Alec & Zagit

Alec lives next door. He is in high school and is currently learning to sew in home ec. Alec was over last Saturday talking computers with my husband when he saw the sock monsters, and asked if he could make one. I was surprised that Alec really wanted to spend his Saturday sewing and even more surprised at how much Alec knew about sewing and how much he seemed to be enjoying what he was doing.

Alec picked out the pattern and socks he wanted. He did all the machine sewing and hand sewing. He also picked out the eyes and the name. He even stuffed the monster himself, which is the part I like least. So, say hello to Zagit. I think he turned out great and that Alec did a super job sewing Zagit together. Good job Alec.

Purple and White

My husband was in need of a new shirt. This piece of purple fabric was lying on top of the my stash so, it was picked as his next shirt. The problem that I ran into was I had no matching thread. I dug though my box of thread and picked out all the purples I could find. When I showed the spools to my husband, who is my color coordinator, he picked white, bearing in mind that white was not one of his choices. I tried to talk him out of white, but he insisted. So, I started construction of his purple shirt with white thread. The more I sewed the more I liked the white on the purple, and after embroidering the white apple logo and sewing on the clear buttons, I liked the contrast even more. As you can guess, the moral of this blog enter is try an idea even if you just know it will look awful.

Sewing with Blanks

I purchased these little tank tops last fall on clearance, $0.50 a piece. Once again my husband thought I was crazy, but when I saw the tops, I knew they were good blanks, a purchased item that I can just embroidery on. The tops have such cute detail with the back straps looped together and the little piece of lace sewn it the front. I had to remove the applique from thefront of each shirt,
but that only took a second to unpick. It is very rewarding to work with blanks because it take so much less time to a completed project. I will confess though that one disadvantage to sew on a blank is hooping, especially with blanks for toddlers. Hooping your item for embroidery is so much easier when the item is only partially construction, instead of completed.

Meet the Newest Member of the Family

Say Hi to Sprog. He is the newest member of my sock monster family. He is my first attempt to use anklet socks to make a sock monsters. I bought some knee high socks for sock monsters that came paired with matching anklet socks. I don't wear anklets so I am trying to use them in the sock monster creation. He is not quite done yet. One of his eyes is loose and needs to be sewn on again, and he needs a collar to hide his neck stitches. I learned several things about sock monster sewing in the creating of Sprog. I am not happy with the way his legs and tail turned out. I stuffed his legs and tail first and then sewed them to his body. Next time I will sew the legs to the body and stuff the legs and body at the some time. I think he would stand up if I had sewn his leg this second way. I tried to make him smile by making his upper lip smaller than his lower lip. It did not really work. I have given quite a bit of thought to how to make the monsters smile, but still do not know quite how to stitch the mouth to get a smile. It is not as easy as it look due to the design of the heel piece of the sock. I also did not make the neck darts on Sprog, and I wish I had. It would have shaped his head instead of just being one long piece. Yet, even with these issues, I think he is pretty fun and I am happy to have him in the sock monster family. Coming some day, a distant relative from a foreign county. Stay tune.