My father turns 70 today. He's been awesome for at least 36 of those years (I can't vouch for the ones before I showed up, although based on the photographic evidence, he was pretty cool back then, too).
- A toy shelf with my portrait painted on the back in white enamel
- Another bookshelf for my toy room
- Bookshelves for my bedroom
- Loft for my dorm in college
- CD cabinet
- Art supply cabinet
- Shelf for my stereo
- Sawhorses to use at our first house
- "That's one" plaque to remind me of a traffic accident
- Name plaque that declares me to be a boatbuilder
- Head sculpted from clay he dug from the beach near our old house
- Yard sale signs
- Silk-screened t-shirts for the entire low brass section in my high school band
- Garden tote
- Toolbox
- Plant labels for garden
- Golfer crossing sign for Jason
- Wooden toy truck
- Dollhouse
- Dollhouse furniture
- Wooden ladder to help me climb trees at our old house
- Splinter the Wonder Horse
- Stilts
- Rope swing with wooden seat
- Tire swing
- Bench to sit on in my hiding spot behind the lilac bushes at the old house
- Swing set at the old house
- Basketball hoop
- Balance beam
- Manger for the hideous salt dough nativity scene I made in elementary school
- For Liza: Toy fairy house with furniture
- For Liza: Balance beam
- For Liza: Rocking balance board
- Ultralight kayak
- Yarn swift
- Partridge carving
- Beaver carving
- Whale carving
- Fox carving
- Goose carving
- Wooden spoons
- Wooden butter spreaders
- PPG Man carving
- Santa with a Cat carving
- Santa with a Goose carving
- Pumpkinhead Man carving
- Red Christmas sleigh
- Reindeer carving
- Cardinal carving
- Balancing bird carving
- Big Ralph carving
- Medium Ralph carving
- Spirit of St. Louis Christmas ornament
- Wright Brothers airplane Christmas ornament
- Santa face Christmas ornament
- Peeking mouse carving
- Hand carving to hold yarn
- Scarf pins
- Name sign for my office with a carved wooden plane on the top
- Santa gargoyle carving
- S-W Man carving
- Goat carving
- Penguin carving
- Snowman face Christmas ornament
- Ball in cage on a chain carving
- Skunk carving
- Winnie-the-Pooh carving
- Caroling mouse carving
- Angel with trumpet carving
- Carved wooden flour scoop
Since he's made me all these things over the years, I thought it was only fair that I make him something impressive for his birthday. Behold, the Liberty Blanket:
That sucker used up 13 skeins of yarn (that's more than 1.5 miles), is about 7 feet long, weighs a ton, and is guaranteed to keep you warm in sub-zero temperatures. More importantly, the chart for the pattern was 70 rows long (get it? 70th birthday, 70-row chart? Yes, I'm geeky like that), and I worked on the blanket intermittently from October 2008 until the end of January 2010. The size of the project translates out to me knitting on it for 2 hours every night for more than 70 total nights at the top speed I managed once I was good at the colorwork ... but in real life it took much longer than that because I was really, really slow at the beginning. It was my first serious colorwork project, my first steek, my first hemmed project, my first full-sized knit afghan. And it was all worth it, because he seemed to really like it, and he used it twice while I was there (and found an old pillowcase to keep it in so their cats don't shred it right away).
Happy birthday, dad. Eat some cake, then go finish up that ginormous dragon head so I can add it as #71 to the list for next year, okay?
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