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Monster Mash

Knitting for some months now, I have come to bring it with me almost everywhere I go. Trips are a great occasion to knit, while traveling on the plane, or especially whilst visiting family so you have something to do in your down time but can still hold a conversation (unlike reading or television which are very anti-social activities.) It's on these frequent trips to my sister's house that my niece and nephew found me repeatedly knitting something new. At first it was a scarf.. which upon completion I gave to my sister. 

Then came some hats.. which I gave to a friend who was to pass them along as a present for a new born baby. Inevitably, the question came up, "when are you going to make something for us?"  So I promised hats. But winter came and went before I had finally finished up a baby sweater I committed to working on. So, wool hates didn't seem appropriate and their heads were sure to be larger next winter. So, I would wait to make those hats. 

On the next trip, and the new project well underway, the kids became more insistent.. where was THEIR present? So I had to think of something that was timeless, seasonless, and which I could do two without having to take too much time. Huh.. challenging indeed. Ravelry came in very handy though and I began to search for that just-right project and happened upon a knit Monster collection by Rebecca Danger. Her patterns are not available on the site but after purchasing her knit Monsters book, I honed in on the cute computer monster, Cecil, as the perfect solution to this dilemma. 

I picked out some great yarns from my favorite store, The Yarn Basket in Portsmouth, NH, and got to knitting. I started with the toy for my nephew as I adored the colors I chose: green for the main color with turquoise for the contrast color.. kniting the main body first, binding off to make a mouth and picking up again to continue the head into a three way bind off. And then it was arms, legs and ears. Oh, how I love those ball ears, so shrek-like. And voila - Cecil (aka Fuzz Buzz) was born.


Unfortunately, my desire to move onto a new project to learn new skills had to be sidelined as the deadline for finishing the monsters was fast approaching. Monster #2 had to be started.. so the pink main color and purple contrast color were taken out of the stash and I set to finish that monster. Unfortunately, I didn't get it completed in time for the weekend my niece and nephew visited.. as I had hoped. And I wasn't too sly about knitting the last pieces of my niece's toy, so my nephew basically ruined the surprise. Thankfully, my niece was cool about me finishing it up in the evenings and after staying up late into the night, after long days of water parks, outdoor plays, whale watches, beach, etc. I finished up Cecilia (aka Fuzzems):

Here she is posing with my new labels !!

I took a great deal of pleasure from finishing these monsters for the kids. Especially since it was clear I did learn something from knitting the first one, the second one having come out a lot cleaner, esp. the finishing sewing. I finally found a closing method that looked great for the legs being sown into the body! But more important then any knitting lessons or any pleasure I could get was the joy these monsters gave the kids.. genuine love. Genuine gratitude!


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