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Besides hats, scarves are easy gifts; highly customizable and no worries about getting the size right. First up is the Fake Lace Scarf:

This is just plain garter stitch over 20 stitches on size 15 needles. The huge needles give it a nice lacy effect without all the fiddliness. Here’s a closer look:

The yarn is Misti Alpaca Sport Weight in the Chocolate Caramel Moulinette colorway. I knit this for Bev (Stephen’s father’s girlfriend) and she was wearing it the next time I saw her so I guess it was a hit!

I opted for a shawl for Dianne, Stephen’s mom, because it just seemed more her style somehow. I’ve had this yarn (Lion Brand Homespun in the Prairie colorway) forever, since the first time I learned to knit in college. It’s very pretty and soft but not as stretchy as I like to work with. Behold, the Garter Shawl:

The colors are far more muted in real life, the flash really picked up on them somehow. It’s plain garter stitch again with yarn overs at the beginning and end of every other row. Add a bit of fringe and I think it came out quite nice.

My mom requested a small scarf that she wouldn’t have to fold over at all and that wouldn’t be long and bulky. So, I came up with the Keyhole Neck Scarf:

It’s basic K1, P1 ribbing with ruffles on either end and the keyhole made simply by binding off some stitches in the middle of a row and then casting the same number back on in the next row. The yarn is Crystal Palace Panda Cotton in the Fruit Salad colorway. I knit it with two strands held together which blended the colors together nicely and made for a plush, stretchy fabric. I liked it so much that I made another one for my Aunt Lorie, who is my godmother:

The yarn is the same in the Roses colorway. They are fun little scarves and Mom and Lorie liked them. For Mema, I knit the Diamond Lace Scarf:

This yarn is Knit Picks Andean Silk in Navy and it is pure heaven to work with. I picked the diamond lace motif from a stitch dictionary, added a seed stitch border and some fringe and I think it came out rather elegant:

Last up is still in progress, the Bobbley Scarf to go with Julia’s Bobbley Hat:

She wants it good and long so I figure I’m a bit more than halfway there. The pattern is just the primary diamond cable and bobbles motif from the hat and columns of 1×1 cables surrounded by seed stitch:

So that’s just about it for all of the holiday gift knitting. I need to finish Julia’s scarf obviously but overall I was pretty pleased with myself for setting reasonable gift knitting goals and meeting them!

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Hats are brilliant gifts. They are quick, they are easy, and you can do all kinds of things with them to suit the intended recipients. First up is the Blue Green Chunky Hat which was a gift for my cousin’s wife Stephanie for her birthday.

I knit this one up back in November in two hours when I couldn’t sleep one night. It’s knit with leftovers from my Malabrigo Chunky Blanket.

The stripes were totally random and this is about half of the leftovers (the blue, green, yellow ish colors). I’ll probably use the others (red, orange, brownish) to make another hat. The yarn is Malabrigo Gruesa in Green Spark and Malabrigo Aquarella in Aigua, Maldonado, Palmar, and Solis.

Next begins the parade of Manly Hats for the Holidays as I chose to call them. I know it would be far easier to say Manly Christmas Hats but Stephen is Jewish as is much of his family so these are also Manly Hanukkah Hats and thus the politically correct phrasing! These are basic hat patterns, my favorites are Ann Budd’s “Basic Hat Pattern” from her book The Knitter’s Handy Book of Patterns and the “Kim’s Hats” pattern by Kim Hamlin,which can be found in the book Last-Minute Knitted Gifts by Joelle Hoverson and Anna Williams. Some have random stripes, some are plain solid. Manly Hat for the Holidays #1 was for my Dad for Christmas:

The yarn is Knit Picks Swish Superwash in Fired Brick, which was left over from his sweater, plus some Black and Coast Grey to make it a bit more interesting.

Manly Hat for the Holidays #2 was for Stephen’s father, David:

Nice and simple hat in Cascade 220 Heathers, colorway Yakima Heather 9459.

Manly Hat for the Holidays #3 was for Stephen’s step-father, Tim:

I absolutely loved this yarn. It is Cleckheaton Country Silk 8 Ply in Gray. The little silky nubs are so soft and the texture is just great.

Manly Hat for the Holidays #4 was for Stephen’s son, Jeffrey:

This is Knit Picks Swish Superwash again, this time in the colors Copper, Truffle, and Black. Jeff actually really liked it which was a nice surprise!

And finally, Manly Hat for the Holidays #5 for my Uncle Frank, who is my godfather:

More Knit Picks Swish Superwash in Copper, Truffle, and Dark Navy. It could be worn with the cuff down or folded up:

And so ends the Manly Hats for the Holidays. One more hat remains, which is the Bobbley Hat I made for Julia (my sister) for Christmas:

Isn’t it fantastic?! I’m quite proud of it since Julia had seen a hat she liked in a catalog and I analyzed it and graphed it out the best I could and came up with something pretty darn close! I’m working on a scarf to match. It won’t have the big cables, just the diamond bobble motif and the twisted stitches with some seed stitch on either side. I’ll have a picture soon. Here’s a closer look at the hat:

And of course, with all these hats, the best thing of all is that the recipients seem to truly like them and appreciate what I put into making them. So, that’s it for the hats. Next post will be on the other great gift to knit: scarves (and a shawl snuck in)!

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It has come to my attention that I am quite the lapsed blogger and pocaster and I plan on remedying that! I’ve been busy, I’ve been sick, I’ve been lazy, and so on but in any case there’s lots of catching up to do. Most projects I was working on for myself like the Kauni Eleanor Stole and the Mystery Stole (which has since been revealed to be based upon a Guinevere theme) have been on hold while I’ve been working on gift knitting for the holidays.

So, going back to where I left off, I did finally finish Dad’s birthday sweater about a month after his birthday.

Holy cow was this sweater some work! Superwash wool in this weight does weird things in water. I know now that I should have knit it at a tighter gauge. You can see from this picture where it is on Dad how the purls are stretched out wide:

All that cabling and moving stitches made for lots of stretching the yarn plus the looser gauge (4 stitches per inch) and the superwash made for a bit of a disaster when I first washed and dryed this thing. It got about 5 inches wider and 3 inches shorter. There was lots of ripping and lengthening and pinning back and hemming until I finally got it right.

Despite the headaches and the panic near the end, I really enjoyed designing and knitting this and I’m so glad that it fits Dad well and he loves it!

Stay tuned for more catch up posts on all the gift knitting!

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