanna do is pick up so that it's not so little that things pull in, and it's not so much that it flares out. So I usually pick up two out of every three stitches. Two out of every three. I'll do that. So I'm gonna pick up one. Okay. Actually, while you're doing that, let's see, we have, I think, a few little comments here. Norine says this would be an awesome technique for wash cloths. Do you think you could do this with a cotton yarn for wash cloths? No. Do you think it would- No, I wouldn't. You don't suggest that. No, because cotton is slipperier and it's gonna wanna come apart. It's gonna wanna come out. But if you were making some sort of, some washing thing that we're gonna use wool for, so you really, for you it's very important that you're using that sticky, sticky, yarn, we kind of call it, where it's got a little fuzz to it, so it's not coming unraveled. Okay. I mean, technically you could, but there's only one way to find out. Yes, that's true. And I think you try it and see what happens. And if by sewing down that facing everything is secure, go for it. Yeah, yeah, it's just that when you're using a more slippery yarn, it's just you're increasing the chances that something's gonna slide out and you're gonna lose a stitch or something like that's gonna happen, okay. But yeah, I do think you could make some very cool-looking washcloths using this technique, but yeah, it's just the yarn, it might not be the best yarn for this project. But again, like we were saying, you're the boss of your knitting, so it would be cool to try it. And if you do, let us know. Yes. Post it on the Knitting CIRCLE website. We have a project gallery, Norine, so if you do go ahead and give this a try, be sure to post it over there so we can all see it. And you say, "Look what I did, and it was okay. Nobody died." Yeah, exactly, exactly. That's my other thing I tell my classes, "It's not rocket science. It's not brain surgery. No one dies if you make a mistake. The cutting is a little more, you can't go backwards, but for most knitting you can tear it out and do it over again and it's fine. And that just means, as I like to tell my husband, I get to enjoy the yarn again. That's cool, that's such a nice way of putting it. If you do make a mistake, you just get to enjoy the yarn again. I like that. Yes. Yes, great. All right, I've picked up two stitches, and now I'm gonna skip one, and then I'm going to pick up, I have to look to make sure which one I'm skipping. Okay, there's my skip, and then I'm gonna pick up two more, one, two, I'm gonna skip one, gonna pick up two more. We do have another crocheter also named Michelle, and Michelle is also enjoying watching this, so- Does Michelle spell her Michele with one L or two? She's Michelle with two Ls. This is Michele with one L so, yes, Michele with one L, I'm too short for two. That's right. This is how I get people to remember how to spell my name. Does it work always? No. Yeah. But I try. Let's see, Cathy says, "Thanks for showing us the scary cutting part." Wasn't that fun? That was, okay. It was fun, I'm here to tell you 'cause it's, truly, I have never done it before, and now I feel like I'm gonna probably be seeing some more steeking for me, that's for sure. And yes, again, just to remind everybody, it is the boxed hearts coaster pattern, and we've put a link, again, in the chat box. So if you haven't downloaded it already, you can go ahead and click that link and download it, so then you can make this pattern for yourself. I'm pretty impressed that you can say all that and be picking up your stitches and counting two, skip one, two, skip one. There's no promises that I'm doing it exactly right. Let's see, we do have one more comment here. Robin says, "I was going to do a steek, but I used a superwash yarn and was afraid it wouldn't work." So they frogged the project. Oh. Yeah. Well, you know, sometimes you just try things and see what happens. Yeah. So it might not have been terrible. It might've been, but it might not have been. It's hard to tell, right? Yeah, I think it's just if you're gonna use a more slippery yarn, you just need to make sure that you're really taking the time to make sure, like you're really picking up every stitch when you're doing that crocheted steek because, again, like with this, I feel like, and I don't know, because this was my first time steeking something,. But she's feeling pretty sassy now. Now I'm feeling sassy, like, "I can steek anything." So if you were working on this and you were putting in your crocheted steek, and you, I don't know, you somehow like missed one of the stitches or something- It's gonna be fine. It will be fine because we're because we're using that stickier, woolier yarn. Even if you didn't, I think it would still be fine. It would be okay, yeah. Because there's so much around it that's providing structure for it, if you missed one stitch, it's not gonna be the end of the world. When I had a steeking class early on, taught a steeking class early on, one of the knitters didn't quite read the part about non-super wash, "Please make sure you use the really wooly stuff," and there was rayon in hers, and she was a loose knitter, and I'm not calling out any names, but it was pretty loose, and we cut, and it was holding. I was like, "Please pick up the edge stitches now so we can turn that back because I would feel so much-," and it was fine. So that's the main thing, it's more that you need to use that wooly yarn because, really, after you've cut that steek, there is the possibility of things coming unraveled and unraveling sort of into the project, right? But it probably wouldn't, probably. You know how knitting, when you drop a stitch, it wants to run down, and it's really easy to run down. When you have an edge like this, it would be a lot of work for it to unravel sideways, but still right, I like my- You like your wooly yarn. Yeah. So really, once we've picked up like these stitches on the side to work these little side borders, really, at that point, your side is secure. Yes because look where the cut is. It's way back on it's way back over here. Yeah, it's way back here. I've picked up in the very last steek stitch, and this, it's not that bulky. The thing that's bulky is the actual, the knitting being a facing and flipped over. Gotcha, okay, cool. And when you're knitting, fingering light sweaters, it's not going to be as bulky as this. Right, yes. Again, I like to teach with big, fat yarn. