Monkey Business

Another baby due in the family – I was told at Christmas that I should get my needles out again for the summer, and asked whether a garment or a toy would be preferred. A toy is an heirloom, said the father-to-be. That’s that, then, thought I and began to wonder what to make.

A crochet pattern for Raymond Briggs’s Snowman attracted me to start with, and I sent off for it. 

DMC Snowman pattern - 'not a toy'!

But on reflection I decided a snowman for a summer baby wasn't particularly appropriate … and a white toy, for what we now knew was going to be a boy, might not last very long – or at least not remain white for very long. And there was a scarf, which would have needed to be sewn on very strongly … and when I read the pattern it said, very sternly,
‘This is not a toy’!

Not a snowman, then.

Then I saw a pattern for a dog. The family like dogs; this one looked a bit like the baby’s grandfather’s dog – to start with. I turned the page … and it had a sort of frill round the bottom of the body, and didn't look like anything much at all.

Not a dog, then.

Perhaps a teddy-bear? You can’t go wrong with a teddy bear, surely. I sifted through dozens, perhaps hundreds, of patterns on Ravelry. I didn't find a teddy bear I liked the look of.

So not a teddy bear.

In the meantime I had bought some aran cotton mix in a sale from an internet yarn dealer. 

Cardigan & hat made for one-year-old

It looked a really nice heathery colour on my screen, and when it arrived on a dull grey February day, when we had the lights on in the living room, it still looked a good heathery colour. I started knitting a cardigan for myself – the pattern is a scaled-up version of the one I'd made for another cousin’s child for her first birthday in January, which starts with the sleeves. I took it to the February Folk Dance weekend in Worthing. 

On the Saturday morning the sun shone. I looked at my knitting – hard, sharp purple – and knew I would never wear it.

My two dilemmas seemed to sort each other out. This bright purple would be great for a toy – maybe a purple teddy? I looked through the teddy patterns again, but still was not inspired. I changed my Ravelry search to ‘free’ ‘toy’ and left the knit or crochet undifferentiated. There was a monkey! I downloaded the pattern and made a start. It wasn't a particularly straightforward pattern, having been translated – probably by a robot – and I put it aside thinking ‘end of June, early July’ was a very long way ahead.

One day I had a few minutes between having my feet done and seeing the optician. So I looked round the yarn/haberdashery section of our local department store – as you do – and there was a stand of pattern books. Staring at me was a very engaging monkey. He was brown and fawn, but I thought he would work in my purple. I began to knit. To start with, I thought I’d make him entirely purple, but later decided that at least the face would need more definition, so I found some cream aran yarn, and made the face pieces in that. I decided that the tail was better purple, and swiss-darned cream for the inside of his ears. Face, hands and feet would be cream, instead of the pattern’s fawn, and all the pieces originally brown, plus ears and tail, were knitted in purple.

Then came the question of what to call him. I like to give my creatures names, sometimes before they have faces, as it can make quite a difference to how the face goes. I did give this chap a face, though, because the line of the mouth was very evident as soon as his face-piece and muzzle were attached; the right places for the nose and eyes were immediately obvious thereafter, so I had him complete. So, what name should he have? I put a picture of him on Facebook, to see if anyone could inspire me, and in the doing of that, and a bit of exchange of views on there, was able to sort my thoughts out.

Clooney

Many of you know that I am quite interested in medieval monastic orders, in particular the Cistercians. so I thought about calling him Bernard, after their founder. [Monks and Monk-eys have to be associated, don’t they? Think of capuchins – and Friends!] 

But this monkey had a definite resemblance – apart from his colour – to Curious George. H L Rey’s endearing little monkey, called Zozo in some parts of the world, has a face very like my little chap. But I didn't want to call him George, in case the soon-to-be parents wanted to call the baby George! And then I thought of another well-known George, whose surname rhymes with another monastic order … and Clooney was born.

Just to add that Joshua [not George!] arrived safely on Thursday 6 June ...

Since then I have been persuaded to make another monkey – after all, I have plenty of purple wool! – for the raffle at the forthcoming Cleeve Gathering of the EJO Society. So the second one will be Cluny!

Eyes Right

Three days after I last posted, I had a cataract operation.  Phaco-emulsion, they call it - all done by ultrasound these days. You may remember from the dreaded dishwasher post that I had a cataract that had developed more quickly than the optician had expected. When I saw the Eye Consultant in the autumn - I see her regularly because I have a family history of glaucoma, so although I haven't thankfully, got that myself, they are keeping an eye on me, by means of annual photos of my eyes in September, and an appointment with the consultant in November - this, naturally, was discussed as well.

So I was referred for surgery - about a 2 month waiting list, I was told - and just after Christmas had the letter inviting me for a pre-op assessment appointment at the end of January. At the end of that appointment I was given a date for the actual op. of 7th March. Well, that was very pleasing, as I had just been to my folk-dance weekend in Eastbourne, which happens on the last weekend of each January, and the op. date was safely beyond the February folk-dance weekend in Worthing. 

On Monday 4th February - less than a week later - at 09:55, the phone rang. TMH answered, as I was not long out of the shower and still leisurely getting dressed. It was the Eye Unit: 'We've had a cancellation; can you get here for half past ten?' - and then, at my stunned silence: 'Well, quarter to eleven then?' Yes, I could, and still not feeling entirely real, I grabbed a cardigan and we drove down to the hospital, parked in their multi-storey car park, and were on Floor C as directed at 10:35. 

