My First Gloves: Dad's Christmas Present

Gift giving occasions where I have to find something for my father are more often than not, painful. I feel bad if I don't give him something, yet he always says "I don't want anything". He's the kind of parent that really actually does appreciate homemade gifts, but I've given him enough paintings and drawings that my parents living room looks more like an art gallery. The stand-bys on store bought gifts always include a bottle of liquor and chocolates (dad is a mega chocoholic)

So this year I can knit. I could knit last year too, but I was only just starting, and wasn't brave enough to attempt any project that involved circs, dpns, anything other than straight needle knitting and knits and purls. This year I'm far more daring, I'm able to follow patterns and make simple patterns of my own, so I decided that in order to fit my meager Christmas budget, each member of my family was getting hand knit items.

I spend hours scrolling through the internet looking for patterns. Knitting pattern central and I are tight. I eagerly anticipate each seasons issue of Knitty, and spend hours each day lurking the boards at Craftster. I wanted to find really cool pattern that would suit each of my family members, and I wanted something that would be a new experience for me to knit, so when I was scrolling through back issues of Knitty and saw "Cigar" I thought "Cool! This is perfect!" Check out the pattern here: http://knitty.com/ISSUEsummer05/PATTcigar.html

While I don't condone my father's smoking, he does it. He's always been a smoker, and he doesn't plan on stopping anytime soon. So the "Cigar" pattern only seemed to make sense, but not just on a smokers level, but on the level that my dad, along with his brothers, are just picky. They need to be picking at something ALL the time, whether it be some sort of engine or whatnot, dads always got his hands into something, and more than one pair of his gloves has the finger tips ripped out of it. These gloves seem like just the thing to have when twisting spark plugs and picking up screws and bolts.

This was my first time casting on with dpn's. For some reason before this the concept seemed completely foreign to me, but I sucked it up and did it. Now I'm an old pro and can't believe I ever thought this was difficult.

I encountered a few problems along the way, at one point I counted my stitches wrong and ended up with one finger much too wide, I changed the pattern a little because I thought it would be too big, but ended up changing it back (I can be a nay-sayer at times) After one glove, I didn't want to do the other, but I went to work, and got the second finished in no time.

I wanted to make a hat to match too, and I'm an expert on hats, as its mostly what I've been knitting over the past year. I decided on a k2 p2 rib with a roll up brim, because dad thinks the new fangled beanies with no roll up brim are goofy looking. He's just not ready for a world where there are hats that don't roll up... I cast on 120 stitches and knit away till I had a hat.

Both items are made out of Paton's Canadiana, and I think i did a fairly good job. I haven't seen any mistakes, and I think they look pretty good.