Christmas ornaments

As we all discovered last Christmas, Derek and I like to make Christmas gifts. This year, Derek used one of our masks in our office as inspiration for the girfts he made for his brothers.

First, he carved the faces out of some scrap soft wood we had. He got a little roughed up in the process (we really need a vice!), but the product was, in my opinion, excellent. Then he painted them. When watching him do this work, I realise just how meticulous he is. When Derek does something, he does it perfectly. He stayed up hours agonizing over whether or not there should be dots or lines in a particular spot. My reaction was, "it doesn't matter! just DO IT!" And he would sigh, turn to his work and examine it some more. I guess that says a lot about both of us!

He then put little bits of wood into the holes for eyes and painted them. When they were all dry, I broke out my wooden beads and fancy embroidery floss (as seen below), and finished them off with tassels and loops to hang from the tree.

Dress/tunic

I found this pattern online and loved it. I decided to make it for my friend Sandra's little girl Eva. It's knit in a denim yarn, which acts like denim: it's durable and washable. And when you wash it, it fades a little, just like your favourite pair of jeans. What a great idea to knit something for baby in something so easy to care for! The front is knitted in a ribbing in two colours, and then I just drew the cream coloured yarn through, which makes a smocking effect:



I like to knit up outfits with hats, so I dug out a pattern, adjusted the sizing for the kind of yarn I had, and made this little hat.



The pattern is called "grow with me" because the outfit can be worn as a dress, and as the little girl grows, it can then be worn as a little top. The straps are adjustable, so that helps, too. I'm glad it grows with the child because at the rate that little Eva grows, it may not last!

Funky little sweater and hat

Once, when I was riffling through my mother-in-law's knitting patterns, I came across the pattern for this little hat and fell in love with it immediately. It was too late to make it for my babies—who were no longer babies—but I knew that I had to make it. I brought it home and held onto it for a while, so that I could figure out who would be lucky enough, and just weird enough, to like this hat for their kid.

When I found out that my sister-in-law's brother and wife were expecting a baby, I knew that this hat would be perfect for their baby. So I broke out my giant bag of yarn, a hand-me-down from my mother-in-law, and found the right colours. I had so much yarn, in fact, that I decided to make a matching sweater. I took the basic pattern from another sweater and designed the colours and bobbles to match the hat. (Those little circles are actually bobbles that stick out like mini pompons.)

As with all other baby patterns, these two things knit up fast and easy. This was one of the more fun things to knit.

Socks

This is the first pair of socks I've ever made. I knitted them with two circular needles, instead of the traditional four or five needle method. The yarn is self-patterning, so all I had to do was knit to get this neat effect.



I knitted them for my friend Gen, who has always had a penchant for interesting socks. I drew her name last fall for our Christmas exchange, and immediately thought that if I were only ever to make one pair of socks, they should be for her.