Some Gift Knits

Greaseball wasn't too irritated with me. This picture is taken post sweater fiasco: I wanted to try a dog sweater I'm knitting up on him to see if it would fit. He's not a dog, but he walks on 4 paws, so I wanted to see if the front leg spacing (front paw spacing? arm spacing?) was correct. Ooooh boy. He did not like that at all, and this is the cat who can sport a pimp hat and a beret. His points of contention were that he's much more plump than my brother's dog and he has almost no neck, so this meant that the sweater was too constricting around his shoulders.

Onto some of the gift knits from last Christmas. A friend of mine has twin daughters, and I've been meaning to knit them hats. I told him this after he gave me a present, but I hope he knows that I was sincere and not just doing the "oh crap, now what do I do?" reflexive present maneuver. Their colors are totally girly, pink and lavender, so I was forced to visit my LYS. Such torture! The hat was made with Karabella Yarns Merino Superwash, and it is perfectly soft for little girls' heads. The initials on their hats were a compromise because my friend had asked that I embroider the girls' names onto the hats, but when he spelled the names out for me and they were over 10 letters apiece, I made a mental note to only use their first initial. I'm a little suspicious that he also wanted their names on their hats so he doesn't get them mixed up, but he wouldn't confess to that once I pointed it out. The pattern was just something I made up: a seed stitch brim and a stockinette cap. I added some contrasting crocheted flowers to the side so they wouldn't look so boring.

I also crocheted this hypnotic tawashi for another friend. It turned out super cute, as do most things that come from Japanese craft books. Which makes me ponder what is it about Japanese things that make me and other women I know go gaga? Age-wise, I should be over my Hello Kitty and Company phase, but since I'm not, I don't even go into Sanrio stores for fear of leaving with some cutesy chachki that I'll end up giving to my friend's daughters.