L to R: Serafina, Blue Wetty, Toasty
After reading angry chicken's post yesterday about handmade toys, I remembered these guys I made with the kids about a year ago.
Blue Wetty wanted to be sure you could see his cute little tail.
The ideas and names came from Stupid Sock Creatures: Making Quirky, Lovable Figures from Cast-off Socks by John Murphy. In our house, we call them "silly sock monsters." If you are making these with young kids, you might want to preview the book before letting them look. If I remember correctly, the book's Toasty sports a cigarette!
No smoking in our house! Toasty has kicked the habit.
They were easy to make with basic hand-sewing skills. Even Girl, who was 7 or 8 at the time and hadn't sewn before, was able to help sew up Serafina's arms.
These are great little projects because:
1) They are environmentally friendly - you can use lightly-worn mismatched socks and old buttons, and hand-sew the toys.
2) They are a fun project to do with kids (after previewing the book) - kids can pick out which ones they want to do, and which socks to use, and your more coordinated kids can cut and sew the pieces.
3) They help declutter (well, kinda) by getting socks out of the lost sock bin (but into the toy bin).
4) They encourage creativity, yours and the kids'. The books has basic how-to guidelines, but the combinations are endless. Plus kids can, and probably will, do something like this:
Serafina shows her girly side.
4 comments:
Cutest sock toys ever! I love them!
I agree! Those are so cute :)
Those sre sooooooo awesome! I want to make some with the kids.
Have you ever watched a show called "Nana Land"? This was a Canadian children's program and they used a lot of characters that look very similar. The show has been cancelled and I miss it terribly - it was full of great knitted characters.
sock monsters are always better when you make them with kids!!
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