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.