More Bottle Tops

So I've been drinking bottled water and diet Coke all week trying to get more bottle tops. I think as soon as I try some flowery ones I'll have purged the need and can move onto something new. Until then they just keep on coming.

Vulcan Junior

Behold! My amazing birthday present from my bestest friend. It is a minature sowing machine. It sits on my fancy book shelf now inbetween the boys informations texts. As we all now boys seems to like books telling them how to do something. It'a topical because now Ray has launched her own blog. Click here to see this new adventure and ask her how she's going to top my birthday present this Christmas!

Miniature Pin Cushions

These are made from bottle tops, they're ace and they only take 20 minutes to make. I just wish I had more bottle tops. I've just been mucking about really seeing what looks nice on them. Click the link from this post to see Jen's tutorial. Her other pin cushions are amazing aswell, she's a far better stitcher than me, but for a first attempt I'm pretty pleased.

When I was a young teen I had this massive craze on friendship bracelets, I made hundreds of them. Then, as you do, I grew out of that phase but was left with a massive bag of embroidery thread of every conceivable colour. My mum used to put skeins in my stocking every Christmas. Now suddenly I have this massive resource for cake decorating. It shows that keeping something for 10 years and never touching it doesn't mean you should throw it away.

It's been raining all weekend so I'm on a cake mission for Christmas presents.

Boris

So not wanting to leave any monkey unlauded; here is Boris the Gibbon. A thick, lumpy, bendy kind of monkey with a penchant for eating flies and watching Columbo.

Things I learnt:
You should make sure the arm seams are at the back, especially if you line up th stripes as badly as I did. See how pinning the stripes front and back can make a difference now?

Weighed Down

After long hours of experimentation at monkey HQ, Dr JJ has concluded her study of using lentils at the ends of monkey limbs to help weigh them down. Here are her findings:

• Too many lentils with warp the sock material, stretching it over time nd leaving gaps of nothing where lentils meet stuffing.
• No lentils prevent monkeys from sitting comfortably on shelves and door knobs
• With the exact right amount of lentils, especially in the tail, you can create a monkey that is reassuring to hold and will perch anywhere.
• Lentils are an overall good thing.

Above you will see Emo, with slightly too many lentils and Boris, with no lentils. I think we can all see that an inbtween lentil count is ideal.

Thus concludes the scientific study.

Red little Monkey

Introducing Slagathor. He looks like a slagathor doesn't he? It's a bit of a monkeyfest at the moment to make up for the lull over the summer when it was too hot to stay indoors. I now concluded The Great Lentil Experiment. Emo the purple goth was full of them. He sat beautifully, his arms long and stretchy, but I worried for him. I worried his sock flesh would eventually stretch and he would have empty baggy bits where no stuffing and no lentils lived. So I made another emo; a fatter, thicker beast. As soon as he has eyes I will show you the difference. He has no lentils weighing him down and you shall see how this affects him. So I decided to put some, not to many, lentils in this stripey monkey for Ruby. Ruby, being full of drool, requested a monkey with tags. Apparently babies love thick tags. So I gave this cheeky chap one on his head and one of his back making his bum a bit more sticky outy in the process. He sits well, but in the end I think a few more lentils are needed. One day I shall create the exact mix and the age old lentil to stuffing ratio will be solved. He also has medium long legs. Not as extreme as the gibbons but not as stocky as Thug.

Things I learned with slagathor
1. More lentils demmit
2. You can make a very thin tale and not need to stuff it, just put a few lentils in it.
3. You can sculpt a bum if you wish it, although it gives them a baboonesque look which is slightly unsettling.

Finish Monkey

So someone sent me some socks to make into a monkey, from Finland no less. They were expensive socks I could tell. I've only made monkeys from ultra cheapo socks or socks I have worn into the ground, and the difference in quality was noticable. I decided not to put any weights in this monkey and see how he fared.

Things I learned:

1. The more expensive socks are tighter, firmer and thicker.
Result: His arms stick out and even unstuffing didn't seem to help.
2. If you sow the arms too high up, the monkey becomes a thug.
3. If you take time to pin the stripes before you sow, they all join up better.
4. A generous toe makes for a slaphead monkey.

Behold: The Thug. His shoulders shake when he sniggers. He mutters. He eats with his fingers. There's no teaching them.

I like the Leg

Well it's been some time, but I finally have a rainy weekend ahead and nothing to do other than have a monkey fest. So without further a do I am starting three at once experiementing with arm and leg length. Emo was the longest, hence him being a gibbon. He has gone to his new owner now. Eoi lives in Iceland and is 3. Apparently he hasn't choked on an eyeball yet so all is good.

It got me thinking about my next monkey fest and whether they too should be gibbons or just long armed monkeys so I'm going to vary the length. We'll have a cheeky short yellow one first, then a gangly red one, then another gibbon and see how they all come out. Maybe a bit less weight in the arms of these ones as I think the material will just stretch overtime making for some quite wrinkly monkeys.

