Erick's Knitted Sock Monkey Pattern

Here's the pattern for the sock monkey. I hope I didn't miss anything. The monkey is knitted in the round with no seaming involved.

ERICK’S KNITTED SOCK MONKEY PATTERN
Yarn: Cascade 220 – 2 skeins grey, 1 skein white*, 1 skein red*
*You don’t need a full skein of the white & red.
2 small black buttons for eyes.
Black yarn – just a bit to embroider the face.
Stuffing
Needles – 3.5mm double pointed needles.
Stitch holders or spare yarn.
4” doll maker’s needle or long darning needle.
Stitch markers – optional.

Legs:
Using Emily Ocker cast on method and white, cast on 8 sts & divide over 4 needles.
Knit 1 round.
Knit 1, M1 to end = 16 stitches.
Knit 16 rounds.
Join red yarn and knit 2 rounds. Break off and knit another 3 rounds in white. Break off white and join grey.
Knit 52 rows in grey (or until leg is long enough).
Put the live stitches on a holder and make second leg.

Monkey Butt:
Knit front stitches of first leg, knit front stitches of 2nd leg, knit back stitches of 2nd leg, knit back stitches of first leg.
Knit 2 rounds in grey.
Attach white. The side facing you will now be the back of the monkey. Short row until 8 sts remaining and back to full sts.
Short Row Butt:
Knit 15, wrap & turn.
Slip 1, purl 12, wrap & turn.
Slip 1, knit 10, wrap & turn.
Slip 1, purl 8, wrap & turn.
Slip 1, knit to first wrap, pick up wrap & knit together with the stitch, turn.
Slip1, purl to first wrap, pick up wrap & purl together with the stitch, turn.
Repeat until all the stitches with wraps are picked up & knitted. You should be back where the grey yarn is still attached.
Break off white and join grey. Knit body – 50 rounds in grey. After a few rounds, stitch up the hole between the legs. Easier to do it now than later.

Head:
Break off grey and join white. Knit 1 round. For front head shaping, short row 2 sets of white, join red and short row until 8 sts remaining. Return to full sts following the same colour changes.
Knit 3 rows plain knit in white.
Dec for top head shaping. Dec 1 on each side of front & back (total 4 sts dec) every second round until 12 sts remain. Don’t close up the head yet. Put the remaining stitches on some spare yarn to hold. This would make stuffing the monkey easier.

Finishing:
Stuff body, working from feet up. Stuff in small amounts at a time and don’t roll up the stuffing. Keep it nice and loose. It will pack better than large wads. I used wool fleece to stuff mine but if you’re making it for a child, you can buy hypoallergenic stuffing.
When you finished stuffing the head, graft the top close. Pull the yarn tail into the monkey and bury the end.
Optional - You can make a little cloth bag of lavender to stuff in the body but if the monkey will be a toy for a child, I would not recommend this as the monkey may need to be washed occasionally. Also optional is that you can make a little bag of stuffing beads to give the monkey a bit of weight.

Arms:
Using the Emily Ocker method, cast on 6 using white. K1, M1 to end. 12 sts. Knit 16 rounds, join red, knit 2 rounds, knit 2 rounds in white. Break off and join grey. Knit 45 rounds. Cast off.
Make second arm.
Stuff and sew opening close. Join to body.

Tail:
It’s a 5 stitch icord.
Using white, cast on 5 stitches on one double pointed needle. Slide stitches to other end of the needle and knit. Repeat for 14 rounds. After a few rounds, pull the yarn tail to tighten up the stitches.
Join red and knit 2 rounds, break off red and switch back to white for 2 more rounds. Break off and join grey for another 50 round or until tail is long enough.
Cast off and sew firmly to monkey butt.

Ears:
Using grey, cast on 16 stitches and join.
Rnd 1 and all odd rounds - Knit
Rnd 2 - (Knit 1, inc 1, knit 6, inc 1, knit 1) x2 to 20 stitches.
*Increase 1 stitch at each end of the ear for front and back of ear until you have a total of 32 sts.
Rnds 9 - 15 rounds – Knit
Dec 1 at each end of the ear for front and back of ear. You are decreasing a total of 4 stitches each round until 12 stitches remaining. Graft to close and make second ear.

