Mr. Monkey and Charity

My supervisor at work is pregnant and due in May.  It's a girl, and my office is having a baby shower for her on Wednesday!  While I am going to miss it due to my TMJ disorder, I still wanted to knit something for her!  She has been my "test subject" for many baby items and original written patterns, and this time was no exception.

I am told that the baby's room will be decorated in pink and brown, and monkey-themed.  I have never knit amigurumi before (I have crocheted it), so I looked to Ravelry for something suitable.  I was hesitant to write a pattern, since I knew I would want to use short rows for shaping the face, and I'm not very experienced in that area yet.  I finally settled on a charming little pattern written by Sarah Gasson, who donates proceeds from her pattern sales to various charities, including her local Hospice.  Sarah's prices are extremely reasonable: I only paid $1.67 for this pattern!

 For those of you who don't know me, my mother worked for Hospice for 30+ years as a social worker, and she very suddenly died 2 years ago after a nine day battle with stage 4 small-cell lung cancer.  She dedicated her life to helping those at the end of their life, and Hospice helped us through dealing with the end of her life as well. I thought it would be wonderful to purchase a pattern from someone who donates to that same cause.  If you would like to purchase patterns from Sarah, you may do so via her website, or through her Ravelry page.

Here is the finished product:

The monkey is actually worked flat, then sewn up the back.  The same goes for the arms, ears, legs and tail. I actually preferred this method, as I always get ladders using DPNs.  I think the color changes would have been extremely difficult were this pattern written for DPNs.

In order to get better definition of the face, I placed a few stitches to cinch the outer side of each eye, as well as from between the eyes to under the chin.  This ensured that the shape will stay the same through light play.  While I added those to the original pattern, the pattern does call for a similar method to be used for  the neck shaping.

Sarah offers her patterns for sale as individual projects, or as collections.  This is a great idea!  You can purchase a Christmas collection, a Farmyard collection, and more.  Mr. Monkey came from her Safari collection, but I purchased just the monkey pattern alone.    

Lastly, I want to make clear that I am not being paid to feature this knitting pattern on my blog, I simply really enjoyed this pattern and wanted to share the good cause with my readers!  I hope you enjoy it too!