I just moved this blog from Blogger to Dreamhost/Wordpress, so I guess that the cheesy title can stay. There’s nothing wrong with Blogger or Google, but I have really grown to like WordPress and find it unnecessary to maintain blogs on two different platforms. I’ve been knitting a fair amount lately, and I never even uploaded the pictures from my Touch My Monkeys, so I will definitely do that very soon!

I finished Terea’s monkey socks! I’m so glad that they’re done, because it’s always so satisfying to finish a project, but they were fun and quick to knit, and I miss the project already! This is me modeling them, just because.

I was going to make a pair of monkeys for myself, but then I saw another pair of socks by Cookie A, Hedera, and I knew I had to make those! She’s such an amazing designer. I have this lovely sea green yarn by Brooklyn Handspun, and I think it’s perfect for this project. I opened my Magic Loop book and tried it out, and I really get this method! I’m sure, though, that I’ll find a way to eff up these socks using this method. To make things really interesting, I’m going to try them toe up.

I keep doing this to myself. I don’t read the entirety of something, and it ends up biting me in the butt. For some reason, I had it in my head that the Monkey sock pattern by Cookie A. was knit from the toe up. I was apprehensive about starting toe up socks, but I figured that I would get it soon enough. So I got up this morning, Googled the figure 8 cast on, and got it after a few false starts! The tutorials on Knitty and Hello Yarn were invaluable! I was rolling, and just about the time I got to my first set of increases, I decided I should see where the sock pattern picked up. So imagine my surprise when I realized that Monkeys are NOT knit from the toe up. They’re top down, just like every other sock I’ve ever knit.

I was discouraged but not totally cowed. I googled toe-up Monkeys and found a few people who’d done it that way. Monos Locos, an adaptation by Jennifer O’Sullivan, looks interesting, but it inverted the lace pattern and removed the purls, which I did not want to do. Another toe-up adaptation, this one by Zhenya Lavy, kept the lace the way that Cookie A. had done it, but employed the magic loop, which I have yet to attempt. So that was no good for me, either. I found this web site that had a listing of Monkey KALs, and lost it, but I just used my Googlefu and found it again. Here you go! It lists various Monkey adaptations and tricks. So what was there to do but to frog what I had? Thankfully, I was relatively close to the start of my socks, so frogging was only mildly painful. Also, I already swatched this, so when I do begin, at least I know I should be on gauge.

I just checked, and it’s the Falling Leaves pattern that is toe up (and also on a magic loop). I think I may try those after I finish the Monkeys, unless I find another pattern that I like better in the meantime.