Steggie #2 finished!

I finished up the weaving in of ends and finishing the hood up last night. Sewed the hood spines on and sewed in the zipper today. It fits her great and she seems quite happy with it. Now what to make next ;)

Steggie #2 Progress

I've completed the body section (14 inches) and bound off for the underarm sections (12, 6 for each side of the body and 6 for each front piece), now to start the raglan shaping! Pretty tired of plain stockinette, so I'm excited to do some decreases, lol

This is only my second skein of yarn and not even halfway through it. I had 7, so pretty confident I have enough yarn to finish.

I have a big decision to make. Do I work one piece at a time, or use three skeins and work all three at the same time? Heck, might as well make it interesting and work all three at once ;)

Steggie #2

Just started the Steggie jacket for my daughter's 9th birthday next month. Instead of making the back and front pieces separately, I cast all stitches for the XL size and will work as one piece then split it at the arm holes. I'm using Lion Brand Wool-Ease in Cranberry as the main color.

It is going good so far, except I have to work a bit slower because the yarn is pretty splitty. I will be making it custom length to fit her, so will order a zipper after the body is done.

Steggie - Finished!

Here it is, finished! My daughter is modeling it for me. I do like how it turned out, and I think my nephew will like it as well (both my daughters want one now!).

I have a bunch if pictures I took along the way, but didn't get around to posting. I won't put up all of them, just the relevant ones. I apologize for the size and quality of the pictures, I uploaded these with my phone since my computer was having issues these past couple days.

I have to admit, making the sleeves was the most interesting part of making this project. I've only done intarsia once before, but it is a fun technique to use. I did not use yarn over increases on the spikes. Many people on Ravelry complained that it didn't look nice and suggested to use make one increases instead, which I did. I had no issues sewing up the sleeves.

 This is a close up of the sleeve seam between the spikes.

Because I made chain edges on the pieces of the body, it seamed up easily and looks like this on the inside

and like this on the outside.

All done except weaving in the ends and sewing in the zipper.

A shot showing the hood when down.

Sewing in the zipper went okay. It certainly wasn't my favorite part of making the jacket, but it wasn't as horrible as expected. I found an excellent tutorial which made the process much more painless than how I was going to do it. I used a tutorial from chicknits.com. While sewing it on, the foot of the machine pushed the zipper out a bit more than I was expecting. It would have went better if I owned a special zipper pressure foot, maybe I'll buy one down the road (my daughters are expecting Steggie jackets of their own and the Scarlow jacket for my husband also calls for a zipper). The zipper teeth show while it's zipped up, but I'd say it looks decent for my first time. The black zipper looks fine, my husband admitted it didn't look as bad as he expected.

Just showing the inside of the zipper here.

This was a really fun project and worked up fairly quickly. It took me  around 22 days to make it, but there were several days where I barely worked on it. My oldest has a birthday in less than a month, and she wants a Steggie for her birthday. I have some red Wool Ease that I had bought back when Joann Craft's was having a sale, I plan to use that (hopefully there is enough!).

Steggie progress - day 10.

I now have all the main parts completed and am working on sewing them together. I omitted the yarn overs on the spines and worked left leaning increases instead, as suggested by many on Ravelry. I made the sleeves 15.5 inches before working the raglan decreases instead if the suggested 13 inches. I used my daughter for size reference since she is slightly bigger than the recipient.

Following are some pictures of the sleeves, one grafted together.

Steggie progress - Day 2

I cast on for size large, but added an inch to the length. I started the raglan decreases right after this picture.

The back section completed! I know understand why the pattern calls for blocking before sewing, this thing rolls up like crazy. Getting the piece somewhat flat to take a picture was a pain.

 This is what was left of my cake after knitting the back. I got 8 1/2 inches of the left front knit up with this.

 

 2 1/2 inches of progress into my new cake, and I come across this little gem. I wound the cakes and came across two joins (in separate hanks, if memory serves), but I did not keep track of which cakes contained them. I was about 3 inches of yarn short of completing the row that would allow me to tie on on the seam edge. I tried just working it in, but it looked horrible. I tinked back to the previous seam edge and cut the piece out. That is two joins I'll have to work in when I finish up, but at least it will be at the seam and not be so obvious.

 Here is the left front piece completed. You can see the ends where I joined yarn in both places, as well as how little of the cake was used to finish up the piece.

