Doll Sweater Steeking Tutorial

This is the plus-size or manly large-size version of the Fair Isle doll sweater designed to teach colorwork and steeks. The pattern is available on Ravelry as a free download. There are sizes for medium-size dolls here and slim dolls here. (All sizes are based on the 18"-20" size range doll.)

The ribbing is worked flat, which makes it easier to join in the round without getting the sts twisted. It also makes the bottom of the ribbing neater.

Then the chart is followed up to the shoulders, following the instructions for making the armhole steeks. (The center and armhole steeks are recognizable as in interruption of the pattern by vertical lines of alternating dark and light. In some cases, the vertical lines are interrupted because the darker or lighter color was not available for that round of knitting.)

Here is the "back" with one shoulder joined and the center 20 sts on waste yarn, ready to BO for the other shoulder. (Since it can be worn as a cardigan or a pullover, I've designated the side with the center steek as the front and side without it as the back, to simplify the instructions.) The stitch markers indicate where the steek sts start and finish. The steek sts on the left front still need to be BO, along with some of the pattern sts to make the neck opening.

Here's a photo from the front. You can see there are more sts on the front than on the back. That's because the sts held on waste yarn and those BO on the front with form the neck opening.

Here's what it looks like when the steek sts and some of the pattern sts are BO for the neck. The st left on the needle after the BO will go back onto the left needle. Then the front and back shoulder sts can be joined, either by Kitchener stitch (preferred, because there is less bulk), BO and sewn or 3-needle BO.

Here is the front with basting to outline the neck opening to have excess fabric cut away.

Here's a photo of the shoulder after Kitchenering, showing the shoulder stitches and the armhole steek stitches. When you cut, you will cut the horizontal bars between the center steek sts up to the top of the steek, but not into the Kitchenered shoulder and steek sts.

Now we are ready for the sewing machine. (Or other method of anchoring the sts if you prefer.)

First we need to trim the yarn tails from the center steek so we don't catch them in the sewing. You're looking at the body from the side. The center steek is at the top of the photo. You can tidy up the tails first if you want, but the center of the steek is going to be cut away, so it isn't really necessary.

Using the sewing machine, sew down the steek one vertical line of steek sts away from the pattern sts, so you have a slim section of steek sts to use to PU sts for the front button/buttonhole bands.

You can sew one row of machine stitches before cutting and the second row if you want. 

When cutting, I like to put something (in this case a rotary-cutting ruler) between the layers to avoid cutting the floats on the other side. Using sharp scissors and in good light, cut up the center steek on the double vertical lines of dark sts.

Then it's easy to sew the second line of sts one vertical line away from the first one.

I like to cut the armhole steeks before sewing those. The actual sewing is just the same as for the center steek.

For the neck steek, sew a line of machine sts about 1/8" away from the basting stitches, and within the part that will be cut away.

What you have now looks a bit messy. The cut edges curl under and threads are hanging down. 

You can see the machine sewing here. It doesn't have to be too exact because it won't show when your project is done, but you want to keep it within the first two vertical rows of steek sts, so you don't cut through it later when you trim the excess.

You now have a choice between knitting the sleeves first or the neck and button/buttonhole bands. I like to do the bands first, because then I can try the sweater on the doll, check out the fit and make the sleeves the right length, which is harder to do when the neck, button and buttonhole bands aren't finished.

After the steeks are cut, pick up stitches for the button/buttonhole bands, about one stitch for every steek stitch, catching the leg of each stitch that was adjacent to the pattern sts. (Note: Picking up sts at the ribbing is just the same as picking up sts at a finished edge, but when you move into the steek, you want to be sure you keep the yarn on the RS of the work. Don't accidentally start bringing the yarn through from the WS, or you'll run into trouble. You are only picking up a leg of the steek, not going through to the WS. It might help to fold the steek facing over, so you have better access to the stitch leg you're trying to pick up.)

Then count to see how many sts you have, so you can decrease to the right number. In the first row of ribbing, I decreased evenly along the row by K2tog or P2tog, depending on what fit into the ribbing pattern until I had 62 sts. (I like to put locking st markers where I want each decrease to go.)

Here's what it looks like on the inside (nonpublic side).

For this sweater, I put the buttonhole band on the left front and the button band on the right, because it's for a boy. When I had the bands done, I tried it on.

Don't worry if the shoulders stick up like wings at this point.

