Monday, December 08, 2008

Blind Monkey - Saturday 12/6/2008


From a lowly pair of Rockford Red Heel socks will rise a monkey.

When I was little I had a sock monkey named Zippy. He was the younger, more slender sibling of Zippy, so technically Zippy Two. But we were really good buds, so I called him Zippy. Or just Zip if we were really in sync.

I made sock monkeys for a couple of friends' babies a few years ago. Now I'm making one for my grand-nephew!


I was going to take lots of photos along the way, but I got all involved and forgot.

I think Zippy was made for me by my Grandma W., but I'm not sure that's right.

I'm not sure what happened to Zip in the end. I do remember my big brother, Texaco, tying Zippy's tail to one of the arms of the multi-headed floor lamp and making him whine pathetically, "Help me! Hellllp me!"

No one should be denied the joy of having an older brother.




It took about six hours to get to this stage because I am hand sewing this monkey.

I actually dug my sewing machine out of the closet, but I haven't used it since we moved to Acton eight years ago. After looking up the instructions online for threading the dang thing and realizing that I probably should have oiled it a couple of times along the way, I decided that hand sewing is the best option for me. It's also nice to be able to say about the finished product.

The only thing left is to embroider on the eyes and mouth. I felt weird leaving him like this, but I wanted to get the right color of floss.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Keep up the tradition of the sock monkey! Nathan still totally loves his monkey and often shares it with Colin.

Anonymous said...

Oh yeah!...Zippy! Whatever happened to him? Wasn't Zippy #1 named after a monkey on TV? On Captain Kangeroo or some such. Anyway, it's good to see him again. He's lovely, even with that big red mouth. K