I think I've made favorable progress so far. I hope to get a lot done tomorrow as well, perhaps the right front and a sleeve.

eLoomanator's Diagonal Knit Dishcloth

When I bought the Swish yarn for Steggie from Knit Picks, I grabbed a skein of Dishie in the color "Maps" as well. Dishie makes great dishrags, and I am in need of more (my husband is obsessive about throwing them in the dirty clothes hamper). eLoomanator's designs had caught my eye on Ravelry.com, and her Diagonal Knit Dishcloth has been printed out and sitting in my heap of patterns for awhile now. It is a variation of "Grandmother's Favorite," a very popular dish cloth pattern that I've knitted up before. I knit this up in an evening while watching tv.

 See how little of the skein was used? I'm hoping to get 2 more (even if I have to make one smaller).

Just a close up of the center

Steggie - Started!!

I am excited for this post! I have been wanting to make a "Steggie" jacket for a couple years now, but never seemed to have the money for an "extra" project. I made it a priority now though, seeing as how the little boy I wanted it make it for is turning 7 very soon.

 Here is all the yarn I bought for the jacket, all 5 hanks wound into neat cakes :)

 I picked "Allspice" and "Merlot Heather" for the spine colors.

 I don't do gauge swatches generally (I fairly reliably knit on gauge), but seeing as this is to be a gift I did one just to be 100% sure. I was exact on for rows, but 1/4 of a stitch too many over 4 inches - good enough for me!

 My current progress! I like how the tonal yarn looks so far, and is lovely to work with.

I have made one small modification so far; working a chain edging up the sides. I am not a huge fan of sewing, so am trying to make the sewing as easy on myself as possible. Plus this should give a nice clean look on the edge at the zipper as well.

Speaking of zippers... *gulp* I ordered one today. I was considering just doing buttons instead, but I suppose it is time I stop avoiding zippers and just do one. It can't be as bad as I'm assuming, right?! Like I said, not a fan of sewing! I am assuming that sewing a tough zipper onto a knitted sweater is going to be a b****. I could be wrong; I hope I am wrong.

AFTER I ordered a black zipper (what I thought was my best option given the choices with free shipping) my husband tried to tell me that black won't look good with the orange. I thought it would look better than white, blue, or any of the other colors offered. He'll probably be right and I'll hate it when I see it next to the yarn. I just thought that black would contrast, but in a good way and be kind of cool. I am making this for a 7-year-old after all. I could order an orange zipper, but I would have had to paid extra shipping. It really irks me to pay for the Amazon Prime subscription and ever have to pay shipping on items from Amazon.com

Old Projects Update.

 I am terrible at finishing projects once I step away from them for any length of time. I forced myself to go back and work on a couple projects that have been abandoned for months.

 

 This is my first sleeve for the Scarlow jacket (knitty.com pattern by King Bee) for my husband (back and front pieces were finished long ago). I frogged an old crocheted afghan that I never finished for the yarn. If I like how it turns out using the Super Saver, I will buy some wool to make a nicer jacket for him (given he actually wears this one and doesn't just stuff it in the back of the closet while telling me he likes it). It's really irritating this picture posted upside down :/

These orange socks are made using one of my favorite sock patterns - Brainless. The pattern is simple, yet fun. I am using Knit Picks Comfy Cotton in fingering weight. I had been working on these socks towards the end of my pregnancy... my baby will be 5 months old here in a couple days. I was partially through the heel sections (not the best place to leave off, lol) and now have a bit of the legs done. It shouldn't take me long to finish these, assuming I ever work on them again ;)

I also have a pair of black socks hidden away somewhere. The plan was to make thigh-highs, though I think I may just make the cuff at knee length instead (if I ever find where I put them).

Baby Sweaters.

 I used up a ball of leftover Super Saver making a sweater for my baby. I used a top-down raglan recipe I found via ravelry.com The Incredible, Custom-Fit Raglan Sweater was a fun knit. I kept it simple and fairly plain, though I may make a more creative version in the future. I made it a tad large so he can grow into it over the winter.

 This is the earliest picture I have, one sleave finished. I didn't decrease on the sleeves for shaping at all, rather I decreased right before adding the cuff.