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It makes it easier for everybody to see at home too, or in your class when you're teaching in person. Okay, so now I'm flipping over, whoop, flipped too soon. Flipped too soon. We are going to knit three rows and then bind off on the following right side row. Okay. And if you'd like, we can do that together. Sure. Okay. So yes, you said in the pattern exactly how many to pick up, but it's not, like with this, with the coaster, it's not super critical. It's more that your edge is not- Flaring. Flaring or too lumpy or something like that, okay, gotcha. And I didn't even count my stitches other than two out of three, two out of three. Yeah, I didn't either. I don't think I have an odd number because I ended with a two, not a one, so it doesn't really matter, so knit three. So so far, we don't have, it looks like we don't have any more comments,- I think they may have all passed out when we did the cutting. I know, it does seem so unnatural to cut your knitting, and especially, I think of all those people that, and again, one day I'm gonna be that person 'cause someday I'm gonna finish this sweater I'm working on, that knitting a sweater is a lot of hours of knitting. I mean a lot. And so, yeah, it's very scary to think about, "Oh, I'm just gonna knit this and then I'm just gonna take a pair of scissors to it, but it'll be okay." For things like sweaters, I guess people, like with cardigans, most likely you're doing a button band, but I guess you wouldn't necessarily. You still would need to pick up and do something, but you don't necessarily have to put buttons on. People could put in zippers or even do, like, you could pick up the stitches and then do like a little I cord little thing, I feel like. You could do anything you want. You could really do anything you want. It's your project. So I have done coasters where you pick up one row, the stitches, and then you just bind off 'cause it just makes this little tiny edge and it just finishes the edge. Yeah, there's so many things you can do. Oh, I feel like my creative juices are flowing now. Let's see- I've created a monster. I love it. Yeah, you might've created a steeking monster. I don't know. Let's see, Cathy, oh, this is an interesting question. Cathy asks, "Could you put high temp stuffing in and make it an oven mitt instead of two coasters?" Oh, like, well, I've actually I had sewn like an oven mitt recently. I feel like you've probably could. Yes, but are we talking, like- I guess maybe you're not gonna like- This whole thing? Oh, yeah. Then you wouldn't need a steek. you just cut it open. Yeah, maybe you would just... I guess you could knit this and not do the steeking part and turn it into some sort of hot pad or something like that. And if you were gonna do that, if you're taking your knitting and you're trying to turn it into like an oven mitt, or a hot pad or something like that, you do need to be careful about the yarn content because if you're using something like an acrylic yarn, acrylic will melt. And stick to your skin. And stick to you, so. That's not a good idea. Yeah, so you just wanna be really careful if you're trying to then turn your knitting into something like that. I mean, you absolutely can do it, or I've, well, I always think of the episode of "The Office" where Phyllis knit an oven mitt for the Christmas exchange. I mean, so you can, you certainly can, and I would recommend getting something that's sort of temperature-safe and oven-safe, and make sure that your yarn isn't gonna melt or anything like that. Wool has good insulating properties. Yeah, it does, yeah. So yeah, I would definitely do it with a stickier, like 100% percent wool like we're doing here, for sure. If you were really going to make an oven mitt, I think I would felt it. I might felt it too, if I was gonna do an oven mitt, I think, yeah. 'Cause you want that thickness. I don't wanna feel that heat. Yeah, no. I've knit my three rows, so now I've got two garter ridges on the front, just like I have to garter ridges along all these other edges. And I'm gonna bind off in this color that I'm probably gonna rip out later. Yes, so you can finish it in the same color. Okay. We do have, oh, now we're starting to get some questions here. Okay. Let's see. Okay, so somebody asked, Susan, "I understand that this is a steeking tutorial, but why couldn't you just knit two coasters and not having the extra work of doing the steeking in the middle?" So maybe talk a little bit about why for this particular pattern, the steeking is the maybe better, or almost easier way to go. So if you're knitting stranded color work, and you're knitting in the round, this is how we like to do stranded color work, the right side of your work is always facing you. So it's really easy to track what you're knitting. If you had to knit this flat and you had to purl back, it's harder to see what you're doing. And if I'm just showing you the back of my coaster, that doesn't look like very much fun. And if all purling on the back side. So that is why we would do that. Yeah, so for this particular project, it's more that it's easier to just knit every stitch and work in the round versus if you're gonna do a color work, you can do it flat and purl back on the wrong side, it's just a little bit of a pain to see what you're doing, so that's, yeah, you absolutely could do that, though. Let's see what else do we have here. And also, how often do you get a chance to cut your knitting? Right, I mean, that's true. Now it turns out it turns out it's fun to cut your knitting. Cathy says, oh yes, "Cotton and wool only for the oven mitts." Somebody is asking, and I don't know the answer to this question. I don't know if you know the answer. "Do you know where the word steek came from, or where