Monkey See, Monkey Do

If you're looking for the February NewFO Linky Party, Click right here.

Thanks to all who offered up their encouragement and support on my sock monkey project.  In my last blog post about this, I was having a little trouble with the tail.  Thanks to "Brown Family" who blogs at Yellow Mound Quilts for the catch that I was supposed to have cut the piece for the tail on the fold of the sock.  This would have made the strip twice as wide, and that would have been about right.  I was curious, and I checked the book I was using.  No mention of the fold.  Remember what I said about the instructions being not very instructive?  Oy.  I've penciled that part in for next time.

And thanks to Lethargic Lass from Plethora of Pinatas for sending me a link to a great tutorial from Urban Threads.  It has some great pictures and good ideas that would have made the job easier.  I received this link about the time I was going to do my guy's mouth, and it was very helpful.

Finally, thanks to JLVerde from Just Something I Made for her helpful suggestion of rolling the limbs while stuffing them to get the stuffing nice and even.  It made the arms much easier once I knew to do that.  

And this is one of the things I love about the blogging/crafting/quilting community.  Folks are so friendly and helpful!  So...wanna see him?

So he's all decked out there ready to watch a rerun of the Wizard of Oz.  He told me he really likes those flying monkeys.  (Are those voices in my head bothering you?)

And as I was writing this post, I just realized I forgot to give him some ears.  Back to the sewing room/ drawing board for me.  That would explain the extra strip of sock I had left over when I thought I was finished with him.

I gave him some yarn for hair.  There were instructions to do a cap for him, but the piece I cut was not going to work, so I decided on the yarn hair instead.  Also, I embroidered his eyes in a satin stitch with yarn.  This monkey is going to a year-old baby, and so I thought embroidered eyes would be the safest.  Using yarn also gave them some dimension, but it was surprisingly difficult to stitch using yarn.  If I were going to do this again (and I suppose I will some day), I would use Knit-Cro-Sheen instead.

Finally, my own sock monkey I had as a child had those strips of yarn at the wrists and ankles, so I added those.  They are tied in double knots so they should stay tied.  No problem if they don't, however.  I seem to remember cutting them off of mine at some point in time.  My Great Aunt Marie (known to us as Auntie Ree) made mine.  She was my grandmother's younger sister, and I loved her dearly, although I rarely got to see her.  She was such a delight.  So loving and cheerful.  I just now spent some time looking through some old family photos to see if I had any pictures of her, and apparently, I do not.  Oh well.

So if you read my post from earlier today, you know that I was gnashing my teeth about whether to go do my Curves workout.  I ended up going.  As I've already told some of you, I knew I would be glad if I went, and that I would hate myself if I didn't.  My feet don't feel any worse for wear, and I AM glad I went.  I'm going to try to remember this tomorrow when I will undoubtedly go through the same teeth-gnashing routine. Or maybe I could just go and save my teeth, but that would be way too easy.