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!