A Tail of November. Or Six

It's November, isn't it.  You would think after sixty odd years that I would be ready for the fact that if it is November, Christmas is no longer creeping up, it is coming on like an overloaded freight train barreling down the tracks and there are only so many days to knit before the day arrives.  So, I pulled out that bag with the sock monkey project that I first spoke of in the spring and decided to get down to it so that they are ready in time.  It has been years since I first dreamed up the project and several, three or four now since i have had the yarn.  It is time.

I found the large bag of sock yarns for it.  I found the one that I started working on in the spring and all the parts that were done but not sewn together.  I found the needles.  I did not find the book.

That took longer.  I was starting to panic.  I remembered how long it took to find it last spring when it was tucked into another book on the bookshelves.  I knew it had to be by the rest of the WIPs.  And then I started to worry.  About the thrid time I dug through the sock projects bag, I found it tucked tightly underneath the large ball of teeny short bits of yarn.    

It was such a relief.

 

I pulled out the bag with the ongoing monkey and I started knitting.  There was an arm on the needles under construction.  So finished and knit the second arm.  I knit ears.  I knit a tail.  

And as I knit, I thought.  

I thought these little diameter things are going to drive me batty.  

I much prefer big things.  I thought there had to be a way to keep me engaged and interested.  I decided to knit all the pieces of the monkeys, the legs, arms, ears, mouths and tails in a batch now at the start.  They can stay unstuffed and ready for stuffing when all the bodies are ready.  I can knit the bodies easily while I am zooming on Wednesdays and the whole project shouldn't take long at all.  Crossing my fingers.  Holding off crossing my toes till needed.

I bought six skeins of Kroy sock yarn for this project. I bought an extra skein back then and I am so thankful that I did.  Who knew I would have six grandkids!  From where I am now, almost at the end of the first ball of the marled Kroy, I expect to break into the sixth ball. I will have lots of the red, but I can see me getting really close to needing a second ball of the cream Kroy. Good thing I have a healthy sock yarn stash that just happens to have a couple more balls of  the same colour.

And while I knit these little things I am going to think on what to start next.  I have a couple ideas, but I keep changing my mind.  They are all so interesting and they fight for attention and I am weak to resist a good idea on any given day.  There are just so many interesting combinations of yarn and pattern to knit.

That kind of blessing, the cup of yarn stash that overfloweth and the running rambling imagination dreaming of sweaters might drive some of you batty, but not me.  It energises.  It fills me up.  And it keeps my hands and head in the game.