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.

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

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).