Today’s Fortune: Promise only when you can deliver.

That is a good fortune. I should show it to my Mom, because she has promised to make me and Dharma some sweaters as soon as she finishes her Noro coat, which should be today.  We hope.

Since we are going to be getting good sweaters, we thought it would be a good idea to review the book that has the sweater patterns. It is called The Knitted Teddy Bear. Don’t let the title fool you, though, because there are some really good things to make for monkeys in this book.

The book has patterns for lots of bears and bear clothes.  The patterns are mostly written to make tiny little bears using tiny little yarn and tiny little knitting needles, so that the bears are really cute and small.  Mom decided to make some of the bears, but she used bigger yarn and bigger needles.  They turned out really good.  She made our friend Buddy using size 9 needles and Cascade 220 wool.  She used the “Thomas” pattern, but we did not name him Thomas, because we like the name Buddy better.

If you make Buddy the way the pattern says, he would only be 9″ tall.  Mom says those are miniature “heirloom” bears, and they are mostly to look at and not to play with.  That does not sound like fun, and besides you can’t borrow their clothes when they are that small.  Mom knitted Buddy with bigger needles and bigger yarn, and he is 17″ tall, which makes him big enough to be my buddy.  Which is why we call him that.

Buddy has good clothes for a bear, but they do not work so well for a monkey.  Buddy let me borrow his red sweater.  I really like it a lot, but it is a little too wide for me, and it is too short and so are the sleeves.

Mom says she can “adapt” the Buddy clothes to fit me and Dharma.  Adapt means changing it a little so it will work for us.   She will have to make different adjustments for both of us because Dharma has more stuffing than I do.  She is very plump and cute.  I am kind of skinny, but that’s okay, because soon I will have a Karate suit and I can start working out.

Mom let us choose the yarn we wanted for our sweaters.  We both chose a kind called Cascade Quatro.  Mom says they will look very good when they are knitted up.  Dharma chose a cranberry color and I chose purple.

Mom will knit our sweaters with size 7 needles, so they will not be tiny.  Mom used the “Thomas” pattern to knit two other bears.  Those bears were about the same size as Buddy, but they were much sturdier.  She used Lamb’s Pride Bulky yarn and size 7 needles to make them.  These were made for our grandbaby, Lily.  Mom says they are very “durable”, which means that Lily will not likely tear them up when she plays with them.

These two bears live in Nebraska now.  I am sorry that they had to leave our house, because they would have a lot of fun here, but Mom says we will go visit them soon.

Amazon gives this book 5 stars, and we have to agree!  Me and Dharma give The Knitted Teddy Bear 5 pezzes, plus a bonus handful of wasabi peas for having great patterns that can be adapted for monkeys!  We can’t wait for our new sweaters.

I know this might be a little boring if you don’t knit, but it is much better than reading Mom’s blogs about knitting.  Me and Dharma may have to do all of the knitting blogs from now on.  Dad says my “blog stats” go down every time Mom blogs about knitting.  Blog stats are kind of like customer reviews.  I guess I’m not the only one who doesn’t like it when Mom blogs about her projects.

I hope she delivers on her promise to make those sweaters soon, because Buddy is wanting his sweater back and Dharma still has my bowling shirt.

Today’s Vocabulary Words: Heirloom, adapt,  durable, blog stats.