I can (and often do) market the stuffing out of my friends’ creative endeavors. I’m the person with a nice word, the pat on the back, and the confidence building admonitions. But when it’s something I do, something I made, something I’m invested in I lack any kind of confidence.

Oh sure, I act like I’m confident, and sometimes that’s enough to allow me to bulldoze my way through. In reality what’s going on inside my head is that I equate the fruits of my labor to my self worth, and since my self worth is usually in the toilet I tend to think just as poorly of the things I produce. So promoting my own skill is a major leap– and I crumple hard sometimes.

And this is where I cringe. Because I don’t always feel brave enough to say “Hey look guys, this is what I made!” Let alone try to say “Hey look guys, this is what I made and want you to exchange money for it!”

Besides I hate shop blogs in general, because sooner or later they turn into “Oooh we just got in a case of three toed glass pickle sharpeners and wouldn’t you know it? Everyone has to have one.”

So fine. Flannel curio bags on eBay and flannel curio bags on Etsy. I made them, the price is good if you need them. There. Happy now?

I’m going to go work on finishing my In the Style of Queen Anne doll and hope no one is judging me too harshly.

I’m going to assume that breeding conditions are less than ideal in the craft room because it stopped reproducing.

The timing was great though, because I usually don’t think that much about stuffing, and there are tons of people that know far more about what to use and how to use it that were willing to point me in the right direction. And as it turns out there are a lot of stuffings available at Christmas time sold as snow decoration that really aren’t readily available during the rest of the year.

I was also pointed to an awesome video for learning how to properly stuff a doll using hemostats.

The bunnies above were filled with Silky Soft, produced by Fairfield (the very same makers of regular poly-fil) it’s super bouncy and feels baby fine in comparison to the normal stuff. It doesn’t pack tightly, so when I overstuffed a tiny head and left it on the table, I’d return to find white polyester brain matter oozing out the neck hole. I bought this stuff before I had the the sense to ask the experts, but fortunately it’s perfectly appropriate for my squishy little toys.

Then there’s poly-fil, it looks loftier but packs densely. Using the hemostat technique I attempted Mikey from Beautiful Animal Dolls by Miriam Gourley. My Mikey’s skin is just cotton flannel, since JoAnn’s is all I really have for a fabric store there’s no proper wool felt to be had offline, but the thinner skin made a great test for the stuffing and technique. The hemostats really did make all the difference in the world and he’s not nearly as lumpy I feared he would be.

And he stands!

I also picked up a 50/50 rayon (from extruded bamboo) and polyester fiber (Nature-fil by Fairfield) and I guess I’ll be grabbing some of the Eco(-fil? I can’t remember) made from Ingeo (extruded corn) fibers when it goes on sale after Christmas but I have yet to try those out.

I get a little kick out of watching my flock increase.

Yeah, that’s it.

28 Days Later starts with an infected monkey. 28 Weeks later heterochromia iridum figures heavily. Got it.

Now add this:

Suddenly the equation becomes way more interesting. I was just working in my little dungeon craft room, maybe for a little too long and inspiration struck like a rage virus infected sock monkey. (The title of this post was a dead give away wasn’t it?)

I guess the gene responsible for  heterochromia iridum is not always paired with the one that might offer some rage virus immunity. At least not in sock monkeys.

My son declared this “Most awesome sock monkey ever!” when he came home from school yesterday. I take that as the highest of compliments.

I think I may change my mind about your yarns. At least this label. I’m looking forward to wearing this pair.

Oh wait, there’s no way to match the colors between the socks? Where did that purplishy-blue come from in the second sock?

It’s like you aren’t even trying to make the skeins match, I checked the dye lot numbers. I should not be punished for blindly trusting your product.

F **K you Patons.

Sincerely,

Wendy

Moving right along then. In keeping with my current thing of making creatures out of garments– sock frogs! Frogs made of socks. One of these days I’m actually going to get around to making a classic sock monkey.

Lilly pad or sock drawer?

My soft sculpting techniques need some refinement but I’m quite proud of my long neglected embroidery skills.

The frog on the right (the one with the spots) was my first attempt, I think he came out pretty darned cute. I changed the placement of the feet for a more comical effect on the 2nd one (the one with the big purple stripe.)

I’m loving how articulating the seam at the toe of the sock makes for those big content smiles.

Lucky kitty with fish

This little guy started life as a pair of knit gloves.

Usually I find stretch gloves perfectly useless as gloves but I haven’t made a softie in a long time and the idea of a maneki neko was way too tempting to resist.

The paw holding the fish is the thumb of the glove, and the waving paw is the ring finger. I cut the head from the palm portion of the other glove. The tips of the amputated fingers are what I used for the nose and feet. There’s no tail because this is a Japanese cat.

The fish is just quilting cotton. Its just this side of 2 inches long, and the tail was a pain to turn. The fish eyes are just French knots.

I had to play with the position of the nose for quite a while, which probably took me longer to get right than actually sewing anything. It kept looking as if I was going to end up with a waving fish holding polar bear with cat ears.

I have a serious phobia of waving fish holding polar bears, so I’m very relieved that my cat finally took a proper kitty shape.

A few hours and a couple of sore hands later and I have some pretty jewelry. I guess my hands aren’t too terribly sore, because I’m still able to use them to pat myself on the back.

Does anyone know what that kind of chain is called? I don’t, I thought it was called rosary style, but I’ve heard people refer to y-shaped necklaces as rosary style both with and without the beads.

I would really like to know how to describe these things. It feels strange to be able to make something but not know what to call it.

I’m running out of eye-pins.

I think if I were to reknit this I’d add at least 3 more inches in length. Maybe just a squidge more.

The finishing was super easy, I snipped a small hole in the top to let the lid button through, and sliced holes to let through the spout and handle.

I’m going to mount googly eyes on it and make it my friend.

Honest.

The yarn is my handspun merino-bamboo blend “Fire Opal” hand-painted by the talented Moonlightbaker.

The blogging plan went awry though. I couldn’t sleep, my brains felt like they were going to explode and there’s nothing more soothing to painful brains than a knitting project that doesn’t require too much deep thought.