This weekend I will be mostly sewing the poxy things together.  Free cheese and pineapple hedgehog and Tizer to anyone who wants to volunteer their services.

War!

Huh!

Good God!

What is it good for?

ENTERTAINING MONKEYS!

Peasholm park is a pictoresque Japanese themed garden in Scarborough. It has a lake. In the middle of the lake is a shed. A man lives in the shed. I’m not sure what his name is but he plays the keyboards.

Film themes and stuff. He’s pretty rocking. But he’s not why we were there.

If you visit Peasholm park on a Monday, Thursday or Saturday in the summer you can watch an Epic Naval Battle and eat ice cream. It’s very authentic so if you’re of a weak constitution or lactose intolerant you should stop reading now.

Have you gone? Good.

It all begins very tastefully with a parade of boats.

This boat is far away. If you wait a little while it’ll get a bit closer.

Told you so. This one was a little bit on fire. I’m not sure if this was deliberate. I think I probably wouldn’t want my boat to be on fire when I was about to go into battle, but I’m no sea captain and my naval tactics knowledge is limited. I know you’re supposed to be quiet on submarines, and you must never trust the one with the moustache and the dodgy accent and that, in general (though not in salad) icebergs are a bad thing, but that’s about it really.

This one is an aircraft carrier. Air superiority is important. Especially when there are so many ferocious ducks about.

LET BATTLE COMMENCE!

They wouldn’t tell us who the enemy was on account of political correctness but I’m pretty sure it was the filthy hun on account of they started with a sneak attack. SHAME ON YOU!

Don’t worry little boat. Help is on the way! CHOCS AWAY GINGER!

BOOM!!!

They don’t like it up ‘em!

Not content with destroying their pathetic fleet, our brave seamen (tee hee) catch the enemy harbour unawares!

With the enemy despatched, it’s time to reveal the navy’s terrible secret.

That’s right Spanner!

GIANTS!

Who knew that grown men shooting fireworks at each other in a pond could be so much fun?

Righty has a slight dental issue from licking rabbits.

After my Adventures in Shawl, I’ve been making little things for a little monkey. I’m not quite ready to tackle the rest of my lace yarn stash. I’ve also been wasting a shedload of time in Ravelry and adding all sorts of patterns to my queue that I would never have made before seeing all the photos of them on real people. It would help if there were more 3 inch tall monkeys, but I have to work with what there is.

Knitting lots of socks creates lots of leftover sock yarn, so I’ve been mostly making bookmarks with it. They’re a nice tiny alternative to shawls.

The photo’s blurry, but the pattern’s ace.

I have another blurry photo of the only patterned sock of note this past month. Flamingo yarn and that there chevron pattern from SKS.

They’re pretty funky actually. They look like I’ve been stomping around in raspberry ripple ice cream.

Then I thought I’d make a badger. I could find no patterns. ‘How hard can it be?’ thought I. I was a fool. He’s got a bit of a designer stubble thing going on, and I’m toying with adding some fangs to add to that whole ‘wrong side of the sett’ look.

This month I have also been mostly buying books.

Mr Funky’s Super Crochet Wonderful. You can’t argue with a name like that. It’s got some cutesy hats and scarves in too, so if you’ve got a girly sprog it’s not a bad buy. Or, in amigurumi, Super Girly Happy Sprog Wonderful.

Super Happy Crochet Cute. I think there’s some sort of Super Crochet naming regulation for amigurumi books. AS IS RIGHT AND PROPER. This one will be more useful as jumping off point for zombies and pirates methinks. That monkey already looks pretty unhealthy to me. Super Zombie Monkey Happy Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaains.

And then I bought, all the way from Amerikee…

For the gorgeousness that is the Bargello Beauty.

Looking through the book though there are so many other patterns I want to make. Why do I always fall in love with the most massive projects? And where will I put all these blankets and shawls and zombie monkeys? I need to knit an annex to the tree house.

Tonight I will be casting on the Felted Furry Foot warmers from SnB Nation. They’re knitted, otherwise they’d be called Super Furry Monster Happy Feet.

Behold my Super Groovy Wonderful Happy Furry Yarn!

There’s not been much knitting on the blog of late because for the last month I’ve been knitting the same sodding delightful shawl. But finally, FINALLY, it’s done. HURRAH! And so let the lace pr0n commence.

The pattern is the Feather and Fan shawl from A Gathering of Lace.

Unblocked…

One blocking and 360 pins later…

Click me for a proper big view!

Now normally I hate yellow and I hate orange, but I saw this yarn at Ally Pally sitting there looking like sherbet and I had to have it. It’s Hipknits cashmere lace and I bet you 50p and a chunky kitkat that you’ve never knit with anything softer. It’s lush. I thought a circular shawl would make it look like sunshine. I might have been drunk. As I was casting off and thinking to myself ‘never again’ I starting eyeing up the even more massive shawl on the next page, so I’m wondering now if there’s a carbon monoxide leak in the treehouse.

It’s not easy knitting such long rounds when you’re such a tiny monkey. Once I fell over and got trapped inside my knitting. It was like being swallowed by a giant orange jellyfish. I was quite frantic by the time the Professor got home.

And then one daft arty shot and we’ll can all go for ice cream.