The sleeves will pull the shoulder seam down, and the excess steek fabric will be trimmed away.

The chart for the sleeves has the same motifs as were used on the body, but in reverse order.

Just as for the body, you can use two circs, dpns or Magic Loop. I prefer the dpns for this part, because the tube is pretty narrow, and moving from one needle to the next seems easier. As for the ribbing, I picked up more stitches than I needed and then reduced them to the 52 sts needed to start the sleeve. I made sure I had 26 sts each on the front and the back of the sleeve. 

You will need to identify the (mostly) dark vertical row of stitches in the armhole steek that is adjacent to the motif/pattern stitches. Here that row is identified with an arrow.

After picking up one of the BO underarm sts, you are going to pick up the left leg of the V in each stitch in this row up the armhole steek.

You'll continue picking up over the shoulder, and when you go down the other side, you'll be picking up the right leg of the V. In other words, you'll be picking up the leg closest to the pattern.

Here's what it looks like picking up for the sleeve.

If you're using two circs, you might want to put a stitch marker to indicate the pattern repeats. If you're using dpns and have a set of five, you can arrange the sts so the break between the needles falls at the pattern repeat. (I only needed to have some way to keep track of the pattern repeat with the 12- and 10-st motifs. They conveniently start and the beginning of the sleeve. How did that happen?)

After picking up all the armhole steek stitch legs and the other BO stitch at the bottom of the armhole, you will work the first row of the sleeve chart. As you do, you will decrease sts evenly until you have the 52 sts, as indicated on the bottom row of the chart, half of the stitches (26) on each side of the armhole. The beginning/end of round is in the middle of the underarm.

After the first sleeve is worked to the point you think you might be getting close, it's good to try the sweater on the doll. You want to stop the pattern when the sleeve is 1/2" shorter than the length you want the sleeve to be. Here the girls are kibitzing about how much longer the sleeve should be to fit Carter. 

Carter is stocky and has shorter arms and legs, but his shoulders are bigger, so that takes up some of the sleeve length. I found that stopping after the Row 30, the final decrease row, the sleeve would be about how I like it with the ribbing. (You can always make the ribbing a little longer if you need to.)

Here's the sweater with one sleeve done. (Thank you, Carter.)

You won't need to try on for length of the second sleeve, because you can just stop wherever you stopped for the first sleeve. For American Girl dolls, I'm guessing you would continue the pattern through Row 35. The sleeve chart continues through Row 42, in case your doll has longer arms. If that isn't long enough, you can refer to the Body Chart, working backwards, starting with Row 23.

The sleeves are the same width for all 18"-range dolls except for length. The differences (other than sleeve and body length) for the slimmer dolls like Götz only affect the body and neck.

I like to tie the buttons on doll clothes. I use a skinny crochet hook to pull a piece of yarn through one hole and down through the other. Then I either use the crochet hook or a yarn needle to pull each end of yarn though the button band, at least two sts apart, tie a tight knot and then snip off the tails.

Time to finish the inside. This is how it looks at this point:

I tidy up any loose knots along the sleeves (or you can untie them and weave them in if you *really* want to). If you want to save time but worry that the knots might come undone, you can run a row of machine stitching down the tails, as close as you can get to the knitting without catching it in the sts, so only the tails are sewn. It's OK if you go over the knots.

Then trim off the tails without cutting the knots (or the machine stitching, if that's what you did).

It should look something like this:

The final step is to finish off the raw edges on the inside of the sweater. You can stitch them down, being careful not to sew through to the outside, using a blanket stitch, an overcast st or cross-stitching, or you can cover the raw edges with thin decorative ribbon or stretch lace.

If you want, you can line the sleeves with nylon net or other thin, non-raveling fabric.

A word about floats and doll hands: It's really difficult to get dolls to make a fist. I know, I've tried. They seem to splay their fingers, and no matter how careful you are, the fingers sometimes get caught in the floats. But do they tell you there's a problem? There are several ways to deal with this. 

1) You can put a doll sock or a plastic sandwich bag on the doll's hand before inserting into the sleeve, pulling it off after the hand is out.
2) You can line the sleeve with nylon net or other thin fabric (better than choice #1 if the sweater is for a child's doll)
3) You can limit the stranded pattern to the upper part of the sleeve and finish the sleeve all with one color, eliminating floats.

But wait! There's one more step! Get out the runway for the models to show off your steeking handiwork. (I made this sweater for Zachary Jr.--The Doll Formerly Known as Buddy--but he lives in Wisconsin, so Carter is happy to model for me. Here it is as a cardigan.

