A Nephew's Request

About this time last year, I found this Morehouse Farms Critter kit on the web for a Gecko Scarf.

The nephew is crazy about Geckos - he has a live one - his room is decorated in geckos (that I painted, thankyouverymuch) and he just happened to be in the room when I saw it online...BIG MISTAKE.

I never heard the end of "I want that gecko scarf!" They only sold the pattern in kit form - and well, the nephew and pure wool just don't coexist well. So he and I composed a letter to Morehouse Farms asking for the scarf pattern to be posted. They said that it would be later in the year.

Now, the nephew has the memory of an elephant - and while I thought, "Oh, this will pass..." - every time he came to my house, we'd have to go check the site for the individual gecko pattern...

FINALLY, on his July visit, we did our traditional "check" of the website - and Viola! There was the pattern - for which he ran and grabbed my credit card and said, "GET IT!!!" HA!

Once it came in, he'd always ask "Are you working on it???" To which I told him the truth - Not yet. In December, he asked, "Will I get it for Christmas?" To which I told him the truth - I don't think so.

Never to be deterred, he said, "That's ok - my birthday is in February." I realized that I was knitting all of these things for people who had no clue that I was doing it for them - and here was this kid I love to death who WANTS me to make something for him.

So in December, when I took him to see the Hatsheput (Egyptian Pharoah) exhibit at The Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, I took advantage of both having him with me and being just down the street from Yarns Ewenique to have him go with me to pick out yarns and colors for his scarf.

Thankfully, Yarns Ewenique doesn't freak out at a 9 year old being in the store and they helped him pick out the yarn (and helped enable me with some new sock yarn). After some steering him away from the good stuff (i.e., too expensive to make a kid's scarf out of), the nephew picked out Black and Maroon Encore Worsted Weight Yarn. He also picked out some Copper Rowan Lurex Shimmer for me to use. (He had wanted it all done in this and thankfully understood that it would be better as an accent...)

The funniest part of the whole trip was that while I was checking out, I hear the nephew say, "This is like the world's smallest hat!" - which caused me and the saleslady to look around just to see said nephew walking around the store with the rolled up version of THIS on his head. I think we both just about peed our pants!

Anyway - the birthday is February 3rd - and I have officially finished this thing - well, except for figuring out what to do about the eyes (suggestions???) - it will either get rave reviews from his classmates - or get him beat up...either way, I know he'll be happy 'cause his Aunt Liz made this especially for him. It is HUGE and probably as tall as he is - (I'd use DK weight next time and not the Worsted) - but it's so cool!

Ta Da!!!



(Eye suggestions, anyone???) Thinking of finding buttons that are cool - the recipe calls for felted ones.

And a Closeup of those feet - which are adorable - and definitely took me out of my comfort zone of knitting...