Show Me the Monkey!

I knit (knitted? knat?) two plush monkeys this past summer: one blue, the other brown. The blue one I made for my friend Lex as a get-well gift after he broke his finger at our softball game. The brown one I gave to my friends Bill and his wife Margey. People ask if it was hard to part with them, in truth I had to give them away. Clowns, mimes, dolls and stuffed toys — all these creep me out. Both monkeys are 2 ½ feet from head to tail, all hands and feet have five digits and button-eyes from old shirts. The brown monkey was made mostly with Brown Sheep Cashmere-Wool and some left over Cascade 220. I tried to felt him in a large pot, but either my water wasn’t hot enough or I didn’t boil long enough. When I came back from grocery shopping my apartment reeked of boiled sheep. Like a scene from “Fatal Attraction” I checked the pot and found an eye had come loose and bobbed around the top. Note: never do that again.

The blue monkey was complete with a broken bandaged finger and an arm cast. The deep azure merino yarn came from Madrid, a gift from freind and artist Margot Spindelman from her travels. This Spanish domestic yarn was unusually soft with long fine fibers. Why are their export yarns so course and itchy? I imagine their the sheep go into two pens before sheering: Nosotros (domestic) and Los Americanos Estupidos (export).



Back to the game. Freddy’s Bar and O’Connor’s Bar settle a grudge match every summer over a softball game. Trash talk and all, it's civilized game. This past summer Freddy’s lost it’s MVP, Lex M., when he tried to catch a hit made by OCs MVP, Troy. I bandaged Lex’s hand. It looked bad, his nail was shattered. But he felt pressured to play despite his injury and returned to the field. Freddy’s rallied well in the seventh inning, but in the end OCs won 14 to 9. Afterwards, Lex ran off to band practice, but soon discovered he fractured his right middle finger in three places. That had to hurt! Lex was out the entire season, which totally sucked for everyone. But Freddy’s had the last say. As the sun quickly set on that last September game, Freddy's won the season for Lex: three out of five games. Cheers buddy.



Lex removed his monkey’s cast as his hand got better. Margie’s monkey was adopted by her cat. Pearl curls up with the monkey when she cat-naps. I saved the pattern.