That’s how much time I have to finish up the knitted gifts for my family’s Christmas celebrations!  Eek!

Luckily I was smart this year and started my biggest project first, which was a vest for my mom – I made Talia, a free pattern by SweaterBabe but I haven’t got a good photo of it yet.  So with the big project out of the way, I’m left with a lot of smaller knitted gifts for 4 nieces & nephews.

A month ago, I was told that my 7 year old nephew really wanted some fingerless gloves to match his new green & black bike. I really love the pattern Knucks – I’ve made a ton of them over the years so they’re easy to whip out.  I used Swish DK in Black & Peapod.

I had enough left over for a matching hat.  I just made up the pattern.

I decided that his 9 year old brother would probably like a pair too so I used Swish DK Serrano since black & red are his school’s colors.  I’ll need to make a hat for him as well to keep it fair!

So with the boys’ gifts out of the way, my thoughts turned to their sisters.  My sister sent me a photo of a hat my niece really wanted – it was a silly animal head hat with earflaps. I looked a bunch of different patterns on Raverly and while there were a lot of cute ones, they weren’t quite right.  So I made up my own instead.

I made it to match the monster in last weeks post, using Swish Bulky (my favorite yarn for hats) and a double stranded yellow worsted weight yarn I had in my stash.  I used some elements of the Boo hat by Terri Kruse and the ears are a variation of the Kitty Cat hat from the first Stitch ‘n Bitch book.

I think it looks pretty cute!  Plus, who can resist pompoms?

I have another project I’m working on for my 5 year old niece and a couple of little Monsters for my nephews but then I’ll be done!  Are you doing gift knitting this year?  Are you going to finish in time?

P.S.  Big thanks to Jenny K. who takes all my blog photos & makes my projects look awesome!