Which monster would you choose? Please vote

After a super weekend craft fair I have to stock up on Sock Cats, Sock Bunnies and Sock Monster Aliens ready for another fair on Sunday 11th at Penta Hotel in Reading. As I’ve got limited time I’d be interested to know which of the Monster Alien designs in the two pics below you would choose as your favourite.

Thank you to everyone who takes part and please feel free to leave any new suggestions in the comments

Sock Monster Alien - Pic 1

Sock Monster Alien - Pic 2

A Pile of Pixies

I’m currently working on a pile of little Sock Pixies with pretty ribbon hangers. I thought they’d make fun tree decs or stocking fillers. This batch are made from some gorgeous baby socks I found recently in Mothercare – one of my favourite places for a good selection of different designs and colours.

I’ve just had a coffee and cake break (New York Vanilla Cheesecake – scrummy) – now back to Pixie stuffing.

I’m hoping to have lots ready for my first Christmas craft fair on the 11th November. Of course if anyone wants one before then just let me know Or pop over to my Folksy OddSox shop as there are still a few Pocket Pixies.

Monkeys without faces

I’m busy getting stock ready for craft fairs during November and December. This weekend I’ll mostly be sewing a batch of sock monkeys. These three little madams are lining up waiting for faces. They need names too so feel free to make suggestions

My first fair will be in two weeks time at St. Barts School in Newbury on Sunday 13th from 11am til 4pm. They always start the day with some rather tasty bacon butties which I’m looking forward to.

Tiger theTortoiseshell Cat – Sock Portrait

Tiger posing for the camera

This is Tiger. Recently her lovely owner sent me this request:

I have a beautiful tortoiseshell cat called Tiger and I would love a sock cat in her colours. She has a white bib with lots of ginger tabby and dark tabby markings. I don’t expect an exact replica – but is this something you could do? Just to be difficult, her left leg is white but her right leg is mainly that lovely ginger tabby colour with a white paw – she’s very fashion conscious!

I love challenges like this so of course I replied yes and we swapped a few emails about sock shopping and cat colours before I started. Eventually I found a pair of socks that I thought were quite close to tortoiseshell, in a tiger stripe design. I chose to attach the legs with buttons as this gives a little bit of posability (don’t think that’s a real word but never mind!). This was stage one that went back for commenting by the ‘real’ Tiger and her owner.

Sock Tigerpuss Stage 1

Her Furry Ladyship recommended an adjustment to her white area as this reaches all the way under her chest almost to her back legs. And she also quite fancied having a red or orange ribbon around her neck.

So we all decided on some white fun fur for the alteration and Tiger chose a lovely red velvet for the neck ribbon. Here’s the finished Sock Tigerpuss who is now thoroughly at home with ‘real’ Tiger and my lovely new customer.

Sock Tigerpuss enjoying the sunshine

Sock Tigerpuss showing off her velvet bow

Is that a bird under the bush?

Sock Tigerpuss sitting pretty

I really enjoyed this project and it’s been a pleasure chatting through the details with Tigers’ ‘Mum’ . Thank you T & L

If any readers would like to commission a Sock Portrait of their pet I’d be happy to chat it through – just leave a comment here or you can message me on Facebook or via my Folksy shop – OddSox and I’ll get back to you.

Matthews’ Monster Sock Spider

A few weeks ago my 7yr old god-daughter came round for a Sock Crafternoon and made a fabulously cute little sock teddy, complete with hat and belly button jewel. Today her twin brother Matthew came round for his Sock Crafternoon and we made something pretty scary!

We decided on a little plan of action, so whilst I made some sandwiches for our lunch Matthew got to work on drawing up his design and choosing the perfect scary sock, legs, buttons and eyes for the job. He’s been named Deadly Mont the Monster Sock Spider and this is the master artwork of him hanging from his poisonous web string.

You’ll notice that he has more legs on one side than the other due to some rather vicious battling, and during the making process Matthew decided it might be fun to sew his missing leg  to the wrong side! So he has 5 legs on one side and 3 on the other which makes him walk in a very strange way!

The reason that Mont is deadly is the rather cunning addition of a special web and poison chamber. It’s disguised by a button on the end of his tail that stores poison and has silky red web string wound around it. At a moments notice Mont can attach his web loop to the nearest object whilst spraying poison to stun his prey, sounding his internal squeaker alarm and dropping to a safe level during the stunning process. What a fiendishly clever idea!

