I was immediately drawn by John Murphy’s sock monsters when I first saw the frontpage of his book. It really shows the love of this guy for these little monsters. He starts the book by explaining that socks have become an obsession for him and he even gives his business card to strangers when he thinks they are wearing the perfect socks – for when they are done with it. Now that I created my first monster I can totally see this!
And like him, I asked my friends if they wanted to donate a pair of their socks for a little monster in return. And that worked… I think it was very brave of my friend to be the first to trust me with her socks that were even in still very good condition! And this is how Tillie came to this world.
To be honest, I found it slightly stressful to make the first cut. There is just one pair of socks and you can so easily make a wrong cut. It did not help either that the sewing lines could hardly be undone for this pair of socks since that line was invisible in this material. But this is also the charm of it: you have only 1 chance to do it right or correct it with what you have. This forces you to accept the influence of the creative process itself to what it becomes. I also think that monsters should not be too regular and a bit of skewness adds to the charm of the creature.
So here is an example of an order in how to create your monster:
- Turn socks inside out
- Sew the neck lines
- Cut the top of the head
- Sew the lips of the mouth
- Cut arm openings and sew the (closed) arms into it .
- Sew the (closed) horns onto the head
- Sew the vertical part of the legs
- Turn sock to right side
- Fill with fibre filling. You should not cramp it and make sure it evenly spreads over your monster (which is different from sewing stuffed plush animals)
- Close all openings with an invisible stitch
- Add eyes
- Optional: sculpture it by adding manual stitches
- Optional: add push buttons to the hands so it can put it’s hands together
Creating Tillie’s mouth, the toughest part which I had to redo it once
As you can see in the photographs, I used a different order and that made it hard to add the horns later. The toughest part was creating the mouth: you have to put just a bit of fibre filling in it and spread this filling very evenly. I embroidered the lips with pink wool since the original black lips were not so well visible. I think the eyes are also crucial and I tried to match what the author of the book often uses: buttons with a white border, dark inside and with 4 holes to create neat accents on the pupils. The Covid-lockdown forced me to just use the materials I already had at home and I quite like the result. For Tillie I used my sewing machine where possible but you can create these sock monsters just by hand.
So what happened to Tillie? She was officially handed over to my friend and has been welcomed with a big laugh. I think she will be given a special place somewhere. And maybe now more friends will send me their socks. I promise to create a very different monster next time and update you in a following blog.
About the book: it is well illustrated with good examples. Next to some basic technical background on how to cut up a pair of socks, it also contains some very fun and different examples of finished ones. It clearly shows the author’s passion for these creatures and when going through it you really get eager to want to try it yourself.