The End

I haven't been posting here much, as you may have noticed.

The thing is, I don't think I'm a very good writer, and I don't know that I have all that much to say. I have the occasional desire to rant, but I don't know that that justifies having a blog.

The sock monkeys that I have been making have proved to be very popular. So, I'm going to try my hand at selling them online and see where that goes. I'm dropping the psuedonym and starting a new blog. I have opened an etsy store (though not with any inventory, yet) and my new blog will mostly be a place where I can showcase the monkeys I've made that already have homes, though I will also keep writing from time-to-time on random topics.

Monkeys!

First, there was Harry:Harry is not a pretty monkey, but he is loved. I tried, but I knew the first time around wouldn't be the best.
Next came Gene:

Who knew the second try would turn out so well? I got hooked. The following is my little monkey brood, all together for possibly the last time.
From left to right, in order of creation: Harry, Gene (gift for a friend having a baby), siblings Martha and Eddie (gift for a friend having twins), [Not pictured: Hanes, made from boy-sized socks. He's a white and silver sweatsock monkey, and mid-sized. Hanes was almost immediately adopted by the lovely wife of a friend of mine who saw Gene and felt a deep need for a monkey of her own) and the newest edition, little Pete.
Pete is pretty much the cutest thing ever. I stole - I mean, was inspired by an etsy shop of monkeys, which I didn't bookmark. I will find it and link to it. Anyway, I saw some monkeys on etsy with little felt half-moons for the eye area and the idea stuck with me. I would have kept to buttons except that Gene's adoptive family took me up on my offer to replace his button eyes with embroidered ones. Since I've never embroidered anything before, I decided to test it out on little Petey here. Pete was also a test to see if I could successfully handle baby socks.

Pete is, quite possibly, the most successful test of anything, ever, and I think I will keep him for myself for all time. He's got my first all-embroidered face, which I think turned out rather well. He's also got my first attempt at some new limb-attachment techniques, which I learned from a book I just got called Stupid Sock Creatures.

I haven't made any Stupid Creatures yet, but I plan on it soon. I'll be sure to keep you posted.

And, in case you're wondering, Gene's cosmetic surgery went off rather well. The button eyes give much more personality than my limited embroidery skills, so I had to add eyebrows to Gene. Please don't say anything about his scar, he's very sensitive about it.