monkey see monkey do

So I finally did it. I finished the monkey.

While it did involve quite a bit of rushed final touches, I think it turned out pretty damn cute in general.

 all the finished pieces.

Sewing the whole thing together proved to be the hardest part. I realized I have no idea whatsoever how to sew knit stuff together, so I pretty much winged it. I certainly hope it doesn't all come apart, but it ended up looking ok.

To sum up the parts, the yarn is organic untreated cotton I dyed myself with coffee grounds and chai tea. The stuffing is bamboo and dried organic lavender. The face is felt, buttons and embroidery thread. The hands, feet & ears are cotton. The monkey's blanket is a square of felt & is attached to his hand with a button.

The pattern I used was of a teddy bear from the book Knitted Toy Tales, minus the snout part and plus a tail I made up.

 the blanket idea is thanks to remy.
it is removable, attached with a button.

 side view.

 tail detail.

 i love his goofy smile.

The monkey was designed/made with lots of love for our amazing "nephew", Solomon, who turned two this past week. It took me about two months from start to finish to complete this project and was totally worth it. Special shout out to Remy for finishing details in the car on the way up to the birthday party in Bellingham, for coming up with the blanket idea and for generally supporting me through my fits of frustration while trying to sew the damn thing together.

Remy also came up with his own creative idea for a present. Solomon's two favorite things right now are monkeys and baseball, so Remy designed, drew and printed a tee-shirt for him. It turned out pretty damn adorable, too.

 tee details.

both our presents for solomon.

Sol and his parents, Mariah & Sam are some of the most beautiful people we know, so we wanted our presents to reflect their beauty (inside & out!) and our love for them! We are so excited to get to be closer and actually see Solomon grow up before our eyes. 

My next project is to use the same general pattern along with the organic cotton yarn I dyed bright yellow (see this post) to create a knit lion for my dear friend, Elise who is preggers with her first back in France!! She is due in October, so my goal is to be done with enough time to have it sent to her before her little baby girl pops out!

So much adorable in this post & I'll leave you with this last image so you will all understand how freaking cute Solomon is!!

<3