Tank top for Rory

Another knitting project that got finished while my sewing machine was on holiday (I can talk about my sewing machine being away less bitterly now that it's back safe and sound) is a tank top from the Knitter's handy book of sweater patterns for Rory.  I've had this book for ages but hadn't knitted anything from it. 

No photos of Rory modelling the jumper, I'm afraid - he tried it on once (pre-blocking) said that it's nice and promptly took it off again.  Oh well, it's not really jumper wearing season at the moment.

So, I'm really proud of this jumper, not only did I finally use a book that I own but have never used I also ended up steeking it.  I feel fearless where knitting is concerned now.

The yarn I used is Artistic 8/2 in the rainbow colourway by Aade Lõng.  Half of the yarn used is reclaimed from a smaller tank top Rory had been knitted by his Nanna and the other half is the same yarn bought by David on a work trip he went on to Tallinn just before we moved to Switzerland.  The yarn is lovely - I've always loved the long, gradual colour changes. 

I've also had my eye on the Alberta sweater by Jared Flood and thought I would try to do something similar.  I followed the pattern for the Set-In Sleeve Sweater - Child from the book and did alternating 3 row stripes from my two sets of yarn.  One was wound in one direction and the other in the opposite direction which has led to the yellow conversion where I started the armholes - if I did another one I'd make sure they were both wound in the same direction.  Of course, in order to preserve the stripes the logical thing to do was to steek.  Gulp.

I was a bit scared when I finally admitted this revelation, but with the help of the internet - specifically Jared Flood's blog notes about making his original Alberta and also Eunny Jang's steeking notes and Kate Davies' steeking tutorials I got there.  As I wasn't doing colourwork as such (ie didn't have two colours in one row) I made my steek using a k1p1 rib over an odd number of stitches (7 I think), which helped with locating where to do the crochet, the scary cutting and also where to pick up the neck and sleeve rib edges. 

Here's a picture of the inside (this one is pre-blocking):

And also a close up of the steek all neatly finished off with some herringbone stitch.

I can see some more steeking in my future, it's scarier to think about than to do.  Even though I'm a sewer as well as a knitter I don't like sewing up knitting!

Link to my ravelry project page.