 All the knitting except the collar is finished here and the ends aren't woven it, but I just had to try it on him to see if it fit :) When your teething baby is in a good mood, you need to seize the moment, lol

 Poorly taken picture, but all finished!

 This is the second sweater. I have a few more rows done on it than is shown here, but not enough to warrant a new picture. I am doubtful that I have enough blue to finish the sleeves, but I plan to try anyway. The blue yarn I believe is some recycled acrylic that is either Red Heart or Bernat; I bought it too long ago for me to remember. The grey yarn is a smaller weight, closer to a DK or Sport than Worsted, and honestly I have no idea what brand it is. The horrid darker stripe is pencil lead... my 7-year-old colored the yarn darker for me, but left it a surprise that I didn't discover until I had knit a bit with it and my fingers were all grey and yucky!!

No pattern used for this blue sweater, just a basic bottom up using a geometric stitch pattern I'd used on a sweater for my husband years ago. I adapted the stitch pattern to be shorter/smaller to look better on a smaller man ;) That old light-blue sweater I made for the hubby was a complete disaster, by the way. I didn't check my gauge (hated it as much then as I do now, only I didn't knit on gauge then). It looked nice until he put it on and it became apparent it would fit at least two of him, lol

I am not terribly fond of using cheap acrylics, especially for baby clothing. This is what I had that needed used up though, and I plan to try to soften it up some. I have never attempted this, but googling has led me to believe there is a way to do it that involves using hair conditioner... I'm a touch skeptical, but it's worth a try. I won't attempt the experiment until I have the second sweater completed as well.

Yarn for Steggie.

My yarn order came a couple days ago! I am currently working on winding the hanks of Swish into workable cakes (surprising how much time it takes up). The Swish Tonal in "Harvest" colorway is very pretty. I am pleased with it, I think it will work out very nicely. I ordered a black 16 inch separating zipper off Amazon. I wasn't sure about the black, but of my options that didn't include paying shipping fees, it was the best option. I am dreading sewing in the zipper. I don't sew very much, and have never sewn a zipper in before, let alone on a knitted garment. We'll see how it turns out. I do hope to get my gauge swatch done today and hopefully start working on the back this evening.

Besides the yarn I ordered for the jacket for my nephew, I also got one ball of dishie in the colorway "Maps." I completed one dish rag last night.

I have a couple posts planned that I hope to get up today, mostly current pictures of what I am working on and have recently finished. I made a sweater for the baby, am working on another one, made some more progress on the orange socks, started over on a sleeve for my husband's jacket, and made that dish rag last night (mostly while watching Marvel's Agents of SHEILD on Hulu, my husband really likes that show).

Current knitting plans.

I have wanted to knit "Steggie" for nearly two years now. It is a really cute children's jacket with dinosaur spines on the arms and hood. This is a pattern designed by Julia Farwell-Clay, and is available for free on Knitty.com here. I had originally planned on making this for my nephew, who will be turning 7 in approximately one month.

I missed Knit Picks black and orange yarn sale by one stupid day...grrrr The 50% off would have made it so much more manageable to buy the yarn for this project (his favorite color is orange, so it would have been perfect). So I missed that sale, thankfully there is another one currently going on (though not as deep, it's still a good sale). I had selected Swish worsted for easy care and warmth (I love working with this yarn, and my son's baby blanket knit in swish is so soft and huggably squishy!). The exact colorway I will buy is Harvest, which is a very pretty tonal yarn with shades of orange and yellow. The current sale will save me 20%

I would skip this entirely and pick something cheaper if I didn't currently need the yarn therapy so badly, lol Knitting is my therapy, and I've been in need of some lately. Things haven't been terrible, but my exclusive breastfeeding perks seem to be ending and I'm getting some pretty wonky (probably not the word my hubby would pick, lol) hormonal moods (that or I'm loosing my mind, lol). Using up old bits of Super Saver just isn't cutting it right now.

Hopefully I'll order the yarn soon...before this sale ends too :/

Striped longies complete!

The longies were finished a bit ago (my concept of time is way off right now, so best guess would be a couple weeks). I have not tried these on the little boy yet, as I am slowly working on lanolizing them. They are sitting in their 3rd lanolin soak as I type.

Hooray for something finished! lol

Baby bib.