Dolly wanted to try it on, too. The next one will be for Daphne Jr., who is just Dolly's size.

She tells me this should fit an American Girl Doll, too, but she isn't sure about the sleeve length.

When you get to this point, you deserve your Steeking Badge.

Addendum: In case you decide to line the sleeves with nylon net (or other thin fabric), a good idea if you're giving the sweater to a child's doll.

Cut a piece of nylon net the size of the sleeve. I made a template by putting the sleeve down on a piece of paper and drawing a line a little bigger than the sleeve on each side. Then I connected the two lines. The line along the top of the sleeve is the fold line. Cutting nylon net can be difficult, so find a background that shows up your color net and pin the two layers together. Cut to size.

Turn the sleeve inside-out. Pin the nylon net to the inside of the sleeve. It's OK if the net overlaps the cuff. It doesn't need to reach all the way up to the shoulder, just close.

Sew the nylon net to the sleeve at the seam, starting at the top of the cuff (where the ribbing *stops*). Be careful not to catch the outside of the knitting, even if you use thread that matches well. You only need to catch the inside layer of the yarn to keep the lining in place. You can catch both edges of the lining at the same time. When you get to the top, continue sewing the lining to the top of the sleeve, still being careful not to have the thread go all the way through to the outside.

Trim the part of the lining that overlaps the cuff (if any) to be even with the bottom of the sleeve colorwork, being careful not to cut any of the floats.

Repeat for second sleeve.

Dolls shown are these. Carter--My Sibling, My Pal. Dolly--Madame Alexander. Also shown are the Tonner My Imagination Starter Redhead and Goetz (Gotz) Classic Kidz Vroni. Yarn used is Knit Picks Palette.

High Fiber—Make No Missteek

The second steeked doll sweater is finished and on the model.

If you're just joining us or have otherwise missed the last two weeks, this sweater can be worn as a cardigan or a "pullover," and we're using steeks so we can knit in the round. This has the advantage of allowing us to work always on the right (public) side and always work knit stitches, which makes the resulting fabric more even. (You still have to purl for the ribbing.) The main purpose of this doll sweater is to give people an opportunity to make a steeked sweater, with all the steps included, without the commitment of a full-size garment. Steeks can be intimidating until you've done the process a few times. The pattern will be available for free.

We knit the sweater body in a tube up to the armholes, then bound off for the underarm and cast armhole steek stitches on in the next round. Then we worked the slightly larger tube up to the shoulders and joined the shoulders, either by grafting or by binding off and sewing the bound off edges together. Then we machine-sewed on each side of each steek, two rows of vertical machine stitching on each side.

Here's what the inside of the doll sweater looks like after machine-sewing within the steek, but close to the pattern stitches that aren't part of the steek (see last week's blog for photos of the steps up to here). I already trimmed the loose tails down to a manageable length before sewing.

Then we cut. (Good light, sharp scissors and a glass of wine if needed, are key.) We cut right down the middle of the steek. It doesn't have to be very exact. After the ribbing is finished, we will trim the steek facing down to just a little past the stitching, so any irregularities will be trimmed off.

In this case the shoulders have been grafted using Kitchener stitch. The next step is to make the neck opening. There are ways of shaping the opening while knitting and filling in the space with steek stitches, but we have just knit the tube to the top. We then measure and baste with contrast yarn where we plan to cut. 

Then we sew two rows of machine stitching about 1/8" apart, just outside the basting. After the neck is sewn, we can cut just outside the sewing. Then we pick up stitches with the ribbing yarn to knit the neck ribbing.

We work a few rows of ribbing and bind off. Then we pick up on one side of the steek for the button/buttonhole bands. Here you can see the center steek stitches. They show up as dark vertical rows of stitches. There are some breaks between the rows, because we had some rounds of knitting that were solid lighter color. Still, you can see the vertical rows pretty clearly. The arrow points to the leg of the stitch that's within the steek but right next to the pattern stitches of the motifs. We are going to pick up this left leg of the outermost vertical steek stitch row from bottom to top, and then a few stitches in the neck ribbing. (The stitch is shaped like a V.) 

When all the stitches are picked up, it will look like this on the outside.

It will look like this on the inside.

You can pick up the whole stitch instead of just one leg if you like, but it adds a little thickness, something we want to avoid when making tiny garments like doll sweaters.

