I really wanted to make the sock bunny that Heidi (from My Paper Crane) created, but I didn’t have any of those fantastic red and brown monkey socks. What I do have is baby socks: tons of cute, mismatched, totally useless, never stay on baby socks. Now that my littlest is very much not an infant and too soon will be a toddler it seems kind of silly to keep all those teeny tiny socks. So I made a bunny out of them. And a tutorial too.

This is indeed a quick little bunny. After I figured out the pattern, start to finish each bunny took me just 15 minutes.  So if you are anything like me and never get around to the easter baskets until the night before, you can whip up this little softie and still have time to run to the drugstore to score the last bag of jelly beans.

The quick little bunny tutorial

Materials:

• baby sock
• a handful of stuffing
• heavy duty thread
• scissors

Make that bunny:

Before you start sewing take second to look at the sock you have. Most of the foot part will be the body and the heel area will be the head. Yours might be a little different, depending on your sock. If you look at the picture below you can almost see the bunny already.

the body:

Take some stuffing and stuff the foot part of the sock–not too tight! this is just a little, squishy baby bunny. Where the foot part ends and the heal begins sew a running stitch around the sock and pull to gather it. I like to wrap my thread around where I’ve stitched a few times just so it’s secure. Knot your thread and snip.

the tail:

On the top of the bunny’s back,  sew a circle about an inch in diameter with a simple running stitch. Then pull to gather. You may have to mush the stuffing around so you can pull it tight  to make a tail shape. When you have a little bunny tail, wrap your thread around a few times and knot off (do people say “knot off?” does it sound too much like I’m yelling at you to go “knot off!”).

the head:

To make the head, put a little stuffing inside the sock and sew a running stitch around the top of the heel. Before you pull it taut make sure all the stuffing is pushed down under your stitches. Then wrap the thread around and knot off!

the ears:

Cut a big V shape out of the top of the sock. Now trim the top part of each ear to a point.  Then fold the two sides of the bottom part of one ear in to meet and sew together. This is a little easier to understand when you look at a picture:

When you sew that seam down the middle of the ear, it’s good to catch some of the back of the ear with your stitches, so the ears are a little thinner.

The attitude:

Okay, that is a dorky title, but this is the fun part. Now you can play around with the ears and the head, moving them to where you want and putting a stitch here and a stitch there so they will stay.

You don’t have to give your bunny an attitude, but you should stitch the back of the head to the body a little, so it looks more bunny like and less like a cinched up sock. There! you did it! Now go dig around in the sock drawer and see what else you can make into a bunny.

I started this digger almost a year ago (it’s nice to have a record of the things you make, but it’s not so nice to see just how long you can procrastinate) and it should be in the shop later today.  It’s funny how my tastes have changed in a year. I wanted to rip up all the patchwork and start again, but then it would have sat around another year I’m sure.  A lot of the scraps came from my first big sewing project (and my first big post). I think it’s time I cleaned out my scrap box and made a quilt. Or an army of patchwork diggers.

*My site was a little messed up this past week–if you couldn’t leave a comment or find a post I’m sorry. My genius of a husband fixed it all, so comment away.

I finished sewing a few things for the sale and I thought I’d pop in and show you. The bears are made from felted sweaters and printed cotton. I drew a simple bear then stitched, stuffed, and sewed on the features. Easy peasy. The denim and cashmere one is my favorite. I think it would be perfect for a little baby boy, but I have no idea if people will even buy these. I’m not much of a shopper (except for thrift stores and target) so I don’t really know what people buy or how much they pay for things. So how much would you pay for a bear like this ? They are a little under a foot tall (1 foot = 30 cm), machine washable, and super soft.

These are all the pillowcase dresses I’ve finished so far, but there are a few more cut and ready to go in my studio. I wasn’t going to make so many, but a showed a few to my friends and they were quite taken with them, so I whipped up some more. It doesn’t hurt that they are dead easy to make. And you can make them to fit girls from 6 months to 5 or 6 years old. For these I’m thinking 16 dollars a pop, what do you think? I haven’t sold stuff from a booth since my lemonade days, so I’m a little nervous about all of this. Tagging, pricing, talking up the things I’ve made. And this sale is the first of it’s kind so there could be a couple people there or hundreds. Nobody knows.

such strange trends in the softie making world. please click on the picture to find out whose demented imaginations came up with all these wonderful dolls.