Monkey Girl

I made the girlie a monkey. Well, it was supposed to be a monkey, like the ones that Kelly made, but the girlie didn't want a tail, or ears, or hair. I finished it - the doll - one night, while listening to Slouchy read aloud her poem about her grandmother, which ends with the apt line "I watch your busy hands. They fly." Poking stuffing into the legs and stitching them up, while my friend remembered her grandmother's handiwork, was some kind of lovely synchronicity.

Slouchy's grandmother might well have appreciated the monkey's provenance. The bit of pink for the body was leftover from a skirt I had in high school. The white of the arms and legs and head was salvaged from a worn out bedsheet. The beige of the face came from the cut off leg of a pair of pants - either my husband's or my father's - and the vintage green calico is the mystery. (The Palm Beach chintz on the hand-me-down sofa is a thorn in my side; I need to get that couch reupholstered and soon!)

The next morning, the girlie found the doll in her bed and came climbing in with me to tell me "Mama, make a list, she needs hair, and a hat and shoes and a skirt, make a list, Mama". Got that? Hair.

Luckily, there's a costume shop in my building, so I went down and begged for 18" of glittery fringe - which my boss saw draped on my desk and wondered aloud if I was planning to make it into pasties. I think not. Monkeys don't wear pasties. And it'll make perfect hair when I get a chance to hand-sew it to the doll's head.