After knitting the buttonhole band (or button band, if your doll is a boy), we do the same thing on the other side, picking up the corresponding leg of the vertical row of steek stitches, this time the right leg.

After the button/buttonhole bands are done, it's time to pick up the stitches for the sleeves. Here's what the inside looks like before picking up for the sleeves.

Those flaps you see are the armhole steeks. We are going to pick up stitches on the outside from the bottom of the armhole to the shoulder and back down the other side, picking up the outermost leg of the vertical row of steek stitches, just as we did for the button/buttonhole bands.

The sleeves are then worked in the round, with decreases according to the pattern, ending with ribbing. When changing colors, I just tie a loose knot. Then when the sleeve is done, I turn it inside out and retie the knots securely, and then cut off the tails. If your motifs have very long floats, and your doll has fingers that stick out, you might want to line the sleeve with nylon net or some other thin fabric, especially if you're giving the sweater to a small child.

The next step is to clean up the inside. Trim the steeks to just a couple of vertical rows of stitching on each side of the button/buttonhole bands and the sleeve steeks. For the neck opening, trim to 1/4". Fasten down all the steeks to the inside of the sweater, using blanket stitch, overcast or cross-stitch, or cover the steek edges with decorative ribbon or stretch lace binding. If you're lining the sleeves, do it now. 

Sew on the buttons and block. Then the lucky doll, like Gabi, above, is ready for a photo shoot. Next week I hope to be able to post a link to the pattern for this sweater.

After I finished Gabi's sweater, I started on the Hana pattern for Vroni. This will go to Hannah, who now lives with DGD2 in Wisconsin, for her birthday in May. I finished it on Saturday. It's a cute jumper/tunic with pockets for small items: crayons, tiny dolls, comb, hankie, rocks or shells.

In real life, we helped with a performance of fun music and poems Monday evening by taking the donations from the audience as people filed in. Felicia and Keith, who sing in our choir, donated their artistry for the cause.

The proceeds went to The Peace House, our local women's shelter. It was a fun evening with beautiful music from two talented singers, along with a lot of laughs. A friend we hadn't seen in years came to town for skiing, and we invited him and his wife (whom we had never met) to come along for the performance. We also had plans for snowshoeing and supper on Thursday.

We lucked out on the weather. Thursday was beautiful--for a change. The pups really enjoyed the outing, as did we all. The supper was good, although our guest had already had lasagne two nights in a row, and that's what we were having. The gentleman was an usher at our wedding 51 years ago, and his wife is a knitter (among other things), and we found we had a lot in common. 

The snowshoeing wore out the pups. Dusty could hardly move after our walk around the block the next day. He crashed with Rat for a snooze on the padded bench.

Dusty is 10 months old now, close to 20 lbs. and 16+ inches tall at the shoulder, so technically a standard, like Rocky, although from miniature stock. We expect him to be smaller than Rocky, but he's getting close.

In the meantime, Rocky seems to have more energy since starting his thyroid medication.

In other cuteness, Portland and environs are having their annual Rose City Yarn Crawl. I really wanted to go, but it would have cut into preparations for The Messiah Project. Maybe next year. In the meantime, DDIL2 and DGS3 (the youngest) popped in to some of the participating yarn shops.

I wouldn't be surprised if he were the first grandchild to learn to knit.

What's on my needles: Just cast on for Vroni's Fair Isle sweater, a test knit of the variation of the steeking project for the slimmer Götz dolls, like Hannah and Vroni.

What's on my Featherweight: Ready to sew the steeks for the next doll sweater.

What's on my loom: I still haven’t started anything with the leftover warp.

What's on my wheel: I have thrown a towel over Stanzi. I got tired of feeling guilty for not spinning. She will need a major oiling before I spin again.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still listening to D. E. Stevenson’s Vittoria Cottage. Also listening to the choruses for The Messiah for the performance on April 9th. On the Kindle app, I’m still reading Dying to Read, The Cate Kinkaid Files Book #1.

What's in my wine glass: "Two-buck Chuck," Trader Joe's Charles Shaw Shiraz 2008 vintage. We accidentally opened one we were aging. Oops! Yum!

What's my tip of the week: You've probably heard that you should let the water continue to run after you've turned off your garbage disposal, but did you know that allowing the water to run before you turn on the disposal will allow the mechanism to work more thoroughly? 

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals were harmed during the production of this blog post.