Do You Love Your Monkey Or Do You Love Me? A Tale Of A Knitter Possessed

(Bonus points if you know that song)

On Thursday, March 5th, I was sitting here catching up on my blog reading and happened across a post that mentioned the newest issue of "Twist Collective". I used to be on their mailing list but must have gotten delisted somehow because I didn't get their customary email notification. I immediately clicked over to the site to see what they were offering.

Being the impatient sort, I always click on 'shop' and see the thumbnails of the new patterns before I actually try to, you know, read the thing. I started casually scrolling down, making internal comments along the way about the designs and then I got hit in the face with a picture of the cutest little baby blanket in the world. My chin hit the desk, my finger clicked the picture to get more details and I was hooked. Utterly hooked. At 11:23 AM I bought the pattern. At 2:06 PM I paid for the yarn (it only took me that long because the girls and I sat at the shop and visited Carolyn). At 7:05 PM, I cast on. Since then, I have lived and breathed this blanket. People in this house must be feeling neglected.

The blanket is double-sided - monkeys on one side and 'rings' on the other. The two main panels are knit in the round and then steeked. Here they are before the big snip:



The pattern recommends two rows of machine stitching on either side of the cutting line and I diligently put those in. I was afraid that my sewing machine wouldn't want to cooperate with me but the knitting was very pliant and my machine behaved itself (for once) and it only took a couple of minutes to do the seams.

After that, I took a deep breath and cut the panels flat. Post snip:



I spent a few minutes steam blocking them to try to get them flat but honestly was so eager to just get on with it that I didn't try to hard to make them gorgeous. If you know me, you know I'm averse to blocking but I got a photo to prove I did it:



I have another shot with the belly and the knitting in it but I look absolutely maniacal and a great swath of my lily white flesh is showing so I'll spare you.

After that, the blanket panels were joined and a border had to be knit on either side. That was the longest, hardest part of making the thing. Especially the second one. By the time the second border was ready to go on, the whole blanket was heavy and unweildy and difficult to hold onto. The sheer mechanics of knitting on it hurt my hands so that I only could do a row or two a night (else you'd have seen this post loooooooooong ago). If you decide to make this, I recommend 4 circular needles for the border, one on each edge. Two really long ones are ok but more are better. While we're at it, I recommend Addi Lace needles for all your non-lace needs (they even make a great sound when they clack together). After the borders are complete they have to be joined and then a common, garter stitch border is knitted on. If I had my time back, I think I'd go down a needle size for the outer border because it really wants to ripple but a more aggressive blocking might take care of that.

Here are a series of photos of the finished product:

The monkey side. It really is much more square than this but an 37-week pregant woman on a chair with a camera doesn't like to lean too far over the knitting so the angle makes it look skewed:

See how three of them have different faces?

Close monkeys:


The ring side. My knitting friends thought I'd never get through this side after the fun of making monkeys but they were wrong...I made that side in less than two days (and one of those days was filled with making a Garfield cake for my brother's birthday celebration):


Close rings:

The colours are pretty accurate in this shot. I used Cascade 220: one ball of 9487 (Puget Sound), 1 of 8895 (Christmas Red), 1 of 9465B (Burnt Orange), 2 of 7815 (Summer Sky) but I only used about 10 yards of the second ball and two balls of 8418 (Eggplant). They were the closest colours I could find to what was used in the original but it would probably be easy to change it up with a little thought. I was too eager to knit to actually THINK.

The borders:


Other shots with some cute props:






I washed it yesterday in cool water with some Soak and I was amazed at how much dye came out of it. Wowzers. It didn't run though so I'm still happy. It also, unsurprisingly, sucked up gallons of water. Claire and I rolled it in bath towels and pounded on it three times to get it to a point where I could lay it out. It's still a bit damp today but will probably be perfectly dry by tomorrow. Next time I wash it, I will probably try to block it out with pins to get it to be really square but this time I was just too eager for all of that fuss.

Now that it is done, I feel sort of lost. I'm a strange knitter that way. Instead of basking in the glory of a finished project and gazing lovingly at the thing, I find myself mourning its loss from my needles. Yes, it's going to make a nice thick, warm blanket to put on the baby in the stroller or for his playtime but I miss KNITTING it. Silly, eh? I'm such a process knitter.