I just finished making this baby bib today. I used the pattern "I-Love-Stockinette Baby Bib" by Laura Treadway (downloaded free from Ravelry.com), size 6 needles ('cause that's what was on my cable from the last project) and Sugar 'N Cream yarn. I've never used this yarn before. My mom uses it all the time for dish rags, but I kinda hated knitting with it. It just sort of felt cheap in hand and didn't move very easily on my needles which really slowed down my knitting. The price was good though and it's just going to be catching baby spit, so no biggy. I have another skein, so all in all, I will most likely end up with 3 bibs in this color. If I were to buy yarn for this again, I would get a blend that was softer (not that I could find such a thing locally).

Update: 10/11/2013

I was correct on getting 3 bibs out of the two skeins of yarn. They soak up a good amount of drool, and bub enjoys chewing on them. I'm happy :)

Striped longies.

I have no red wool yarn :( So no monster longies for now. I frogged the striped longies and am reknitting those instead. The orange and black alone would not be enough yarn, so I added the avacado green and reduced the size of the black stripes.

I am using size 6 needles (size 4 for the waistband) for a gauge of 5.5 stitches per inch. I measured my little guy at 17 inches at the waist, 20 hips, 17 rise. I intend for them to be big so cast on with a 3 inch ease, or 112 stitches. Each color stripe has an increase of 4 stitches (ending up with 124 stitches), plus one short row. I could have added two short rows per color stripe, but don't want it to be so obvious that there are short rows (nothing like chunky stripes on the tush to give it away). In the photo the back is on the right side.

I am nearly done with the body section of the longies. I will finish the green stripe, the next black stripe, then start the gusset in the -orange- color. I am a bit nervous about possibly running out of black yarn, as I intend the cuffs to be black. I have used up approximately half a skein worth of yarn. Now that bub is getting bigger, those skeins of Wool of the Andes worsted don't seem to be going very far.

I've been working on these for nearly a week now. I hope to have more time over the weekend, and possibly get them finished up. Lanolin is on my shopping list, and I have some woolies waiting to be lanolized so might as well do these at the same time if I can. I have been getting very little knitting done, so it will feel great if I do manage to finish something.

Braided longies - on.

I said I would post pictures of the re-knit braided longies, and I am finally getting to it. They fit my baby okay for now, but not for long. I did not count on the legs being so snug and would prefer to have quite a lot more ease in the thigh portion. Next time I make these I will keep that in mind.

Knitting "progress"

Since last I wrote, I have done astonishingly little knitting. I assumed I would have evenings to knit. You know, after the girls are done with school, and while the baby is happily playing or napping. Stupid, stupid, plan. There has not been a single evening so far that has been open for knitting.

Since last time I posted I have managed to frog 2 newborn soakers and use the yarn to make a medium sized soaker. Alas, I am out of lanolin, so it sits unused for now. I have completed 3 rows on the orange "Brainless" socks; big progress, I know, lol Also during school hours I've managed to knit 3 "mug-rugs" (basic garter stitch squares large enough to set a mug on) from scrap acrylic yarn.

I have far off plans of making more woolies for my baby. I really like the Rhino Romper, and want to make one with long legs and sleeves for winter. I also have my eye on a monster longies pattern over at ravelry.com. I think I will make this one next, just have to check if I have enough yarn to make it. Hopefully I'll be able to make a yarn order within the next few months, but until then I'll just have to go through my "left-overs." (my amount of yarn does not qualify as a "stash" in my view).

Braided longies - update/finished

I just finished weaving in the ends on the braided longies! I'll lanolize them over the next couple days and then post a picture of them in use :)

Knitting at night.

Knitting at night while sleep deprived is STUPID!!! I decided to stay up and knit while waiting for my husband to get off work last night. After a couple hours of good progress, I noticed I had made a mistake, 10 rounds ago!! I miscounted and had an extra round, which messes up the cable. My husband (the man who can't seem to find anything while grocery shopping) spotted it right away, then tried to convince me no one would notice and I should just leave it :/

I know the mistake is there, and it would bother me every time I saw the longies. I can't leave it. I am just a little too OCD to allow that.

That longer section just messes up the look of the braided cable.

The only question is, how do I go about this? Do I just take the needles out and frog back to the mistake, then carefully put the live stitches back onto the needle? Tink back 10 rounds? Try to make a too-late life line? Or just drop the cable stitches and try to "fix" just that area? I opted for the last one. It'll be a piece of cake, right?

