My first doll I can remember making was from a kit. Sock Monkey was created back in 2002 during my summer vacation. I spend a week every summer on Star Island with my husband and daughter at a Unitarian Universalist family conference called All Star I. We meet each year with the same family and friends. We have close, lifelong friends we only see once a year. It's a very special place filled with love and LOTS of laughter.
It was during one of these weeks, rocking on the hotel front porch, that I attempted to make a simple sock monkey using an easy to follow kit. You see, my friends all have hand crafts they do on the front porch; lots of knitting, beading, sketching and did I mention knitting? Karen, one of my BFFs, every year would patiently teach me to knit. I would knit a lonnnngg scarf and then promptly forget how to knit until the next year. I would usually just sit and tell funny family stories and entertain everyone while they worked.
The year of the Sock Monkey I decided to participate by making something more "me". But I didn't realize how hard it would be to read directions, sew, stuff, AND tell funny family stories. Each day, something was wrong with what I had sewn. And being a crafter, I would think to myself I can fix that later or that's ok it gives it character. Needless to say all of my women friends gathered everyday to work with me so they could laugh at the mistakes I truly innocently made! They weren't laughing at me they were definitely laughing with me. I would recheck the instructions and realize I'd made yet another mistake! Sock Monkey still brings back so many good memories of me and my friends laughing ourselves into tears.
So here's my Sock Monkey. I love her. Looking back, I used vintage buttons for eyes, appliquéd a heart and didn't follow directions but did my own thing. It took me nearly 10 more years to revisit doll making, but look how far I have come!
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