Greetings from the Northern Hemisphere!

One bad thing about spring is that it's no longer wool season, at least not for half of the world. Fortunately, there's a whole other hemisphere to knit for!
These hats (Center Square on the left and Fake Isle on the right) are going to my cousins in New Zealand, who emigrated there last year from the Philippines. They aren't enjoying the colder weather. Well at least they say it's cold there, but I think it may be more a relative term. I did some googling and found that the average temp during their coldest month (July) is around 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Hmmmm, not what I would consider cold, but I guess if you're coming from constant 90 degree days, that's pretty darn cold.

I also modified a Lion Brand mitten pattern to incorporate the Center Square colorwork:
It worked out pretty well. I added four stitches right after the thumb shaping to accommodate the 8-stitch repeat, which fortunately balanced out the narrowing caused by stranding the two colors. I was so proud of myself that I forgot to decrease by 4 stitches after the motif. This led to a lot of head-scratching when I got the crown decrease: Uh, why are there four extra stitches? (long pause) Doh! I blame the Hoyas. Their come-from-behind antics totally distracted me.