Holly's Hobby is Colouring

 

In late 2024, when I was planning my knitting projects for 2025, I searched the Ravelry database for a pattern that would suitable for my grandniece Holly's Christmas 2025 dress. 

 

 

 

 

I soon decided to go with the Seamless Flower Dress, designed by Ewelina Murach. Back in 2016, I used this design to make a dress for my grandniece Cauliflower, and I had really liked the pattern. As for the yarn, I purchased 300 grams of Garnstudio Drops Karisma in Rose. I would have gone with a red this time, but Romni Wools didn't have a nice red DK in stock at the time. No matter, as this is definitely a dress that looks pretty in pink. And it turns out that Holly really likes pink. 

 

 

 

 

The dress, which I made in a size 2, knitted up without any issues. (That is, none that I can recall well over a year after finishing it.) I did remember that I didn't like the lacy effect of the lines leading to the floral design on the front when I made Cauliflower's dress, so this time around I knitted those stitches in a way that didn't leave holes. 

 

 

 

 

I didn't have a pink button that was the right shade to work on the back neckline of the dress, so I used this odd white one that I happened to have. It's actually one I found in my back yard garden years ago. It wasn't at all damaged or worn, so I brought it into the house, scrubbed it up, and tossed into my button tin, figuring it would come in handy at some point. It has a slightly iridescent colour to it that made it work pretty well with the pink of this dress. 

 

 

 

If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you'll know that my rule is that when I make a little girl's dress, there must also be a purse made to match. For this one, I used the Squircle purse pattern that I have used many times before. The purse looked a little plain, so I made a little rosette and tacked it on. I should have looked harder for a nice rosette pattern, because this one looks too rough and ready.  

 

 

When I make a Squircle purse, I always cut a round piece of stiff interfacing to fit into the bottom, then knit a second bottom piece and stitch it in place over the interfacing. The purse will then sit upright on its bottom and hold its shape instead of just flopping over. I ran a little short of the rose-coloured yarn I had bought for this dress, so when it came time to knit the bottom insert, I knitted it in some cream yarn I had on hand. 

 

 

 

 

Holly Hobbie merchandise was big in the seventies, and I think it had a brief resurgence in the early nineties, but there's little of it available for sale these days. So when I just happened to come across this excellent condition early 1990s vintage Holly Hobbie mug in a thrift shop one day in 2025, I snapped it up for Holly. 
 

 

 

 

Besides the dress, purse, and mug, I also wanted Holly to have something she could play with, so I also bought a colouring book with a pack of crayons embedded in its front for her. She was just two years and seven months old at Christmas 2025, and I wasn't sure she would be colouring yet, but I figured that if she wasn't she soon would be. 

It turned out that Holly was very much into colouring, so much so that the colouring book was the only part of her gift she had any interest in. Oh well, perhaps she'll come to appreciate and enjoy the dress, purse, and mug in time. 

Scrapping With Sawyer

 

 

For my grandnephew Sawyer's Christmas 2025 project, I didn't have to look too far for a sweater pattern.

 

 

 

 

I quickly decided to go with the Sverrigsgade pattern, designed by Sanne Bjerregaard. I'd used this pattern before, when knitting my honorary niece Olivia's Christmas 2022 sweater. It is quite a nice design, but the real selling point was that I'd been able to make it entirely out of stash yarn. For Sawyer's version, I didn't have enough of any colour yarn to use for the background colour of this sweater, but I had some DK yarns that would work for almost all the contrast colours. I made a sampler of wine, sage green, heather green, dark green, and cream yarns and took it with me when I went to Romni Wools to look for a coordinating main colour and one of the contrast colours. I purchased 200 grams of Wendy With Wool DK in Biscuit and 100 grams of Drops Karisma in Orange (or what I would describe as a rust). 

 

 

 

 

The completed pullover in a size 4. It's not bad. I had to get creative with the contrast colours and use more of them than the pattern called for in order to be able to finish the sweater with the yarn I had, which affected the cohesion of the total look more than I liked.

 

 

 

I bought a toy truck from Dollarama to complete the gift, figuring that a boy of two months shy of four was not going to be too interested in a new sweater, and Sawyer has been obsessed with vehicles and tools since before he could walk. 