That doesn't look so bad, now to "fix" my dropped stitches.

Okay so that wasn't nearly as bad as I was anticipating. It was actually fairly easy and quick. It looks alright. Now to fix the other side and then start on the gussets increases.

Maybe I've learned my lesson and won't knit when my brain doesn't function... Yeah right! Lol That would take all the challenge out of knitting ;)

Slowly making progress.

I haven't had as much time to knit as I'd hoped. Once I get the baby to bed for the night, there is still so much to do. Hopefully I can find time to finish these longies soon. He needs some more wool for night time so I can wash his shorties. Anyway, I have the majority of the body done. My gauge is a touch large, but it seemed fine and I'm not concerned if they measure a tiny bit large (we'll see if I end up regretting this decision later on, lol). Here is a picture of my progress so far.

This would be the right side (as in not the left), showing the cable braid. Note that I don't use stitch markers. I figure there is no point since I am using magic loop method and the front and back are split where the markers would go anyway. If I can avoid using extra tools, I do. I don't need extra pieces to get lost in the couch ;)

Braided longies - redo

I have the too-small soakers and longies stripped and FINALLY dried. It seriously took a couple days for them to fully dry. Apparently I was too lax when it came to squeezing the water out :(

The plan, of course, is to frog and reknit in a size that fits my baby. I really loved working with the Knit Picks Wool of the Andes in the Jade Heather color; sooooo pretty! So I am going to start with the Braided longies pattern. I have a huge advantage this time. I can measure my baby to make sure it will actually fit him.

I am a touch concerned about running out of yarn. They may end up being shorties instead of longies, lol

Hopefully I make decent progress and have an update picture in a couple days :)

Update

This was meant to post several days ago, but it didn't, so I'm taking care of it now.

Life has been hectic, so not much in the way of knitting news. My hba2c failed :( I ended up with my 3rd c-section, recovery was kinda rough, had thrush, then mastitis. I am feeling pretty normal now, so hopefully I'll be able to get going on a couple projects again soon. I have a pair of socks currently hanging in limbo; should finish those.

The wool soakers I made for my baby work great! I am very pleased with how well they work. The soakers and longies only fit him for a couple weeks though (he was 9lbs 3oz at birth). The wrap style and the shorties still fit, though I use them mostly at night (use mostly pocket diapers during the day). I hope to make some larger soakers for him and maybe a couple longies. I don't have money for more yarn at the moment, so will be stripping the lanolin out and frogging the things that are too small for him. Kinda sad about that, but at the same time I'm excited to have the yarn available to reknit them in a usable size.

I haven't been posting because my computer took a huge dump on me. I am going to try to post from the app on my phone more, even though it is a slightly painful process. I haven't been able to figure out why I can't post comments from my phone either. I can get part of a comment typed then it sort of freezes and no more text will enter in. I haven't been ignoring comments! I just can't make my phone work right (it does it on both the app and in the browser).

The plan is to train myself to post more often, but keep it short. We'll see how that goes, lol

Some pics of woollies on my baby boy :)

This pair is one of the first soakers I made, the cheeky soaker. He is about 2 weeks old here.

These are the go-veralls, he wore this to his 2 week check up. They are tight, but still fit okay at 2 months old.

These are the larger sized shorties. They come up past his belly button, and the legs are just a bit short for pants. They work awesome and will fit him for a long time. He was a week old here (seriously, I don't were stretchy pants ALL the time ;).

Striped longies here, and oftly small in the rise and waist. I had a hard time getting them on him at about 3 weeks, it was the only time he wore them :( too bad, because they are cute.

Here is the pinkgreen tie wrap. My husband really likes this soaker, and it works great. I don't care for it so much. It is hard to get on snugly enough on a squirmy (or angry) baby, and you have to lift the baby up some to wrap the ties around the back. I just find it a hassle comparied to the pull up kind, though you can get a really good fit.

I don't think I posted about this project, but it is the "Rhino Romper" from revelry.com. Fun knit, great fit, cute, handy buttons so you don't have to completely take it off for every diaper change. Baby is about 6 weeks old here, and the fit is getting snug, I hope to make another one in a larger size eventually. It is a really adorable outfit. Next time I make one, I will post about the process.