Playing Santa

I love making gifts. I love kids. I love giving gifts to other people's kids. This Christmas I got to be Santa and made some gifts for two sweet kids, a brother and sister.
First, I found fleece on sale. REALLY on sale. With the help of my cousin, I made fleece blankets. The girl's has owls on one side (matches her bedroom) and butterflies on the other. The boy's has sports balls on one side, and dinosaurs on the other. When he got his blanket, he thought it was a superman cape (!).

I love fleece blankets. I was given one as a gift when I graduated HS, from Fran, a lady who I taught swimming lessons with. I still use mine! It's the green and brown striped blanket on my bed, which is the backdrop for many of these photos.
I also made similarly colored sweaters for these kids. The boy got a sweater vest that should fit him for a few years. I love, love, love sweater vests, and obviously the smaller they are, the cuter they are. His mom loves them too! This was a pattern from DROPS that I modified.

The little girl got the "Little Mary Anning" sweater by Mary Ann Cunningham-Kim, which has a shell pattern on it. I'd originally started this at the end of August, and have been working on it on and off since then. I had to rip back a number of times because I'd missed something in the pattern. I was happy to finish it, and have it turn out well. Additionally, while I thought I was making the 2 yr old size, I was actually working the 5 yr old size, but it fits her now and should for a couple of years. 

More holiday posts and test knits to come after New Years!

Mermaid Mittens

I just realized today that I haven't posted in over a month. That doesn't mean I haven't been knitting and baking- on the contrary! In addition to birthday and Christmas presents, I've been doing a number of test knits, part of the publishing process for pattern designers.
One that I worked on in November was a pair of lovely mermaid mittens. I actually only made one mitten, though, because I realized too late that they were going to be much too big to fit the intended recipient. I've got the pattern, yarn, and notes, in case I want to make the second (and keep them for me!).
This mitten was worked from the tip of the fingers down to the wrist, which is not the direction I normally work when making mittens. I did learn a nifty new way of casting on (involves a crochet chain, but instead of picking up the back loops as in conditional cast-on, you pick up stitches from both the top and bottom of the chain... very clever!)

I love the seaweed on the palm of the hand, as well as the lacy cuff that mimics waves! This Mermaid Mittens pattern was written by Julie Hamilton is available for purchase on Ravelry.