Edited to add:  some people mentioned the ears are a bit big - yeah, I know...that was the way my son wanted it to be.  I had done several versions of the ears and these were the ones.  If you want to make the ears smaller,
Using grey, cast on 10 stitches,
Rnd 1 and all odd rounds - Knit.
Rnd 2 - work your increases to 16.
*Then work your subsequent increases to 24 stitches total.
Rounds 9-12 - Knit.
Dec 1 at each end of the ear for front and back of ear. You are decreasing a total of 4 stitches each round until 12 stitches remaining. Graft to close and make second ear.

Face:
Use pins to mark eye placement.
Pin ears to the sides of the head & sew.
Use small black buttons for eyes and pin to the head. If this is a toy for a child, embroider the eyes on with black wool.
If using button, use a strong buttonhole thread and long doll needle, enter the body through the back of the neck and pull through to the first eye placement. Attach first eye and put needle back in the head and out through the next eye placement. Attach the second eye and put needle back in the head and out through the first eye. Pull a bit to indent the eyes but not too tight. When you’re happy with the look, put the needle through the first button, back in the head to the second button. Put the needle through the second button & back in head, exiting at the base of the back of the head. Knot firmly but be careful not to catch any of the wool fibres. Pull the needle through the doll to bury the thread end.
Using black wool, embroider the nose and mouth.
Using some white wool on a needle, run the wool around the neck line a few times. Pull carefully to give the neck a bit of shaping. Tie off and bury the ends in the doll.

I'm such a goof!

It would help if I gave you my email. I thought it was in my profile somewhere.

thymeformom AT hotmail DOT com (without the spaces)

Sunday Stuff

Today is the last day of my two week vacation. It's been great. It felt like it's been more than two weeks...in a good way. Didn't think about work...much. Didn't check my work email at all. I was tempted a few times but resisted. I feel good. Refreshed. I know that feeling will last until Monday morning half an hour into the work day and then it will be like I've never been away. Ugh!

To make myself feel better about the impending doom called work, I made a batch of brownies. Brownies are easy to make but hard to pour into these little cups. I could have made a slab of brownies but didn't feel like it.

Ugly, aren't they?

They say brownies can last up to 3 months frozen. Do people really have extra brownies that they can freeze them? It will never happen at my house. I was going to let these cool and then glaze them later but not sure if it's worthwhile glazing the six remaining brownies.

The Waldorf doll is going well, sort of.


I've stuffed the legs and lower body and trying to figure out the best way to attach the head. I've been thinking about how to do the hair. From what I've read on the internet & at Ravelry, I might just make a skull cap to attach the hair and then sew the cap on the head.


I wrote up the pattern for the sock monkey and these are the legs for the second monkey. Elegantly displayed on top of my favourite knitting container - the classy plastic tub. If anyone is interested in the pattern, email me and I'll send it to you when I'm done. I'm going over the pattern to see if it makes any sense. Most time, my patterns only make sense to me.

Things I'm thankful for:
1. The big rainfall we got the other day. It made the yard lush and green.
2. Today's sunshine and breeze. I love this weather!
3. My hands - being able to make and create crafts and work with my hands.

Malabrigo Artigas Vest

So...do they look like wood?



The vest is knitted from Malabrigo Gruesa, Pearl Ten colourway. Funny enough, when I ordered the yarn, it looked plum/purple in the book but blue in real life. I don't know if the tags were mixed up but I like the blue a lot better. I have way too much purple yarn.

The vest is the Artigas pattern in the Malabrigo Book One but with some minor changes. I used 9mm instead of 10mm and didn't check gauge. (You have to live on the edge sometimes.) The front bands are done in 2x2 rib. Same for the arm bands and neck. Instead of using only one button closure at the top, I did four. And I lengthened the body slightly and changed the armhole shaping.

