I made a pair of mittens for my mother in law for Christmas, they have a flap so that you can lift it and use them as finger-less mittens if you need to.

You can still see the lovely wet spot on the pillow from where I was blocking them! These are made from Wool-Ease, which is a nice blend of wool and acrylic, which won’t felt if they get wet and dried, but still have the nice texture of wool.

And I’m finally nearing the end of my Christmas catch-up knitting posts… still a few more to go though, so bear with me here!

And in mommy-news, wish me luck, we’re trying our hand at potty training today! (Yikes!)

I’m still catching up with all of my Christmas knitting! This was for Pauls sister Carrie, it’s a cabled cowl- I forgot the name of the yarn, though- oops! I started it a while ago and threw away the tag, I don’t even remember where I bought it, but I love the colorway!

I hope I stumble across it again, because I want to make more cowls from it, because I really like the way this one turned out, and it’s nice to use cowls when it’s really chilly outside, and I tend to like the look of cowls more than scarves wrapped up a bunch of times, plus, they’re a heckuva lot faster to knit than a long scarf! I knit this one flat, just doing some simple cables, then seamed up the back. I am bad at estimating how many stitches it will take to knit something in the round and my first attempt didn’t even fit over my head, (whoopsie) so I decided knitting it flat was a better option. If you really prefer a more seamless look you can always cast on with live stitches, then use a kitchener stitch to close it up, but I was already halfway through the cowl before I thought to do that. Luckily with variegated yarn and a cabled pattern it was ‘busy’ enough so the seam isn’t terribly noticeable.

I swear I’m almost done with Christmas knitting!

I asked my nephew what kind of hat he wanted for Christmas, and he said an alligator. I thought that might be a bit too difficult, so I asked if there was maybe another animal he might like and he said he liked lions. I thought that sounded a bit easier! I didn’t see any patterns I particularly liked online, so I decided to wing it.

This was his face when I told him to be fierce like a lion. I love it! 4 year old kids are so much fun.

I did make it a bit too large, but hopefully this way it’ll fit him for a few years and for this winter he can just flip the brim up.

 I learned how to do the crocheted loop stitch when I made the Cabbage Patch Hat a few months ago, and I used that to make the curly mane, I was pretty happy with the way it turned out, and if I hadn’t run out of yarn I might have done the whole back of the head that way.

I also just realized I didn’t get hardly any pictures of Christmas!? Whoopsie. We had a great 8 day trip to Tacoma and got to hang out with my siblings and cousins, it was wonderful letting the nieces and nephews hang out together, staying up way past their bedtimes, but Sam did great and slept great the whole trip!

Erika got this great one of Sam and Paul playing with some of their Christmas toys.

I’m a bit relieved to be back to our regular schedule though, I always get a big urge to clean and purge at the beginning of the year and this year was no exception (There might be some nesting happening too, less than a week before I hit my third trimester!) and between yesterday and today we got the garage cleaned out, the kitchen reorganized, the bedroom completely cleaned top to bottom and ALL the laundry washed and folded and put away from our trip, AND all of our Christmas decorations are down, boxed and put away! (Except for some twinkle lights, because when the sun sets at 4:00pm, you just need a bit more light in your life) And I was hoping with this purging and organizing it’d help with my New Years Resolution (to simplify- more posts on that to come) but for now it feels wonderful to sit and knit in a very clean house!

Happy New Year! I’d like to start off the new year by offering you a new FREE PATTERN!

Worsted Weight Yarn Approx – 200 yds (For this beret I used Red Heart Brand “Boutique Unforgettable” in the Petunia color. I usually like to use wool, but this colorway really called out to me in the store.)
Size 3.75mm  (Or size 5) needles, double point and circular
Stitch Markers

K1FB= Knitting in the front and the back of one stitch to increase it to two stitches. (Youtube video here explaining it!)
K2T= Knit two together (Decreasing two stitches to one stitch)
SSK= Slip, Slip, Knit (Decreasing two stitches to one stitch)

Cast on 100 stitches.
K1-P1 all the way around, for 1.5 inches
*K1, KFB* all the way around, so you have 150 stitches. (Or you could do which ever increase stitch you prefer, I like the KFB the best, as I find it is the least noticeable in a finished product)
Knit stockinette stitch for 5.5 inches after brim so from cast on edge hat measures approximately 7 inches. If you want your beret to be much slouchier, you can continue the stockinette stitch for another inch or two to add some “slouch” to it!
After your hat measures 7 inches from cast on edge then:
Knit 25 stitches, place marker- repeat around, so you have 6 markers in your hat with 25 stitches in between all of them- you’ll now begin the decreases.
*K1, k2t, knit until 3 before marker, ssk, k1- Slip marker*. repeat 5 more times.
Knit one row all the way through.
Repeat these two rows until you have 5 stitches between each stitch marker, or 30 stitches total left.
*K2T, K1, SSK* Repeat 5 times, so you have 3 stitches between each marker, or 12 stitches total, break yarn, weave end through remaining 12 stitches, cinch tight, secure your yarn and weave in remaining ends.

Find it on Ravelry here, and as always, please let me know if you need any clarification or you see any mistakes in the pattern so I can correct them ASAP.

For Christmas I made my niece Iris a knit rag-doll.

Now I am thinking that all of my nieces need little dolls! It is a pretty quick knit, too!

I made my niece a Mike Wazowski hat for Christmas- Sam was less than thrilled about modeling it.

He was much more enthused about being the little drummer boy, with his “drum stickers”.

and playing in leftover Christmas boxes!