knit monkey

A little background: my friend Jo, taught me how to knit one snowy February. She taught me how to cast on, knit, purl, change colors and finish a hat. And all of this was done on a round needle. All of this. Since then, about 4 years ago, I have added the I cord, cable knit and casting off. You can create some kick ass hats with all of these skills. Kick ass. I have only knit one thing that was not on a round needle. Jo made me do it. We started a sweater for Ruby, but have not finished.

I do not have pattern reading skills, nor do I really want to read a pattern. Reading a pattern because that means I am not a natural and I need assistance. Learning curves, schmurning curves. I want to be perfect right away. I think knitting should be intuitive.


I wanted to make something special for E and MJ's bambino/a. I asked myself, "which animal seems the most gender neutral?". My scientific answers: a rabbit - girl, a dog - boy, an elephant - boy, a giraffe - boy, but a monkey? A monkey could be for a girl or boy! Shizam! I knew what I must knit. But knitting a monkey is not like knitting a hat. There are legs and arms and ears and a tail to consider. Not intuitive things to knit.

I had to find the right button eyes and bent bamboo needle and stuffing. Do you know what size bag stuffing comes in? JUMBO. I can make 40-50 monkeys with the amount of stuffing I have left over! I do not plan on making even 4 more monkeys. There are too many hours involved to create just one monkey.

I was not motivated to learn to read the pattern, so I avoided it for a long time. In fact, I did not accomplish more than the body (step one) in 6 months. And to top it off, I made parts of it up. Not a good plan. I had to knit the head multiple times - I am talking more than 3. Oh yes.

But now that I have conquered the basic pattern, I am a knitting fool. I have been working on a monkey for a few nights now. While Kevin and I are watching a movie, I have been knitting body parts. The kitties loved when I sewed up the seams and the yarn wagged in their faces. In fact, Dolemite loved the knitting so much, we stole pieces of the monkey when I was not looking. I gave up trying to keep them from him and I turned one bad head attempt (yes, I still had to knit multiple monkey heads for the second monkey) into a mouse. He LOVES it. It is light enough for him to toss around the room by himself and chase. Shiva has tried to play with it, but when she gets too close, he pounces on her.

Next project: a pink, green and brown mousey for her.