Sock Animals

For Hazel's half birthday she received a sock animal kit. It included one sock, two buttons, a piece of batting and a copy of Socktastic!  The other day she decided she wanted to make some sock animals. We opened up the kit and looked through the book.

Hazel had a hard time choosing between the caterpillar, the owl, and the dog. She decided on the caterpillar. Luckily I had some more stuffing since the little square of batting was not going to get us far. We also got lazy and decided to glue on the buttons. We used the book's instructions, but there is a somewhat similar tutorial on Twickermum: No-Sew Sock Caterpillar. We used yarn instead of rubber bands.

Then I pulled out the socks with toes that I bought ages ago to make a sock Chica from the Sprout channel, The Chica Show. We followed the instructions found on sprout-on-line. We made a few changes. We used googly eyes and glued them on. After taking these pictures, the beak fell off, so I sewed it on and also sewed up the bottom to give it more closure. We combined the stuffing with old adult socks that had holes in them.

Hazel loves her Chica even though she barely watches Sprout any more.

I also made the owl for her. I pulled out the bag of old socks I have been saving from when I went through my clothes to get rid of ones that were worn or didn't fit. I grabbed one of those to use for the owl. The owl required sewing and the first part was to make the ears. I did this on my machine (you turn the sock inside out to sew it) and then you cut near the sewing as well as a few inches below the heel. I found a similar tutorial on-line here.

Again we glued on the eyes, but I sewed on the feet and beak since I had to sew close the bottom. I think we may be making some more owls soon. Hazel loved them all since she took them to sleep with that night.

Hazel started playing with the socks and putting them on her hands and I suggested she make a sock puppet. She found a pair of pink socks and after trying on eyes and then button noses, she decided she wanted them to be pigs. I told her there was another pair of pink socks in the bag if she wanted to make the three pigs. She made four. She gave them all googly eyes and pink button noses. I cut her some ears and gave her some curled pink pipe cleaners for tales. I took pictures of her playing with them the next day (after the glue had dried).

Next time I will show her to plan where the mouth will be to make them more usable, but she still had a lot of fun!