Monkeying Around!

Pattern: Monkey Socks
Yarn: Zen String Serendipity (sportweight) Sock Yarn in "Argyle;"
Yarn enabler: Woolgirl in May, 2007
Time I spent knitting these when I should have been correcting finals: 6 Days!

We love these MONKEYS! I made these monkeys, and then of course, Mr. Monkey-See/Monkey-Do (Poem-man) had to have his own Monkey socks!

They were super-super-fast for SOOO many reasons. 1) I did them in sportweight yarn. 2) I knit socks two at a time on a big ole Addi Turbo #3 Magic Loop. (Me, the loose knitter knitting socks on #3s!) 3) I was proctoring a Regents exam today and had nothing to do but finish knitting socks. 4) I adapted the original Monkey pattern in a couple of ways: I went toe-up and I only did three of the charts around the leg (1.5 charts on the foot) so that they wouldn't be too loose for Poem-man. 5) This yarn is yummy gelato-for-the-hands scrumptious!

And look at this:

I knit the socks from one big yarn cake--one from the the middle pull of yarn and one from the outside yarn and somehow, SOMEHOW, the colors ended up being basically in the same pattern on the socks. The pair is really like twins, and I didn't even try to make that happen. Does this happy accident happen all the time? Or is it really serendipity, like the name of the yarn? The other serendipitous thing is that there was only 241 yards, and I managed to get four repeats on the leg after doing feet for male 9-1/2 shoe sized-feet. Knitting with a finite amount of yarn (there are no more skeins at woolgirl.com or on the zen string site.) is not for the faint of heart. Thank God for the toe-up, two socks at a time technique! Without it, I'd a been freaking out the whole time as I approached the first toe, not to mention the second toe, if I had gone the traditional route. I have NO yarn little yarn ball left. None. I LOVE that. Ok, maybe about 6 inches to save if I have to repair them ever.

What a satisfying project all around!