Sleeping with the cows

We've been busy preparing this week for a trip to the continent.  We'll be gone just a week, but the kids are ecstatic about it because while our primary reason for going is work-related, we've promised to make a full trip of it and take them to visit the friends, horses, and cows they left behind in Switzerland.

Part of my preparation for this trip is in the form of knitting.  There are two little ones that I've missed dearly, and I wanted to bring them a little something special.  So I've been busily knitting away some foods for their play kitchen.  I had so much fun knitting tiny treats, that I went a bit overboard.  But can you not stand the cuteness?

The carrot and strawberry patterns are my own, but the others are mostly free patterns that I found online.  And while the doughnuts are not the healthiest little treats, and the Swiss children probably won't even know what they are, I think they are adorable.  Once I saw the pattern I couldn't help myself.  It was so clever!

And the garlic and mushrooms make me very happy.  I actually knit more mushrooms than I had intended because Kitty Bill kept claiming them for himself.  He loves them.

And lest he be forgotten, my other knitting preparation was actually for Kitty Bill himself.  Since we're planning to camp in a Swiss cow field for a few days, and it's near freezing, we need to dress warmly at night.  While we were getting our winter gear out, he reminded me that I still haven't made him a hat.

I've made Kitty Bill countless hats over the years, but I knew what he meant.  A couple years ago I made Moonshine a special hat with elephants on it.  And then Sunburst saw it and put in her order for one with horses on it.  And Kitty Bill?  He has since been begging me for a hat with robots on it.

A kid who loves to build electrical things needs a robot hat, don't you think?  But he didn't want any old robots, they had to be just the right kind of robots.  Cute and friendly ones.

He has been a fan of robots for years.  Oddly enough, it all started when we moved to Switzerland.  The moms in our area would get together and have a kind of yard sale (boot sale, for my UK readers) at the local park, and they would sell off their kids' outgrown clothes and toys.  At one of these sales there was a giant, plastic monstrosity of a robot, and Kitty Bill went berserk for it.  It was red with moving parts and sounds, and no doubt with enough batteries lasers would shoot out of its eyes and scorch something.

He was two or three years old at the time.  There was no way I was bringing it into our house, and no amount of distraction would budge his tiny heart.  As I recall, there was a lot of screaming and kicking, but we made it home without the robot.  I promised that I would make him one, and I did.  I knit him this crazy transforming robot.  I was good to my word, and he was so happy that the plastic robot monster from the park was long forgotten.

But then robots became a thing, just like horses are with Sunburst; they are the magic key.  So if I wanted Kitty Bill to wear a sun hat, I had to embroider a robot on it.  A winter hat?  Robot. Eventually he grew out of that phase, they all do, but for a time I was thoroughly convinced that any woman that wanted to marry him would have to agree to having robots on top of the cake.

But now he's seven, and he still wants a robot hat with cute robots on it.  How can I deny him that?

I'm happy to announce that it passes the cute and friendly test.  Kitty Bill absolutely loves it.  Now he can't wait to sleep with the cows!

So now I have another pattern to share... but it needs a name.  Any suggestions?