Starting more

I have been thinking of knitting a vest for my dad for a good long while. Several years, in fact. I had kind of decided against it because mom would have to wash it and she hates wool.  I was telling my sister about a conversation I had with my dad on one of the few brutally hot days we had.  He said it was the first time he had been warm in a long time. 

That meant the vest was back on.  My sister said she would wash it for him, though we both agreed that a ninety year old man rarely gets dirty enough that a vest, worn over a shirt, would need washing more than once or twice a season. 

So my sister and I went looking for yarn.  I told her the kind of thing I thought would be nice and showed her a few things as we came to them.  We talked about colours and since she sees him much more often than I do, I went with what she thought.  I thought that it needed to be a basic thing, something tweedy and not solidly coloured.  I showed her some stunning blue Rios.  She thought it was a little too bright, but not bad.  She wondered off while I thought about how much I would need and then she called and asked about some yarn she found. 

She scored.

She found Friday Harbor from Cascade Yarns.  It's a new yarn I think, with only five projects on Ravelry, but it is a stunner. It is 80% merino and 20 % silk and oh my goodness.  Once I saw it I knew it was right.

I started this after supper Saturday and knit a good portion of the ribbing.  I knit on it this morning while watching the F1 race from Monza and did very well. 

Friday Harbor is a lovely smooth yarn, warm in your hands and a bit of that dry feeling from the silk but it is so soft and is a perfect sort of gentle tweed for dad.  It is knitting up wonderfully fast, which is great because I really would like this project done before it gets desperately cold.

I am using the basic vest pattern from Ann Budd's  Knitter's Handy Book of patterns, one of my favourite go to books.  The yarn will speak in this project and besides, dad is not  fancy vest sort of guy.  Simple is exactly right.