Christmas Gifts Take Two

I really should start blogging at normal hours of the day! But even though Christmas is over my house is still in total chaos. My brother flew home from L.A. for the holidays and while it is great to see him it is causing endless drama about how much time he actually spends in my house. I am just peacefully dreaming up new ideas for batts in the corner. Today (yesterday?) My grandparents, step grandparents, and step-aunt and uncle came over for a huge dinner with the brother and his girlfriend and it was total chaos. I am exhausted but can't sleep so you are getting a blog, woo!

So this gorgeous gem was my mom's present. If we could flash back to last year you may recall that I never did knit my mom a present, I failed on that one. So this year I made sure to get her's done as soon as I got the yarn in. It is knit in Knit Pick's Biggo in Duchess Heather. Seriously guys this yarn is beyond soft, I almost did not want to give it to her. It was knit on size 13 needles and I made up the lacy pattern in the middle by myself. The fabric was still dense even though I sized up my needles so I wanted to break it up. She loves it and keeps wearing it... I may need to knit myself one.

This hat is the prize and joy of all of my Christmas knitting. This hat was for my dad (bless his huge head) and he being who he is (the guy that bought me my first needles and yarn, and spindle and fiber, and now my drum carder) wanted to push me and asked for a hat with fair isle skulls. He also wanted felted but that was just not going to happen. So I knit the normal size of this skull cap even though everyone said it would be huge.

Fair note it really is huge, my dad's head in enormous and it is still big length wise. I can not imagine knitting this for anyone else without eliminating one or more of the skull repeats.

Everyone keeps asking me how many tries it took me to get the whole fair isle knitting thing down and I am beyond proud to say that the first time was the charm. I didn't have to go back and fix anything. Just like learning to use dpns on that elephant this probably wasn't the easiest pattern to learn how to fair isle on but seeing his face when he opened it up was totally worth it.

Not to go on and on about one single hat (okay I do mean to go on and on about this hat). But the outside wasn't the only new thing for me. I also fully lined the hat in fleece. I had to fit it to my dad's head and then sew it by hand into almost like a fleece beanie and then sew it into the actual hat itself. It was worth he work though because it will be warm enough when he plows snow.

So those are all but two of my Christmas presents, you haven't seen one because my camera is dead and the other I still haven't knit (for shame I know). But whenever I feel bad I count all of the new things I learned to do for my dad's hat of doom; ear flaps, fair isle, sewing, creating a fleece lining, lining a hat....

... He really is high maintenance isn't he?