Time for this month's CHA Designer Crafts Connection Blog Hop and this month's theme is Sock Monkeys! The "sock hop" challenge was sponsored by the wonderful Ana Araujo of When Creativity Knocks along with FoxRiver, Rit and Judikins. Each designer received a pair of the iconic red-heeled socks that are give sock monkeys their distinctive look. Rit provided bottles of liquid dye and Judkins supplied a fabulous sock monkey rubber stamp. To get everyone started, Ana sent each designer a copy of the When Creativity Knocks video book Sock Monkeys Go BanAnas. In the video, Ana and her lovely daughter, Megan, explain step by step the construction of a sock monkey. I learned so many tips and sewing secrets! Thank you so much, Ana, for arranging this fun challenge!
Before I continue, I have to explain that the last couple of months, I have been obsessed with skunks. Skunk crazy! You see, whenever Bruce and I have a weekend afternoon free, we love to drive through nearby Griffith Park. Several times we were there at dusk and just happened to see a fat little skunk waddling across the road and up a trail. It has now become our habit when on our Griffith Park drives to roll down the windows and yell "Skunky!" in the hopes that we'll run across our fat little skunk again. (Who knows - it might work!) Thus inspired, I decided to do a variation on the Sock Monkey and make it a Sock Skunky!
Wanting to get a really dark color, I dyed the pair of FoxRiver socks with a whole bottle of Rit Black dye. The socks took the dye very well with the interesting discovery that the red heels stayed red! (Originally I kept the red heel as part of the nose and mouth but ended up trimming it to get the right shape of the snout.)
The skunk is made of three parts - the front half which is the head and front legs, the back half which is the torso and back legs then the tail which is added on at the end. Ana's video is fabulous in its instructions - the front half of the skunk is constructed basically the same way as how she constructs the main body of the sock monkey.
With a little textile paint for the nose and stripe and bits of blue felt for the eyes and corsage, Skunky was transformed from warm long-lasting footware to beaming little stinker.
This was such a great creative challenge in which to participate. For me, it was one of those projects where you have to just let go and trust in the process. A lot of the construction was done inside out and flat. It wasn't until the very end when the body was stuffed that I could really see the little skunk starting to emerge. Even then, it took a lot of whittling here and there to get the shape right. Originally he started out looking more like a deer! This was such a fun challenge and I had a blast. And now I have my own Skunky!
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Best of all, you can enter to win your own Sock Monkey prize valued at over $40! Here's what one lucky reader will receive:
- Sock Monkeys Go BanAnas WCK VideoBook
- One (1) sewn Sock Monkey body ready to be stuffed
- One (1) pair FoxRiver: Oringal Rockford Red Heel Socks
- Button Eyes, needle, floss and stuffing
Just head over to the When Creativity Knocks website and in the Member Log In box click "Create An Account". Then enter "Sock Monkey" as the entry code along with your info. I hope you win!
Ana is also offering all blog hop readers $2.00 off the purchase of a Sock Monkeys Go BanAnas WCK VideoBook plus a free copy of the 2012 WCK Sock Monkeys Go BanAnas eCalendar with purchase of the video! The coupon code is "sockmonkeybloghop". Hooray for sock monkeys!
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Be sure to check out all the other fabulous Sock Monkey projects in the Designer Crafts Connection Blog Hop! Just click "hop forward" or "hop backward" on the DC Connection badge to visit the other blogs.
