More Christmas Knitting. With Zebras! And Giraffes!

Well, to be truthful, it's ONE Zebra and ONE Giraffe.

So, the secret Christmas sweater has been given and received and I have pictures finally!! I had the idea to knit a hoodie for one of my best friends, Cobi. I wanted it to be cabled somewhat, but couldn't find a pattern that I liked. So, I found a pattern for a plain stocking stitch hoodie and added cables and ribbing.

Pattern: sort of made up, sort of based on a hoodie from Vogue Knitting Summer 04
Yarn: Patons Decor (way softer than I thought it would be!!)

BTW: Cobi, love ya, but seriously, in the middle of this massive amount of cabling, which wasn't hard but just a little time-consuming, somewhere there in the middle i started to wonder if it was worth it. Not a reflection on you, or on our friendship. Just a reflection on the never ending rows of cabling. love ya!!



I completely forgot to take a picture in the daylight on the weekend. You may be able to just make out the cabling. I did a cable rib for the bottom bands and the sleeves and then the cables grew out of the ribbing to form the twisted lattice of the body of the sweater.


Cobi did the thing that makes a knitter's heart rejoice. First she was so excited about the sweater, but then... (you will all be jealous and want my friend to give knit things to) but then, she noticed the cables on the hood AND she commented on them excitedly. Having a non-knitter notice something like the fact that your cables match up on the top of a hood is a wonderful thing.

(It is slightly possible that i'm a bit loopy today. it's been an up and down and up and down kind of day. forgive me if i become too saccharine or melodramatic.)


A rather dim picture, but you can see how happy she looks in her hoodie!! When I got back to work (we did our gift exchange on my lunch break) Cobi emailed me wondering about whether she could get away with wearing it all the time, you know, smell-wise (sorry Cobi. It was just too funny).

Next up: Toques for Cobi's kids.
Not as much fun as the toques from last year (i posted them on craftster here) but they seem to fit okay.



Pattern: Brioche Helmet from IWK Fall 05
Yarn: really soft acrylic, but I can't remember the name of it right now.
I really like this pattern, which uses short rows to shape the ear flaps, but frankly, the decreases at the crown made me swear a lot. The yarn is doubled, plus in the brioche stitch you are doing yarn overs and then knitting the yarn over with it's companion slipped stitch so on the decrease (k3tog) you ended up having 10 strands of yarn to try and work your way through (2 slipped stitches with companion yarn overs and one knit stitch).

I got Melman the Giraffe to pose for me. She was busy chomping on an orange, but she was very happy and kept thanking me.


Marty the Zebra was less enthusiastic about posing for pictures, but everyone knows that zebras are shier than giraffes, so it was to be expected. I did get him, toque on head, with his mom in the hoodie that she may never take off (although it warms my knitterly heart that she would say that, I really really hope she changes her mind there).