I finished these on Sunday, but I decided to save them for Monkey Thursday, which also happens to be my friend Rebecca’s birthday. Happy birthday, Becca!
Pattern: Monkey by Cookie A., Winter 2006 Knitty
Size: One size (women’s medium). Foot measures about 8 inches long and 8 inches around unstretched.
Yarn: Interlacements Tiny Toes in Mountain Jewel (100 percent superwash merino wool, 185 yds. per 50 g. skein)
Yardage: 2 skeins, with substantial leftovers. Perhaps 300 yds. used?
Yarn Source: Interlacements
Needles: US 2 bamboo double-pointed needles
Gauge: 32 stitches over 4 inches in stockinette
Notes: There’s not much to say about this pattern that hasn’t already been said, so I’ll keep my comments short.
1. Modifications. The only thing I changed from Cookie’s pattern is the ribbing, which I didn’t twist. I cast on the first sock at a meeting, and I was distracted and forgot to do the twisting. I like untwisted ribbing better anyway, so that was fine by me.
2. Yarn. The Interlacements yarn that I used is just lovely. It’s soft, and the colors are really rich and satisfying. The yarn for the second sock was dyed in different intervals than the yarn for the first sock, so I ended up with socks that don’t particularly match. This is not the sort of thing that I care about. I’m not a very matchy gal — more of a deliberately non-matchy gal, truth be told. It is interesting, though, to observe how different two socks can be as a consequence of very slight differences in the length of the color repeats.
3. Combination of yarn and pattern. Cookie designed this pattern to have a plain stockinette heel, and I knit it to spec in soft merino wool that contains no nylon and is not otherwise reinforced. I suspect that if I’m not careful, I could wear a hole in these things so fast it would make my head spin. As a result, I’ve decided to wear them only on special occasions with my cute Mary Jane shoes, rather than to make them part of my regular sock rotation.
4. Artistic relationships. I think of these as my “Spinal Blue” socks because they remind me of this painting by my brother, James Merle, which he has kindly allowed us to hang at our house until such time as he wants it back.
More of James’s art is here. He also wrote and illustrated an awesome children’s book called Milo’s Amazing Rocketship, which has its own blog here and can be purchased here. It’s proving very popular with the under-five set. Oh, and he and my other brother, Austin, have a T-shirt shop here.
Ruth,
I can think of no greater honor than the combination of monkeys, knitting, and the shout-out on my birthday! Hooray for all of it!
Love,
Gwendolyn’s mom
Great socks Ruth! And your brothers? very talented too! What a cool painting!
it is curious but the socks don’t seam to match. only if you look to the pattern you can see that they are the same!
i’m honest, i would frog it. but that is me, i more a match thing. even with my kids staying at home with out going out, they must wear clothes that match, it is a franatic my kind of thing. but good work Ruth!
Congrats, beautiful socks.