the method originated?" I actually don't know the answer to that one. I'm gonna have to look that one up. I don't wanna speak definitively because that would be me making stuff up, but I think it's Scandinavian, Norwegian, Icelandic. Okay, gotcha. But I don't know for sure. You don't know for sure, yeah. So I think we're all gonna be doing a little Googling after this. Google. Yes. Oh, and Cathy says that she loves the pattern. So thank you so much. That's so awesome. I'm glad you like it. Yeah, this is so cute, and you said we were binding off on the right side, correct? Yes. Is there any particular bind off that we need to do, or is it just like a regular, old- It's just a regular bind off. Plain, old bind off. So if you find that your bind off is tight, this is my favorite slightly looser bind off. I haven't been using it, but I'm just gonna show you anyway. So you go in to make your second stitch as normal, but you don't drop it off the left needle. So see, I've got this whole thing here, then I'd go ahead and do the binding off part, and then I drop it off my left needle. And that just puts a little more yarn into your stitch. So there it is, again, I didn't drop it off my left needle yet, pull that one over, then I can drop the whole thing off to the left needle. So if you find that your bind off is pulling in along the top edge, just go ahead and add that little extra step of not dropping it, and drop it after you finished binding off that stitch. Cool. I think, I also feel like now, now if you have the crochet hook out and you can do the single crochet, I think even when you're done with this coaster, it might be fun almost to take that contrasting color and even do like a single crochet sort of border around it. She's getting wild. Uh-oh, getting crazy over here. I love it. Yeah, this is really, really fun. I'm really glad that we decided that we were gonna do this live and that you were gonna make me cut my knitting live for everybody here on Facebook. So we're getting just about to the end of our time. I'm not seeing any more questions coming in. Do you have any sort of final thoughts? Well, before we have final thoughts, we need to talk about what's gonna happen on the back. Oh, yes, please, let's talk about that, please. So I have my lovely edge and now I'm looking at the back. I am going to use this tail, and you could leave a longer tail at the other end, too, when you start your knitting, but I'm gonna use this tail to sew my facing down. Oh, I guess, yeah, 'cause this would be like, it's a little floppy over here. 'Cause right now we've got that raw edge with these little bits of yarn hanging out in there, I would like for those to be hidden away. Okay. This is the part that makes you feel secure. And so are you just using the tail from what you just bound off? Yes. Basically, you would just leave a long tail and then come down and just- Are you just whip-stitching it then? Pretty much, yes. Okay. So the trickiest part is at the edge, there might be a little burble that you wanna kind of tuck under, and so you just, any way you wanna do it is fine, but I'm gonna bring that down and then I'm gonna start making things stay down. Okay, great. Let's see, we've got a few little comments. Mary says that that was a very good bind off tip, so she says, "Thank you." All right, excellent. That's what I love about knitting classes. When you can be with people, it's all the little extra hints that you get. Yes, absolutely. Besides the thing that, I went to YouTube and I found how to do it. Yeah, and then let's see, oh, Robin says, "Do crab stitch border," so that's a crochet thing. It's like a reverse single crochet thing. Yeah, that would look really- I might be doing that tonight. So the little extra tails, I'm just gonna let them be where they are 'cause this is very cool, you can hide all of those inside your facing, and you don't have to go into every stitch when you're sewing down you're facing, so I'll skip several, just find some place that looks like- Oh, you know what, I'm gonna take it right here, and then I might go as far as 1/4 inch, 1/2 inch, and pick up the next one. So just find yourself a likely loop on the back of your knitting, and then go ahead and find a likely place on the other part, but see how far apart those are? Yeah. It doesn't really matter. And then when you get to finish that, here is the pink tail, and I'm just going to, it's pretty short, so I might have to fake my way, but I'm just gonna take my big needle and run it in between the space. So not showing the front, not showing the back, and just pull that through there, and then I can clip that off and it's hidden inside. Oh, that's great. Well, do you have any final sticking thoughts for us before we go? I don't think so. I think you have all the tools you need, and you can watch the video later, and I think you're excited about it, so my work here is done. I was actually very nervous about doing this. She said, "Oh, yeah, let's do this. Should we do this?" Yeah, I know, it really was. I was like, "This is a great idea. Oh no, this is a terrible idea," but this was really fun, and I really can't wait to try it again on other projects. I would like you to post your finished project. Okay, I will. And I'll post mine. Okay, that sounds great. Okay. Well thank you everybody for watching us today. This was so much fun. Like I said at the beginning, we had never done any kind of live like this for knitting before, so this was super fun. I think we're gonna have to find some other things I don't know how to do in knitting and you're gonna have to show me. So if you haven't already downloaded the boxed heart coaster pattern that Michele wrote for this live, be sure to go ahead and do that, and don't forget that you can always come back and watch our video later. So if you forget any of the little techniques that we've done here today, you can always come back and rewatch it. So thank you so much, Michele, for joining me today. Thank you for having me. This has been very fun. Yeah, it's been great. And thank you everybody at home for watching and happy knitting. Go forth and steek.