The Great Mini Steek

I must confess that I have never cut a steek. The idea of cutting my knitting is one I cannot quite handle, it truly makes me woozy, but I imagine it felt something like what I did a few days ago to a finished sock.

It was such a pretty sock and that is why it took me months to fix it. To have a perfectly finished sock … and then mess with it? Mutilate it, frankly. But the cuff would not leave me alone. The cuff ribbing did not match (by one stitch all the way around) to the cables on the leg of the sock. Did I want to unravel this whole sock (cuff down, not toe up, alas!) for a one stitch? Because it was only ONE stitch, I tried to ignore it, but, still, it wasn’t quite right. And with everything else in my life that is not quite right that I have absolutely zero control over, the need to fix this sock continued to nag at me.

One day I was happily perusing Ravelry when I read the sad story of a gal whose sweaters’ sleeves she knit were too short and she was ticked. She didn’t want to take apart the whole entire sweater, reknit both sleeves and fight with putting the whole thing back together. Who could blame her?

The great Norah Gaughan said (and I am paraphrasing because I do not remember the exact comment) to cut the yarn, just one stitch, pick the yarn out one stitch at a time, putting the live stitches on needles as you go. Then you have live stitches to work with and knit your cuff as long as necessary. I could not believe what I was reading and immediately thought of my sock!

Now the tension for me to fix this sock grew even greater because I had the solution and I in no way wanted to cut my sock. Not one little stitch. But I knew Norah would not lie because she gives tons of fabulous advice on Ravelry. So I successfully ignored this wonderful advice for quite some time.

Finally I had to do something. I could not NOT fix this sock any longer. With the anxiety in me that you think would accompany a really important decision in my life like what lawn furniture would I be comfortable living with since I will never buy another set probably in my lifetime or what to wear to family wedding that will be permanently fixed in all of my family’s living rooms, I sat down on my couch and stared at the cuff. Yes, it was still off by one stitch. I would have been much happier if it miraculously fixed itself, but no.

So, I took a deep breath, took my little nippers and clipped just one thread. The world did not crumble! My kids still didn’t care about my knitting and my sock didn’t scream. (I didn’t scream either, by the way.) I slowly started picking out the thread that I cut and, sure enough, those cute little live stitches made their way to my double points and I had an entire sock without a cuff waiting for the fix-it job.

The rest of the story is so uneventful; it is hardly worth telling. I simply knit my ribbing in the correct one-stitch-over two by two ribbing, bound off, and was so pleased with myself I could hardly not shout it from the rooftop.

I must mention (because I was knitting in the opposite direction I guess -- your thoughts on this?), if you look closely some of the “new” stitches are ½ a stitch off from the “old” stitches. To be safe when using this trick in the future, I am going to make sure it is a “transition area” like cuff ribbing to the leg pattern in this sock, because the ribbing hid the transition beautifully.

My kids still didn’t care about this, however, because it is still my knitting. But I thought, hey, I just cut a mini steek. I may even steek a sweater. Maybe.

Happy knitting,
Kim Haesemeyer