I finally finished the body of Lappland. I shouldn't say "finally" as this is the fastest I have finished a body in a while. I ran out of the natural yarn and had to order more. Thankfully Susan from Spinblessing had more in the same dye lot, but I suspect a different dye lot would have been fine.
I don't do color work knitting back and forth. To me, that's insanity. So - I created steeks for the front and back necks so I could keep knitting around.
The back looks the pretty much the same, just a wider steek. I generally add an odd number of steek stitches, knit the first two stitches and last two stitches of the steek in the same background color and then alternate colors across as I carry the colors across. I do a K2 together (to decrease one stitch) or a K3 together (to decrease two stitches) and knit one stitch on the right side of the neck (as you're looking at it), knit the steek stitches, knit one stitch and then SSK (to decrease one stitch) or a SSSK (to decrease two stitches) on the left side. Usually I would leave the front neck and back neck stitches on a holder. But in this case there is going to be a front placket and it will be cut down the red rectangular area. The back neck stitches are on a holder and will be put back on the needles when I'm knitting the neck. When I pick up the stitches for the neck there will be a nice curved neckline instead of the jagged stepped neckline that would have been created by knitting back and forth.
When it comes to the sleeves, I basted where the sides are and will use this as a guide for sewing and cutting the steeks.
So here I am. Body done. Off to sleeve hell. Stay tuned!
