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

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 :/

Lacy baby hat, completed!

Again I am slow posting for finished projects : / I made these hats as a gift for the baby I knitted the Larkin blanket for. I used some of the left over yarn, Knit Picks Comfy Sport in "Sea Foam." I used a free pattern found here on Ravelry.com. The hats took very little time to knit up, maybe a couple hours each. It was a fun little knit that should make cute little summer hats for a cute little girl : )

Larkin baby blanket

I finished the Larkin baby blanket a couple days ago, and think it turned out pretty nice.

Here it is, unblocked.

Blocked, but still wet (why it looks blotchy).

Close up of the edging, which took forever!

All folded and ready to be wrapped up!

Of all the pictures, this one is the most accurate color-wise.

I really enjoyed working the leaf pattern. It was simple but still interesting and fun. It took a couple pattern repeats to memorize the lace pattern, and I could still manage it while multitasking. I really liked the yarn as well, but that was no surprise. I really enjoyed working with Knit Pick's Comfy in fingering weight, so it makes sense that I really liked it in sport weight as well. The Sea Foam color isn't quite what I was going for, but I like the finished product quite well anyways.

I tracked hours spent working on it for fun (blocking not included, or course). I put in a total of 63 hours over the course of about 4-5 days (they kinda blurred together, so I'm not sure which it is!). I pretty much worked all day long on this blanket during the days I worked on it. I spent as much time as I could during bookwork hours in home school, and all my free time in the evenings working on it as well. I started watching Bones on Netflix (love that show despite the yuck factor!) and am now on season 8, lol. My weekend was spent relaxing with my feet up, watching Bones, and knitting like a mad woman! lol Not all of that time was spent working on this blanket, but a good chunk of it was. I don't think the number of hours is too bad honestly. I've made socks that took upwards of 100 hours (they were beautiful too, lol), so 63 for a pretty little baby blanket is a nice number :)