Monkey hair and snags

I had a request today for a tutorial on the hair on my Punk Monkey.  I had promised a tutorial on all my monkeys and never finished them up.  Slacker ;)

I have made my Punk Monkey hair two different ways.  The first way I tried was making a strip of loop stitch and sewing it on. 





I'm not even going to pretend that I could teach anyone how to loop stitch.  I barely figured it out myself and it's not my favorite stitch, for sure.  Here are a couple of videos that I watched to teach myself...




This one shows a slightly different technique, and depending on how you hold your yarn, it might be easier...

As with learning any new stitch, just practice and be patient.  I'm not very good with patience, and I almost gave up.  I persevered, so I bet you can, too.  ;)

Once you get the stitch down, you just make a simple rectangle.  Make your chain as long as you need it to go across the light part of the hat and then you will single crochet across.  Turn and alternate rows of loop stitch and sc until it's as wide as you would like, fasten off with a long tail and sew it onto the hat.  Remember, you have to alternate loop rows and single crochet rows or you'll have loops on both sides.  ;)  (I'm all about the wink tonight)

The second way I make the Punk Monkey mohawk is the same way I make my mohawk hats...


only not quite so wild, although that would be cool, too. 

I don't have any pictures of the process, so I'll work on making either a Punk Monkey or a Mowhawk Hat this week to get some.  Either way, the mohawk process is the same, and pretty easy, if not a little tedious.  But worth it.  I, personally, prefer it to the loop stitch method.

So, look for that soon.  I promise.

I seem to have hit a small snag in my Stained Glass Window afghan.  See, I want to keep the colors close to the pattern, because I like it and I haven't seen another color scheme on Ravelry that I like as well.  The pattern is written for Red Heart Super Saver, which I don't like to use. It's too rough.  I started with I Love This Yarn (Hobby Lobby's brand) and my plan was to find the Red Heart color and match it up with a ILTY color.  Except they don't carry any of the right colors in the store I go to.  I can order them online, but I prefer to compare the colors in my hand instead of figuring them out on a computer screen.  I'm kind of stumped for now.  I'll figure something out.

Oooh, and look at this...

Source: yarnyinspiration.blogspot.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

The blog it links to has apparently vanished, so there is no pattern, but it seems like something I can figure out.  It's kind of like a polka dotted Babbette!  It will be Olivia's afghan.  She approved.  She also offered to wash the dishes from now on so that I have more time to crochet so I can finish Zoe's afghan and start hers.  Yeah... we'll see.