On steeking: the neckline

Before I went off into the steeking description, I had just recovered from my mistake at the neck (I was nowhere near the sleeves, yet). I had picked up the stitches and knit a new neckline steek, with all neck shaping achieved through decreases after the first row (which I put on spare needles to hold).

I did a nice 3-needle bind off to join the two sides of the torso at the shoulder. I flatter myself that it looks spectacular. I am totally pleased with how well it worked. It's not perfectly like the pattern, as it would have been had I kitchener-stitched it, but it's stronger and still quite pleasing to the eye. And, if I have my way, this sweater will have not one stitch of sewing in the whole bloody thing. Not one.

Close up, the steek looks like that. You can see that I like a wide steek (8 stitches) which lets me have 4 stitches per side and that lets me unravel 2 stitches and leave 2 stitches to hold the pick-ups on. If I had been more experienced, I would have left the steek stitches un-cast off, and made a hard edge to the cast-off. Then I wouldn't be cutting through that cast-off edge in the steeking time.