Zing!

I'm starting to try and get a few xmas gifts done. The arrival of November always scares me a bit. I can't believe the year is almost over (and what a year it has been!!)
With 11+ shawls finished, the womenfolk of the family are taken care of. For the menfolk I've started knitting a few "man" things.

For my stepdad and 1yo. nephew I knitted Ziggy beanies. This is a recent release from Australian designer, Georgie Hallam also known as Tikki, who you probably know from such hits as the Milo vest and the Rainbow dress. Tikki's patterns are always fun, there's usually a little bit of quirk in the construction while still being great 'wearable' items. The ziggy beanie is part of a larger set that includes a skirt, vest, legwarmers and sweater that all use a fun zig zag cabled pattern to add a bit of zing to your knitting. Quite addictive I must say.


















I knit my stepdad's one first while on holiday in Golden Bay. The yarn is from Red Riding Hood yarns and is simply gorgeous. The DK was nice and soft and had lovely stitch definition (which is an important consideration for this pattern if you want nice sharp cable lines), but the colour....oh the colour. For "brown" it is simply gorgeous. Lovely subtle changes and really rich and deep. Just lovely.

















This was my first time knitting with RRHY and I was really impressed with the colours I received as part of my petite set (5 x 55g mini skeins). Isn't this a cool idea? Instead of getting just one colour, you get to sample a few.











Photo from Red Riding Hood Yarns - "Paris Je T'Aime" Petite Set.
Hannah packages her yarn in red paper, with red ribbon and lovely little RRHY tags. It makes it all the more special when so much care is taken with the presentation. Hannah sells her yarn via facebook with weekly updates and sometimes has custom spots available too on her blog. I'll definitely be knitting with RRHY again.

I made my stepdad's one in the dark brown (far right) with a rib band from the milk chocolate skein (far left) as I was worried I might run out of yarn and I didn't want to play yardage chicken with my holiday knitting. Of course, you know what happened - I had some leftover! The toddler size one is made from the rest of the light brown skein.
















The little blue hat I made my nephew last christmas no longer fits so this is a more grown up replacement. Such a fun knit, it only took a couple of nights. I must say after a year of knitting 4ply shawls, it has been great to do some quick DK knits.

After my Ziggys were finished I had a 10g ball of each colour leftover. The wool was simply too nice to throw in my odds&ends bag, so I decided to use every bit of the loveliness up.

And I made myself a little friend:
















When I saw this pattern in the latest knitty.com issue I just knew I had to make one.

















My leftover brown yarns were perfect (I striped them), finish it off with some black and white scraps, some black felt for eyes and you have a cute little kiwi! He's only 10cm high so as you can imagine took almost no time at all to make. In amongst all my lofty shawl making goals, my test knitting and xmas to-do list, it was pretty satisfying to make something 'just because'.