FO: Last Minute Rainbow Beanies

What's a knitter to do when they finish all their Christmas gift knitting on time? Why... stress themselves out by starting a new project 2 days before Christmas of course! lol On December 21st, I took my kids to a local thrift store to pick out a present for each other (this worked great, by the way, because they had the fun of looking through everything and it also counted as a gift - win win), when I came across a bag with 2 skeins of this yarn along with coordinating eyelash yarn for just $2.00. Normally I would never go for this type of yarn because it just sits in my stash, but since I had finished everything else I wanted to make for the holiday, I figured I had enough time to whip out 2 bulky weight hats.

The yarn is Yarn Bee Soft Illusion and this is the LA Cool colorway. They were different dye lots, which you can tell in the finished hats, but my kids actually don't seem to notice the difference because I have yet to hear them yell, "that's MY hat!" which is great. I was able to knit up one hat each evening on the 22nd and 23rd, so I got them done without my kids seeing them. This yarn is so squishy soft. The base yarn is buttery smooth already, but then the hairy bits are even softer. 

On the 24th, I made the pom poms. I broke out my pom pom makers and made the largest size I had and I think they are a great size for 5 year olds. Making these was such a mess! Pom poms are a mess in general, but add in some eyelash yarn and woo boy. I tried to do all my cutting over a bag just to catch the inevitable threads and after that I was kind of buffing the pom pom with my hand to try and shake off the excess. I still find neon green threads around my house as my kids wear these. Anyway, this yarn is Premier Yarns Lash Lux Sequins in the Neon Green colorway, which is the perfect highlighter green and goes great with the crazy yarn from the hat. My kids watched me make the pom poms and got to help shake off the excess, but they didn't know what they were for.

I always try to make them something that they know is a present from me and not from Santa each year. I wrap these and set them near the Santa presents (our Santa does not wrap - it's liberating, you should try it) and they tore right into it this year and loved them. We don't really get much wear out of hats here in Central Florida, but they still love wearing them. I made them some Sesame Street Hats 2 years ago and they still wear those to play pretty often, so I knew these fuzzy hats would be a hit. I have 1/4 skein left of this hairy yarn all together, which will probably languish in my stash for ages, lol. But I'm glad I found this yarn just in the nick of time to make this gift. Sometimes it's fun to just make a completely ridiculous hat for your kids, you know?

And that completes my gift knitting from 2023! I have two other project that is technically a Christmas gift but I didn't make it until January and that was known and agreed upon with the recipients (It was their fault as much as mine, lol). All in all, I'm very happy with everything I managed to make this year. I'm glad that the kids were so happy with their gifts and that their quality was so nice. I guess knitting for almost 12 years has paid off. 

Summary:

Yarn: 1.75 skeins of Yarn Bee Soft Illusion in the LA Cool colorway and 0.50 skeins of Premier Yarns Lash Lux Sequins in Neon Green - $2.00

Pattern: LA Cool Hat by Leenbacon on Ravelry - Free

Notions: Thread

Time: 2 hours