Sock Camp, Part 2

Oh yeah. I was going to do this "tomorrow"... Yeah, right. Happy Friday, my friends...

So where was I? Wednesday...

Wednesday was sock monkey day. WARNING - SERIOUS SOCK MONKEY CONTENT COMING. TURN BACK NOW IF YOU ARE OFFENDED OR CREEPED OUT BY SOCK MONKEYS.

Wednesday was project day, and from 9:00-ish to 2:30-ish we worked on sock monkeys. Okay people - I never had a sock monkey growing up. I don't think I ever knew what they were until around 5 or 10 years ago, if that long. I get that they were from "olden days" when you made your own toys, and appreciate the Americana aspect. But dudes. They're ugly. Even when you make them out of gorgeous Blue Moon yarn, they're ugly.

Mine turned into "Rasta Monkey." Basically, I was lazy. You were supposed to make an I-cord around a pipecleaner for the tail, arms, and legs, so they'd be bendable monkeys. I hate making I-cord (I have a little cheater machine at home for when a pattern absolutely, positively requires them). So I thought that I could cast on, knit a row, then bind off. Get the same approximate girth, just less stiff. So first I made a leg this way, out of the same yarn as the body. The leg curled out to the right. The second leg, I decided to do in stockinette (which naturally curls into a tube) and in the other color. Looks okay. For the arms and tail, I did the other color, but did the CO/K/BO trick. I have a very limp monkey. DM, on the other hand, did it right, and came up with Downward Facing Monkey, to which she gave a really cool Indian-sounding name, and which I couldn't remember for the life of me. It was great.

After that, we made sock puppets. Not into this at all. I tried to make a Roaring 20s puppet, but she cheaped out on me and turned into Sock Harlot. Not pretty. Lucky for us, participation in the puppet show Friday night was voluntary.

After the monkey and the puppet, we still had some time to KNIT, so I continued to work on the entrelac socks, but then it was time to hit the road and find a yarn store! We ambled over to town (the only one on the island, I think) and found Poppies, a very cute little store. Rumor had it that she had gotten in some Conjoined Creations' Flatfeet - and she had! That very week, she had finally gotten her shipment of 28 or 30 of them, then the knitters descended, and by the time we got there at 4:30 on Wednesday, she had 4 (count 'em, 4!) left. Three in the bin and one she was working on. Someone had already bought one out from under her the day before, so she was adamant about hanging on to this one, so I selected one from the bin. It has a very intriguiging X-pattern. It will be interesting to see how it knits up.

We then had a fabulous dinner at The Inn at Ship Bay. Amazing and wonderful. Cauliflower soup with a float of a housemade crouton holding a slice of brie, ivory salmon over butter-tender Yukons and sweet onions, and a warm pineapple sundae with homemade vanilla ice cream. It was wonderful, and a slow-paced meal, so by the time we got back to the Resort, we had missed the underwater knitting contest (it was held indoors - no knitters were frozen during the making of this contest). Heard it was funny, heard a good time was had by all, but you'll never see pictures because cameras, camera-phones, and video devices were banned - Cockeyed promised to chuck any such thing in the pool if she found you with one!

Later that night, I opted out of the hot tub soak in favor of - knitting! I finished the monkey (such as he was) and went back to the entrelac socks, then I think that was the night we caught 3 episodes of Reno911!. A good way to end the day.

Oh yeah - there were also deer all around the property - even in the hotel parking lots.

Part 3, tomorow (sure...).