only five things

My father died a year ago today. I knit five things for him. I don't have a picture of the wristwarmers I knit for him - those he probably wore most often.

The second item he wore most often is probably this one:

The Architect's Hat, an original design by me, just for him. He wanted it to be very plain, I wanted it to have at least something special, so I used a very understated sequence of k1, p1, k1, p2 with 5 rows stockinette in between. I've since used that sequence in other projects, too, to infuse them a little with his spirit. When I did the decreases, I accidentially created a star on top of the hat:

The third item I knit for him was a sweater, using a pattern by Renée Rigdon and Zabeth Stewart, published in Anticraft. I took the measurements from other sweaters of his, but by the time it was finished, he had lost a whole lot of weight and it didn't fit him at all anymore. I'm still not sure what to do with it now.

One of the last things he actually wore was the nightcap I knit for him. The pattern, a vintage one recreated by Franklin Habit for Knitty, gave me a lot of trouble, since the original pattern numbers lead to something that could have fit two people. In the end, I picked up stitches mid-cap, cut the thread and knit from the top down and ended up with this:

I don't remember if he actually ever wore the improved version. I do have pictures of him wearing the ridiculously large version, though.

The last item I knit was one he never got to wear. It is a woolen recreation of a hat I designed and knit for my brother using bamboo yarn. I finished it and gave it to my cousin.

I've decided to keep the architect's hat as it is, but don't know what I'll do with the nightcap and the sweater. Maybe I'll find good places for those or maybe I'll unravel them and knit something entirely new with them.