My Little Girl's Birthday Fun

This is a story about a little girl named Sydney..... She is 3 years old today and mommy is sad. Sad because my little girl is no longer a baby, it's official.
>She's pretty silly, isn't she?










Well, my little girl wanted her mommy to make her a monkey. Mommy was going to have the monkey finished by Christmas, but, alas, that did not happen. So Sydney got her monkey today. He got to relax with a nice book of poems about Nature before being thrown to the wolves. Oops, I mean Sydney =;)













This little monkey is from the "World of Knitted Toys" book. If you are so inclined to make him, I will warn you there is a lot of sewing pieces together, which I thought was pretty tedious. I also recommend making the 'easy' paws, instead of twenty fingers and toes (I only had to make the 4 thumbs, which was plenty for me.) I used size U.S. 3 needles and Suss nylon yarn for the face/hands, then combined the Suss yarn (dark brown) with Rowan Kid Classic (light brown) for the body and legs. The Kid Classic gives him a nice fuzzy halo. He is very soft and cuddly. Lots of great patterns in this book, I highly recommend it to anyone who is intested in making toys!

Then, I decided to make Sydney a little 'jumper' dress with this yarn I've been holding onto for over a year. Originally, I planned to make a sweater, but I just kept picturing a little dress, so I decided to go for it.

So this little dress is my own design!! I took my Vogue "Stitchionary" and just tried to mentally combine different stitches. Then I swatched several times until I found a combination that I liked. Originally, I planned on adding the pattern for this dress, but I had to fudge the numbers a little when I got to the bodice, so the instructions are a little hairy. I found it interesting upon closer inspection that the lace pattern I chose for the bottom of the dress is the same one from the Lotus Blossom tank from last years Summer 2006 IK magazine(the tank is on the cover).

The yarn is a worsted weight wool that was hand dyed. I just love the colors on her. So nice to see a change from pink and purple!! So my little girl is 3. But that's O.K.