So beware when you’re out for a nice country walk or maybe doing a bit of snipping in the garden, if you see anything resembling stripey legs poking out of the vegetation, turn and run!

Oh yes, almost forgot, Matthew said that the sparkle in Mont’s red felt tongue is actually spit… probably all that’s left of his prey after a tasty meal

What a brilliant creature, even if he is a bit deadly! Thanks for a lovely afternoon Matthew

Piglet in Socks

I’ve just mailed my latest sock commission today. I was asked to make a sock Piglet in the style of Disney Piglet. Here he is – not quite so bright pink – it’s difficult to find exactly the right colours and patterns, but I think he’s pretty close. He’s certainly got that fat little tum!

He’s made from two kinds of sock, a pale pink one for head, ears, snout and limbs – his arms are attached with buttons to give them a bit of movement. And his body is made from part of a leg of girls thick, soft stripey tights. He has embroidery silk eyes and eyebrows and a pink felt mouth and wears a matching pink bow around his neck.

Sock Portrait of Lola the Boston Terrier

One of my customers sent me an email recently and asked “I wondered if you would be able to make a dog out of socks. Could you make one that looks like our Boston terrier Lola? I have attached a picture.”

She’s a lovely looking little soul with plenty of character so I definitely wanted to give it a try. Here she is…

I decided to sew her legs on using buttons so that there would be some movement and ability to pose her. Here she is sitting…

Lying down…

…and standing, albeit a little wobbly…

All in all I’m quite pleased with the result so I’m off to send the pics to Lola’s owner now to see what she thinks. Paws crossed!

Sock Creature Crafternoon

This week I had a lovely afternoon of Sock Crafting with my 7 year old god-daughter Lucy. Her twin brother went ‘new trainer’ shopping with Mom while we rifled through the sock stash.

Here are a few pics of our afternoon:

Naturally we started with cake. The one at the front is a slice of delicious Lemon Drizzle cake made by Lucy (which translates into made by Lucy’s Mom!). We had little coconut thingies, a big stack of millionaires shortbread and pop.

Lucy also came bearing gifts that she had made herself. This gorgeous little sock bird now lives in the big plant in my living room. I love how it’s got eyebrows.

How cool are these little sock creature drawings? Top row third one along is the little bird and bottom right looks just like the Sock Squirrel I made for her. She’s definitely got an artistic flair.

These two are great fun because you lift them up to reveal….

…little Sock babies, ahhh!

So after having a lengthy peruse through ‘Stray Sock Sewing’ by Dan Ta she eventually settled on us having a go at making the Teddy Bear (for those of you that have the book, it’s page 122).

There are similarities but Lucy’s has a few little twists to make it unique. Here’s the result…

The bear in the book had a cute little raised belly button with an X in the middle but Lucy decided she’d like her bear to have a bejewelled belly button. It also has a rather lovely pair of stripey pants and a red checked bow.

And the finishing touch is a paticularly dashing pink sock sunhat.

She did almost all of the work herself – I think she did a brilliant job – what do you think?

The next session will be with Matthew – I think we might be making a dinosaur or an alien

The Wind in the Willows… in Socks

Last week someone asked me if I had any Sock Badgers for sale. I didn’t, and hadn’t made one before so I Googled off to do a bit of badger image research so that I could have a go at making one.

Some of the pics I’d been looking at were for the dear little creatures from Kenneth Grahame’s enchanting story The Wind in the Willows. So when badger was finished I thought I’d quite like to have a go at making his friends too.

Now I have a full set and they’re all dressed up too in little outfits made from bits of leftover sock, fleece, ribbon, buttons and fabric.

Mole even has a wee pair of wire specs! (He’s my favourite).

I’ve really enjoyed creating these soft characters. If anyone has any ideas of other famous and cute creatures I could try making, I’d love to hear your suggestions.

Sock Kitty Cake Stand

Here’s a pic of my latest Sock Cat creations made from my newest batch of trainer sock purchases.  I quite like the way that the heel of one sock makes a frame for their faces whilst the heel from the other forms a squidgy bottom!

Most of these kitties are wearing bows around their necks from ribbons available at Dizzy Izzy Supplies and their felted features are recycled felt available from The Felted Rainbow – both are great shops to browse for supplies.

If you fancy a kitty for yourself or as a present for someone else, some of them are available to purchase from my OddSox Folksy shop.

Thanks for looking.