By one o'clock, after a short chat with the surgeon, several lots of eye drops, 15 minutes looking at the light in the operating theatre, and two slices of toast that they insisted I ate, I was home, all done, with a leaflet telling me about eye drops - two different types four times a day for 2 weeks, then one of them twice a day for another two weeks - and a shield over my eye that I was to remove the next day. No chance to get worried or worked up before The Day; no hanging around, no pain, no injections. The whole thing was over and done with before I had time to think about it.

Naturally I rationed my 'screen time' for a while, though my leaflet had told me I could read if it was comfortable to do so. I was a little disgruntled the afternoon of the operation day, as the nurse had told me I shouldn't put my contact lens in the eye that hadn't been done 'until tomorrow'. But when, the following day, I put that lens in, I didn't enjoy the sensation at all! Because my newly inserted left lens was allowing good middle-distance sight, I didn't need the [short-sighted] right eye to be corrected for distance at all! I wanted to be able to read, which without the contact lens, I found I was well able to do ... and to thread a needle, which is even more important  and something I hadn't been able to manage without reading glasses when wearing my contacts beforehand. 

So from having contact lenses that corrected my right eye for distance, and my left eye for reading - but not very small print - this is known as 'monovision' - I am now not using contacts in either eye, and my left eye is the distance one, and my right eye the reading one - which can manage very well with small print. This settled fairly quickly after the op. and happily has continued  so when I go for my post-op appointment next week, and am allowed to go to the opticians - which I have already booked for the end of the week, to be able to see the one I like, who only works there on a Friday - all I will need is a pair of glasses for theatre and driving. I've tried driving a short distance with my old spare glasses, but they are wrong for the left eye, and after a while it feels strained, so I'm eagerly waiting for next week when I can order the new ones. In the meantime, this miraculous op. has enabled me to enjoy seeing the weather out of the window as soon as I wake up, being able to recognise people across a room, and - because my astigmatism has also been partially corrected with the implanted lens - I am no longer getting the sensation that the nearside hedge or kerb is leaping out to get me when I'm being driven; which makes me a calmer passenger for TMH to chauffeur around!

I'm also saving over £20 a month because of no longer needing the lenses or their cleaning/storing solution. Pretty good result, don't you think?

Oh yes, and I went to the February Folk-dance weekend in Worthing, too!

Elephants...

More things that I've done to keep my hands from being idle... 

2 - Five Elephants

Pratchett fans will be aware of the Fifth Elephant. Those who do not share my delight in these books need only to know that the world about which Sir Terry Pratchett writes is a disc carried by four elephants standing on the back of a giant turtle. But there is an esoteric tradition that once, there was a fifth elephant ...

'Harris Tweed'

It started with one elephant. My regular knitting magazine [Simply Knitting, for those of you interested] often features 'toy' patterns designed by Alan Dart - but wonderful-looking though they are, most of them are really for show, not something that a small child could safely play with. But in the August 2011 issue, there was a group of 'real' toys that he had designed; 'Safari Sweeties': a lion, a zebra, a giraffe ... and an elephant. In the magazine the elephant was shown in a baby blue, but I had some odd balls of a greyish fleck DK yarn, that I thought was far more elephantine, and so I made 'Harris'.

He had to be Harris, of course, because he was made with a tweed yarn. And I took him with me to the local lunch 'gather' of CBB friends, as I knew two of the others had small children, thinking I'd let them fight it out, but would offer to make another for the loser.

'Donegal Tweed'

But only one of the Mums was there that day, so Harris went off to be Meli's ellie, and I emailed Eddy's Mum to offer to knit another for him.



Elephant number 2 became 'Donegal' - this being the only other tweed I could think of at the time. They are about 6 inches/15 cm 'tall' - i.e. from whatever they are sitting on to the top of their heads.

Donegal [L] and Harris [R]

He sat on my white bookcase for some time before Eddy's Mum could make one of our meetings, but eventually she did, and Meli's Mum brought Harris to see his 'twin...

Lewis is at the top - someone else had
evidently seen the same pattern, and sent a pink
and white elephant to be his friend...

And then another baby arrived in the family - so another elephant became necessary.

I was exercised as to a name for this one, and wondered about Tertius, but was told it would be too hard to for a little one to say. So he became Lewis, that being a sub-type of Harris tweed.
[After all, you can't call a baby ellie 'Herringbone' or 'Thornproof'  - or can you?]

'River Tweed'

At the beginning of this year, the little boy for whom the Gunner Bunny was made [see Rabbits!] was approaching his second birthday, so I started to make the fourth elephant. His parents said they thought he should be called 'River'.

I was at a folk dance weekend at the end of January and as I wasn't dancing as much as usual, due to an injury, I managed to get all the knitting done, and most of the stuffing and sewing-up - all that was left to do when I got home was to give him a face and some toenails.

The Fifth Elephant

Naturally, he occasioned considerable comment, and one of the musicians was particularly smitten. Over breakfast on the last morning I found myself offering to make one for her. Hence the Fifth Elephant - I don't know what she'll call it...

Update 17 November - the Fifth Elephant is now officially named 'Fifth' - and she's a girl!