Emo the Sock Gibbon

Behold sock gibbon beta mark I. I call him Emo, because he's a litte bit of a Goth. He likes nothing better than hanging out at the Underworld in Camden and shopping in Cyberdog. I've tried to get him to wear nice, light summery clothes, but it's black eyeliner and The Cure all the way. These young Gibbons… what can you do?

Lessons learned. Always cut your holes smaller than you need them to be, then stratch the opening with a cork. I made mine the same size and they were far too big.

Try harder (more pins) to make the stripes line up. I am sure I can do better than that.

The best thing I did this time was not cut the sock before I sowed. This meant no curling up of material and made it much easier.

Next cometh the red and white stripey gibbon for Ruby's first birthday. I'd better get my skates on, she was 1 last week.

The Sock Gibbon Cometh

So I saw this picture of a sock gibbon on Flickr and thought what a brillaint idea it was. It was made by Viv Schwarz, who has a flickr album full of monkeys



A sock monkey had been requested by Claire so three pairs of knee high stripey socks have been purchased for a tenner from Covent Garden market. I found these more comprehensive instructions on the web. I am trying to get my stripes organised. This is going to be great. I have a special pair of red and white ones for Ruby, so I am practising first on what I call my emo gibbon. I wish I could take the day off work to make it. The day I got them I had to work till midnight. How infuriating is that? Just when I have something cool to do.

Chicken Finale

Finished. I took my time. I made them during world cup matches. Here is their final photoshoot before they are given away. I am very pleased. The only hard bit was the material at the bottom going round the base which really needs pleating. Not sure how to escape that. I thought as I was making three, one would end up being the one I made all the mistakes on, the one I liked least, but it didn't work out that way. I like them all equally. I will be sorry to see them go.

Chicken Construction

Nothing beats a day on the roof terrave making chickens.

Chicken Part Deux

So today I start the second round of chickens. I did take pictures of protochicken but the boy erased them before I had downloaded them, then I gave him away (protochicken, not the boy). This new set uses fabcircs bought from the link in the title. Reprodepot sells vintage reproduction and retro themed fabrics, but it's in the States so every parcel gets a whoping charge added to it. I have to pay £8 last time in customs and handling. Not sure how to get round this. Maybe just make sure you order laods to make it worth your while. The materials I got were great. Then I just matched the colours with some swatches of plain colours I got from Strawberry fayre. You just fill in a form, stick on your samples and they post you the colours. the swatch has every colour you could thnk of so it's easy.

Labels

I got two labels made for £12 each and I just ordered 2 more sets. They're great. Click on the title of this post to visit the website, ordering is really easy.

Sock Monster

I thought about making another monkey, then I thought why not go all out and make a monster so here is my beta monster. He has a slightly patched belly as I cut the hole for the tail in the wrong place and gave him huge genitals instead. An emergency transplant was called for.

My Monkey

Consider Phlebas

Sock Monkey

Click the link above and make your own sock monkey! I had a pair of socks with holes in which were dead really, but I loved them so much I wanted to keep them alive in some way so I decided to make a sock monkey. I printed out the instructions at work and one of the girls found them and suddenly three of us all went away and made one over the weekend. It's funny that one set of instructions heraled three such different monkeys: Chico, Nobby and Phlebas. Which one is mine?

Japanese Craft

Right so this is what you do.

1.Click hereand scroll through different japanese craft magazines and see what people have made from them. Amazon will only show you covers, this allows you to see inside some.

2. Click hereto see amazon.jp in the Google translator. It's not perfect but it will allow you to find the right section. If you start from the home, these are the links you need to follow. My link should take you right there though.

3. Link path from the home page:
Japanese Books
Living * health * parenting
Handicraft * craft

4.Click here to go to a site all about how to use amazon.jp. I found having the english equivalent up at the same time helped.

Give it a go. I have the above books which anyone is more than welcome to borrow and photocopy, so I suggest getting new ones so we get a pool.

Legs

So I have made some lumpy legs. I'm not sure if it is my techniques or my stuffing that has made them lumpy. I look on this as a test. The final design comes from this Japanese craft magazine. As I go along I see why you would want to change parts of this but I thought for the first one I should do as the book says. Well as much as you can when you don't understand a jot of Japanese. Here is a beautiful example of someone else's attempt.

The use of buttons

So here is my effort. I am really pleased with them. I was gong to give them away, but now I just want to look at them. They are so easy to make. If only I needed hundreds of pin cushions. I'm facing a bit of an overload.

Buttons

So I saw wee's beautiful pin cushions and decided I needed some buttons. Harder said than done. I went to John Lewis and they were sadly lacking. So I found an unexpected hoard of them in a great shop deep in Hackney's Ridley Road Market. It's an amazing cavernous place. Then I happened to pass another, smaller branch of John Lewis and found some. Then I found this great website. It's a bit difficult to navigate through and I was a bit wary about doing a bank transfer, but it couldn't have been easier. Now I have loads! I knew that old toffee tin I bought would come in useful. I just like looking at them all.