Monkey Business

When I was a little girl, my grandmother made me a sock monkey. I'm sure many of you also had a sock monkey as a kid! He was my favorite toy - I slept with him every night. I kept him with me through many moves after I left home - he was a constant reminder of my childhood. Of course he moved with me to our latest home. He never made it out of a box unfortunately and as some of you may know - we had a fire in our house after a nearby tree was struck by lightening. This was just about 4 years ago now. Although there wasn't too much damaged by the actual fire - there was a great deal damaged by the water the firemen used to put out the flames. My sock monkey and most of my childhood memories were destroyed by the water. I was crushed!

By far the worste loss was my sock monkey. I swore I'd make myself a new one.

Well - I had the opportunity last weekend. John, our cousin William and I went to the American Visionary Arts Museum to make sock monkeys!

They were offering a free class and all you had to bring was your own pair of socks. We arrived to find a HUGE room of tables and supplies.



Each table had an array of embroidery floss, yarn and buttons to add to your monkey...



There were plenty of "Monkey helpers" around to help us on our way. Here's a step by step look at my monkey creation!

First I split the sock to form the legs and added stuffing to the body.




Next I added the tail...



On went his eyes...



and mouth...



I love his crooked smirk!

Next I added his arms...



At this point - we'd been at it for about 4 hours and sock monkey class was over... It took a surprisingly long time to hand sew these monkeys!!

John and Williams had fun too.

Here's William stitching up his awesome monkey!



And here's John working on his:



We didn't all finish our monkeys - but they still looked pretty cool sitting in a row!



I walked around when I was done and snapped a few pics of the other monkeys around - what a variety of awesomeness!



After we came out - we put the finishing touches on our monkeys and here they are - ready for snuggling!




Have a monkey of a good week!