Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Sock Monkey

In 3rd grade the kids have monthly projects to help them learn about something or another. This month's project was to read a non-fiction book about an animal and make a power point, diorama or 3-D model of the animal.

Geo really wanted to do his project on a tiger, but he was beaten to the punch by another classmate, so he "settled" for the red crowned mangabey monkey (aka the red capped mangabey).

Geo was going to do a power point for his presentation complete with "all those fun things that spin and turn" and I think LK (a power point truest who believes they are actually better sans flying graphics and about 75% of the words most people fit on one slide) almost had to disown him.

Thankfully peace (and inheritance) was managed to remain intact with the suggestion of making a 3-D SOCK MONKEY!!!!

But since this was Geo's project- it's wasn't going to be me making this monkey- Geo had to do his fair share.  So he helped measure where to cut (socks provided by LK).

 (Don't worry about Geo huge hand there the left.  It's actually mine)
Then, because I have this fear of sewing machine needles going through fingernails (I'm not sure where I got from but man I have it!) I only let Geo help with the foot of the machine while I ran the fabric through.  He did a great job keeping the pressure even.

He also had to help me stuff the monkey.
(Ish is very excited that the monkey is getting some depth to him)

He helped sew him up once he was stuffed.
He helped me layout the tail.  Red crowned mangabeys have a white tip on the tail so we used part of a white sock turned inside out on the tip to give a "realistic" look.
He helped sew all the arms and legs and ears and the tail on by hand.
And he helped tie on the 457 pieces of red, orange and brown embroidery floss to make the crown.
He did a great job working on his first sewing project!
And I think we got a pretty good likeness to the real thing:
Now if only we can calm down all of his late night monkey business
Sorry ... I really am. ... But you know ... it had to be said :)

1 comments:

Don said...

What fun!! Congratulations George.

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