Holiday time already?

I can hardly believe that the holidays are already here. This year has flown by! Radio stations are playing holiday music, and I have been driving different routes home each night so that I can see all the Christmas lights in the neighborhood. So, to get in the holiday mood I decided to knit up a Santa hat. Thanks to Ravelry I found the perfect pattern in Handknit Holidays (Ravelry pattern link). There are some fantastic patterns in this book. I highly recommend it. Here are some really bad pictures of the finished product. :)

This was a seriously fast knit. The body of the hat took just a couple of hours, and then the bobbles took about another hour. I wish I had tried out this pattern back in October...I would have made a ton of them for gifts this year. They are definitely going on my gift knitting list for next year.

I used Cascade 200 for the body, and Lambs Pride for the trim. They compliment each other well, and the hat is very snuggly. I have lots of holiday gatherings to attend over the next couple of weeks, so this hat is going to get a lot of wear.