Lost

August is flying by, and while I'm behind on several tasks (like the three blog posts that never made it out of my head), Oranje has recovered from timeout. 

I said I wasn't going to rip those rows with the loose and gaping stitches, but they looked like crap and had to go.

Before:

After:

 

No explanation for the difference.  I'm sure I should care so I could avoid the problem on future projects, but in all honesty, I don't.  It looks good now and that's all that matters.  I finished the main portion of the collar the same night but was bored to death once I started the stripey rows for the collar facing.  I was so close to the end but completely unmotivated.  So Oranje sat on my dresser.  And sat.  One day I picked it up, knit half a round, put it back down, and it sat some more. A few days ago I sucked it up, sat down with the sweater, knit the last ten stripes, and bound off. Tonight, Oranje finally went for a swim in the bathtub and is currently pinned to my guest room floor drying.

I would be really excited about the fact that it's almost finished except that I'm completely lost when it comes to finishing the last few steps.  I have to cut it the steeks.  Cutting my knitting doesn't really freak me out.  I'm sure I'll need to take a deep breath when I finally take the scissors to the sweater, but I'm actually looking forward to that part.  Where I'm totally and completely lost is sewing the steek reinforcement.  I honestly don't know where to begin.  I've looked at half a dozen steeking tutorials, and I'm still clueless.  I know I need to machine sew two lines on either side of the steek, but here are the problems:

I don't own a sewing machine.
I haven't used a sewing machine in about fifteen years, maybe longer.
I don't understand the concept of how the sweater, currently a tube, can be fed through the machine.
I don't know what color thread to use.
I don't even really understand where I need to sew.  Along the steek stitches or right outside?

I am so confused.  And sadly, even if I manage to figure out the steek situation, I want to put in a zipper instead of buttons, and I'm equally clueless on adding a zipper to knitting.  Oranje is clearly going to be a struggle until the end.