I love this vest! It was a really quick knit and it's soft and comfortable and warm. Sometimes, you just have to knit something that you don't need a math degree to figure out. Something quick and painless and will give you instant gratification.

I was thinking of making another one but I'm not so good with making two of anything. :(

I finished knitting the feet and legs and have joined them to knit the body. I was thinking that maybe I should have knitted the feet in a different colour so they'll look like shoes. We stopped off at Black Sheep Yarns to pick up some yarn for the shoe colour on our way to see Distict 9. Movie was good but it had a few holes in the plot. The whole time, I was thinking: I have yarn in the car...I have feet to reknit. In the end, I decided not to reknit the feet and keep them flesh colour. I'll save this yarn for the next doll.

Things to be thankful for:
1. Cousins who knows a lot about computers. Whee! New computer!!
2. Dalaran at 60 fps - if you play WoW, you'll know why this is a good thing.
3. One more week of vacation left!

For the lack of anything really interesting to say, here's a pic of the buttons I made. Still need to colour them.

No Excuses

It's just plain laziness that I haven't wrote. It's not because I don't have anything to say or that I was very busy....just lazy. That's it.

Not sure where I'm going with this post so I'm going to just ramble for a bit here. A few weeks ago, a mother was badly injured and her 2 year old daughter was killed a block from where I work. It was a very grisly accident. So bad that there was no doubt the child was dead. I can't think of words that could describe how the mother was. I can't imagine how her life has been forever changed. I can't imagine how the father must have felt. And how it must affect the grandparents and the aunts and uncles and everyone that these people know. Today, I was driving along a very busy street and saw a child run out onto the intersection. He had only taken 4 steps onto the street. I heard a mother yell out for him to stop. I looked around and I did not see the mother at first...she was about 15 meters behind, talking on a cell phone and pushing a baby stroller. There was an older child with her. You can tell she was frazzled with the three kids. But it made me want to go up to her and yell at her, what was she thinking??? Who could she be talking to that was more important than her kids?

I'm just going to jump right in to fibre stuff now. I did say I have no idea where I'm going with this post. It will just be whatever is in my head. I have two weeks off from work so YAY!!

Ok, I've been spinning some of the Fibre Club fibre from Sweet Georgia.


This is Foundation from June, I think. I divided it into 8 to spin and navajo plyed it to keep the colours together in a block. I'm now spinning the August fibre and have a few months backlogged.

I've been in a finishing mood. Finished the monkey ears FINALLY!


I can't remember when I started this little guy. He's been sitting around earless forever now. My son guilted me into finishing his ears.

I've also finished a vest that I've been working on. I didn't like the way I did the armbands so I picked them out and re-knitted them. Now all it needs are the buttons. I made some out of air-dried clay & will paint them this weekend.

I finished another sweater & even started sewing the seams together. I just have one more side to sew up.

I've been reading up on Waldorf dolls. There's a Ravelry group for them. There's a Ravelry group for pretty much anything and everything. Waldorf dolls are traditionally sewn and I really don't care for sewing that much. I decided to knit a doll.

The head is done and stuffed in the traditional way for making a Waldorf doll. Fleece batting is rolled into a ball and stuffed into a piece of tubular gauze. The head shaping is done by tying the head in sections to form the eye lines and cheek. Normally, the head is then covered with a skin tone stretchy fabric that is sewn onto the head but I knited mine instead. I think I should have tied fibre ball tighter as the knitted skin doesn't seem to show the definitions as well as a fabric skin would. The fleece I'm using is a leftover shetland batt that I carded. This picture shows the head and neck. The extra fibre will be rolled up and stuffed into the body. This will make the head stable and not wobble.

The plan is to knit the two legs, join at the bum, knit up the body. Knit the arms and sew those on separately. In theory, it's simple. I'm working on the third set of feet right now. The others were either a bit too small or I wasn't happy with the shape. The hardest part is trying to keep track of what I'm doing so I can make the second leg the same.