Since it’s February already–mid-Feb, at that, you might think the title of this post was referring to Valentine’s Day, but you’d be wrong. I still haven’t shared my gifts from the winterholidays last year, but so it is. I had a bit of time and a flash of inspiration that led to me making a couple of things for my family, and I really enjoyed it.

The first thing I gave, which is kind of a cheat, was this Striped Yoke Cardigan (pattern from my book, Little Crochet). Now, I actually finished Tegue’s Cardigan last April, but it was much too big and I wanted to do some more finishing to bring the neck in a bit. As is, the neck is a little more low-cut than I had envisioned, so I added another couple rows of sc around the neck, putting decreases around the “corners” in the collar to round it off a bit. Why that took me 8 months, I’m not sure, but I bet you guys can relate, right? In the meantime he grew into it a bit more, so that was good. I was worried because I used every last scrap of the discontinued dark blue and all I had left was the light blue, but it turned out great anyways. And it looks so cute with his blue glasses, which he didn’t have when I bought the yarn. He’s growing so BIG! For the record, he’s 4, I made the 3-4 yr size, and there’s a bit of room to grow.  I love how it came out and apparently his teachers at school do too. I really need to make him some more stuff while he’s still small enough to wear it and think it’s magical that Aunt LaLa can make things.

The other things I made were for Paul’s brother and his boyfriend, who happen to be big Dr. Who fans. Disclaimer: I do not watch the show and can’t get all fan-like on you, but here’s how it happened. I worked at Yarnivore one Wednesday (when I usually do not work) and Laurel brought in the Adipose Baby she was working on. Seeing a cute, huggable shape, I asked her what it was. Paul happened to be at the store because he brought me lunch, and I immediately thought aloud that it looked like something his brother would like. Laurel asked if he was a Dr. Who fan–yes– and that sealed it. I went home that night and hooked up the Fat Baby Thingy in a couple of evenings. It was a lot of fun. The pattern is free and leaves a bit to be desired but it was not hard to figure out what to do to make it look the way I wanted.

I figured it needed a friend so I sought out a Tardis pattern, that being the most-seen fan-craft in my blog feed. I really wasn’t happy with any of the patterns (of which there aren’t many, because of copyright issues, I presume) so I decided to do my own. After I was a good ways into it, I realized I should have worked it in joined rounds to prevent the spiraling, but I embraced it (in classic “That’s not a mistake, it’s a design element!” form) cause I though it looked time travel-y. Yeah. I had to re-do the embroidery a few times to get it right, but I like how it came out. I weighed down the bottom with a beanbag full of glass marbles so it can stand upright. Bill and Chris were very pleased to recieve it, and I was happy to actually be able to give a hand made gift. We all really have all of the stuff that we need, so this was just a fun little thing to do.

Both are made in Red Heart Super Saver, which is the perfect yarn for Amigurimi, if you ask me. Like most crafts, I could really see myself getting into amigurimi, if only there were more hours in the day!

Did you crochet anything for the holidays? Or are you already making plans for next year?