Steek

Crochet steek, the way to go, me thinks.
Be sure to use wool, not some funny blends. Here I have Blue faced DK and the brown contrast steek yarn is Shetland. Please don't use bamboo or similar slippery stuff.

So, you crochet a simple chain, up and down around the center steek stitch, where the cardigan opening ought to be. There's a pretty neat explanation here. Really quite simple and it holds together amazingly well, no unravelling whatsoever.


My dad asked whether I was knitting a zipper... it does sort of look like a zipper, doesn't it.


And then cut the ladder between the two halves of a stitch.


and done!
Now pick up for the borders.


I have decided to do ribbing as my border. To match to cuffs and lower edge. It'll be interesting to incorporate buttonholes into the ribbing, but I'm sure it'll turn out fine.

I did a pretty deep steek, 12 stitches (in fact, I did an uneven steek, one side has 5.5 and the other 6.5 stitches, as it worked better with the pattern as I just left out one 12 st. cable in the center)
Now, just the borders to do, yay!