As I told you earlier yesterday was my fathers birthday. That always means a day with my family, though this year we were just about half of the family due to a nasty case of migraine and a school trip (both of my sisters, that aren't ette, are teachers). So this year it was down to my parents, my niece, ette and me. And to shake things up there were several friends wisting throughout the day. And of course to finish the whole package up there were about two crises (both about ettes super secret knitting project, but she has to tell that story herself) and a shower, just as our parents were taking a walk with our niece, while we stayed behind to deal with crisis No 1.
So much about the general overview of the day, now I promised you to reveal "Blue Beast". As you probably have guessed by now it was my present for my father. It is a handknit sleeveless sweater. I dyed 500 g of Fischer-Wolles "Nora", a really great 100 % wool yarn, with a mountain of food colouring and vinegar to a nice blue with bits of green. I knit it completely in the round and steeked the armholes and the neck, which was a first for me and a technique I wanted to try. I can say it's not as nuts as it sounds when you hear the idea the first time :) Though, as you may recall I needed ette and liquer to fortify me for the experience.
The thing itself is mostly stockinette stitch with 2x2 facings to show off the beautiful colour (even if I say so). I had to alternate rows with two balls of yarn for most of the main body or the green bits would have lined up to form one giant spiral around my father. I can also proudly report this as the first real piece of clothing for a grown human since I took up knitting again three years ago. And then it was a perfect disaster. Me being a teen back then, really impatient and having decided to just wing it. Added to this I chose a perfectly unpractical yarn (a 6 ply sock yarn in burgundy to be knit on 3mm needles, if I recall correctly). I was grumpy the time I knit, just because it didn't go as fast as I wanted. And having finished I discovered the armholes were slightly to small, pinching me a bit every time I moved. So that effectively ruled out knitting for grown ups for about eight years.
Anyway my father was delighted as was my mother, who spent several years trying to hunt up a 100% wool sweater vest for him and gave up about five years go. This is it about Blue Beast until ette uploads the pictures we took of it (Hint!)
As for other knitting related stuff I test dyed sock yarn in pink and violet. While both shades look perfectly beautiful, albeit a little bit to girly for my personal taste, the pink one had a rather interesting shade, while drying. Which led to ette, my father and me joking around about what could be made of it and concluded with a salmon filet or a slice of mortadella. That in itself let to the next idea, that was my second present for my father: a knitted sandwich. So I fiddled around and came up with a slice of bread, a slice of cheese, half a tomato and a slice of cucumber. ette convinced me to write up a pattern, so that will be one of the next posts. Additionally a knitted up a cute little elephant for my niece, so that she had something to unwrap, too. At first I was not that convinced, but once I took care of its lazy eye and managed to draw in the neck a bit in the process, so that it now can count as a neck, I was quite taken with it.
That is as far as the birthday kitted stuff goes all. I can also report that I finished sewing up the striped cotton sweater. To my enormous relief it fits perfectly :) I also finished "Wraparound" but forgot to ransack my mothers extensive button collection for four tiny ones to go with it.