On October 27 of this year, I marked the passing of Paul the Octopus with this amigurumi tribute:

I got the pattern from Tamie Snow’s book, Tiny Yarn Animals:

While I sometimes find the directions a bit non-standard, Ms. Snow excels at creating engaging and joyous creatures, and today, I at long last completed an amigurumi lemur, the design for which is also in her book.

I began the lemur many moons ago, but got sidetracked.

First it was the child safety eyes I had purchased. The backs were very difficult to manipulate, and it wasn’t until I gently (put firmly) took a hammer to the back of them that I was able to get the back to attach to the stem of the eye.

Next there was the matter of the nose. I checked at two major craft stores in the area and did not find any. Finally, a trip to JoAnn’s got me a package of the noses I needed for the project.

So today, between errands and music lessons, I got all the parts of the lemur put together to produce my very own King Julien XIII:

Those of you familiar with the cartoon, Penguins of Madagascar, will recognize King Julien as the more than slightly self-centered lemur who lives in the Central Park zoo. While people who possess the character traits King Julien does are quite annoying, these traits are central to what makes King Julien so hilarious.

King Julien is incapable of feeling shame and is both unabashed and unapologetic in his use and misuse of others to advance his own cause. Despite his enormous ego, there is something endearing about King Julien’s reverence of self.

However, rather than try to put words in King Julien’s mouth, I allow him to speak for himself which he does as eloquently as any lemur in this video.