All the interactions I had with Sawyer on Christmas Day 2025 were vehicle-themed, because Sawyer ignores everything else as irrelevant. When he was playing with the train set my sister-in-law had set up to run around the Christmas tree, I said to him, "The train is going to run over your toes and cut them off, Sawyer," and nudged his foot off the track with one of mine. He took that as his cue to repeatedly and joyously kick me in the leg, which as I told him, was not a nice way to treat his aged and decrepit great-aunt. 

At any rate, I could be sure the truck would be well-received. And it was. When Sawyer unwrapped his gift, he wasn't able to open the box the truck came in by himself, and so took the two items over to his father, my nephew Luke. So far as I can recall, the conversation went as follows. 

Luke: Oh, you got a crane truck. And a nice warm sweater. Here, put on the sweater.

Sawyer: Can you open the box?

Luke: Put on the sweater!

Sawyer: No.

Luke: Put on the sweater and I'll open the box for you.

Sawyer: [puts on the sweater] 

Sawyer didn't wear his pullover for more than five or six minutes, but he was not to blame for that. The house was warm and he was running around so much that he must have found it too hot. I did get to see him wear the sweater for those few minutes, and it fit well and really suited his colouring of brown hair, greenish-brown eyes, and fair skin. 

I'll have to be sure to select a vehicle-themed design for Sawyer's Christmas 2026 gift. He might be able to open his own toy boxes by next year, and then what leverage will his father have for getting Sawyer to wear his sweater? 

Daisies in December

 

In 2025, when I was planning my honorary niece Olivia's Christmas present, the plan began with a sweater.

 

 

 

 

 I searched Ravelry for a good pattern, and ended up deciding on one I had made before: s34-7 Daisy Delight, by Drops. My first go at this pattern was in 2021, when I made the sweater and cap for my grandniece Cauliflower. I'd been really pleased with the design at the time and it seemed like the best possible pick for Olivia's 2025 Christmas sweater. This time, I envisioned the sweater in red rather than in the old rose I used the first time. I purchased 400 grams of Drops Karisma in Weinrot (or what I would call a burgundy red), and found some small amounts of cream and green DK yarn in my stash for the daisies and their centres. 

 

 

 

 Here's the sweater in a size 9/10. As I remember, it knitted up quickly with no problems, and I liked the red, which was both pretty in itself and would flatter Olivia. 

 

 

 

 I made the hat as well, and it was a quick easy project. 

 

 

 

 

 

As for the rest of the gift, I bought a thrift shop copy of Bernice Thurman Hunter's Booky trilogy (which I enjoyed as a kid), and then bought a bracelet weaving kit, set of temporary tattoo markers, and a tri-pack of flavoured lip balms at Dollarama. They seemed like a reasonable array of things for a slightly precocious nine-year-old who loves reading and arts and crafts. 

 

 

 

 I actually got Olivia's gift to her before Christmas, and according to her mother, she was very pleased with everything and had to begin balming, tattooing, and weaving at once. 

A Basic Birthday Sweater

 When the time came to plan my grandnephew Bug's 12th birthday present, I began as always by searching Ravelry for a suitable pattern.

 

 

 

 For the first time in Bug's life, I found myself having to search the men's patterns for a suitable sweater for him. While this gave me some of those "how is he this big already" qualms, it did open up my options, and the design I chose was 208-3 Reykjavik from Drops. It's a free pattern. As to the yarn, I went to Romni Wools here in Toronto and bought 400 grams of Drops Karisma yarn in Blue Turquoise, and 150 grams of Off White. 

 

 

 

 As best as I can recall given that I'm writing these words about fifteen months after finishing the sweater, this project knitted up with no problems. This was definitely not my favourite project ever, but it's okay. It's serviceable and wearable enough, and blue is Bug's colour.  

 

 

 

 I did rather enjoy that this design is nearly reversible. 

 

 

 Along with the sweater, Bug got a "Ultimate Planet" dig kit. The idea seems to be he's supposed to dig through the little planet in the box with the tools provided to excavate some gemstones. Bug likes science-related things, and this was the best I could do on my budget. 

 

 

 

 My lack of enthusiasm for this one aside, it wasn't such a bad gift for a twelve-year-old boy.