Cue Traveling Music

Sock Monkey Monday was supposed to actually happen on Monday this week, but then I realized that would be kind of dumb, because then I'd have to undo and redo everything, so I waited until today.

Eli and Sirus Monkey have been helping me pack up the clothes to go to Wisconsin tomorrow. It's their first flight, so they're both kind of nervous, but I assured them that we'll all be fine. Everything is always okay with sock monkeys on board.

As you can see, Sirus is looking more nervous than Eli. Eli is just kind of upset that he has to go *in* the suitcase instead of getting a seat all to himself.

Sirus was a nice monkey, and put the suitcases by the door so they wouldn't be forgotten. He may have never flown before, but he HAS traveled with me before!

Next week, Sock Monkey Monday will be late, because I'll still be in Wisconsin on Monday. However, there will be lots of photos of Eli and Sirus enjoying their trip, I'm sure!

Calendar Pages Flipping By....

A sock monkey entry is coming for this week... I just have a BUNCH of stuff to do before Sirus, Eli, and I leave for Wisconsin.

For now, here's a photo of my favorite monkey from the past couple weeks:

Cedrick is one of my vintage cartoon style monkeys. I'm a really, really big fan of the "pie eyes" and soon, all of the monkeys may have them (though in a much modified way).

Sock Monkey Monday: Vacation!

Okay, so it's not REALLY Monday. Let's just pretend that it is, since I've proven my grasp of what day it is is pretty lame.

The weather has been gorgeous here in Monkeyville, perfect weather for hanging around outside. Eli Monkey is on summer break from university, and he insisted that Sirus monkey put down his drawings and paintbrushes, and spend sometime relaxing outdoors. Sirus was a bit reluctant, since he's not nearly as durable as Eli is, but he followed along.

Monkeyville is situated in a prime spot for summer relaxing. In fact, it was just a short ten minute or so walk for the monkeys to find the ideal spot for some outdoor water-side fun. The beach was very crowded, but the monkeys found a nice, secluded spot where they wouldn't have to worry about being stepped on.

Right here looks good!

It was a fair distance from the water's edge, so that Sirus didn't have to worry about getting wet. He doesn't do well with water.

There was a very nice view of the pond as well.

Since his finals were over, and he passed them all with flying colors, Eli had no problem relaxing.


A true artist at heart, Sirus didn't relax, so much as he sat and observed the scenery around him. He looks quite content though, so I think it did him good to get out of the house.

 

It really is pretty scenery too.

Unfortunately, this is about all the monkeys can afford for a vacation right now. At least until July, then they'll be traveling with me out to visit some friends in Wisconsin. Where I go, my monkeys go too.

Rip Van Winkle

Call me Van for short, it sounds better than Rip or Winkle. Those just sound vaguely dirty.

I worked so hard on monkeys last week that it took me a lot of this week to recover. I was also working hard on getting some custom orders done. I still have a few more to catch up on but I'm getting there. The list isn't scary anymore, it's just slightly intimidating. The Artful Phoenix has brought in a couple new custom orders and a few other Very Exciting things as well. If anyone is located in Massachusetts, near North Attleboro, I highly suggest saving postage and picking up your monkey at the Artful Phoenix. There's lots of cool things besides just sock monkeys. There's a photograph that I keep drooling over for instance. I keep saying to myself "I'm going to OWN that!" but I never happen to have any money. Blah!

Last weekend, I almost took a trip to Oz, which is why I haven't posted in so long. Well, that and I've been up to my ears in sock monkeys lately. I've made so many in the past two weeks that I've completely lost count. I made a ton not only for the Artful Phoenix and Etsy, but also for a fundraiser I was doing to benefit EDS research. If you scroll to the bottom, you can see photos from the event last Sunday.

So what does that have to do with Oz? Well, it was outdoors, on a kind of icky day, which required the acquisition of a tent. I'm not an outdoors type. I like outdoors... from behind a nice screen, or maybe through a window. I've never gone tailgating, or camping, or anything CLOSE to something that would require a tent. Therefore, when I bought a tent, I thought that the set up would really BE three easy steps.

Silly me. Silly, silly, silly me. I also thought that the HEAVY box contained everything needed. Those of you who know about tents are probably laughing at me now. I figured that I'd use the 25 pounds of cat litter/bird seed in my car to weight things down if required. Apparently that's NO WHERE NEAR enough. At one point I was physically hanging from the tent trying to hold it down. I failed and the whole thing acted like a massive parachute and I almost blew away with it. I am anything BUT light, and the thing ended up flipping over.

Clearly, I should never be allowed to do outdoor events. I ended up killing the tent and having to throw it away. But thankfully there was no chance of anyone being injured. I had very little sleep the night before, so I was just okay with everything. A bit disappointed that more people didn't show up, but it was the first event like this and the weather wasn't cooperating at all. I'm sure the next year will be better. Also, should I ever need a tent, I'm buying the super cheap one from Benny's so I won't feel nearly as bad when I break it.
The upside is that the event still raised almost their entire goal amount, and there are lots of sock monkeys at the Artful Phoenix and some that just need to get there photos taken for Etsy.

Monkey pile!!! *Hugs all of them at once*

I don't know if you can tell, but there's a bunch of different sizes there. The little white guy with the anchor on his chest is the smallest. Lots of them have Summer-y details on their tummies. There's one with a watermelon slice, one with a sun, a sailboat, a ladybug, a rainbow and the rest have hearts. There are also *two* classic cartoon style ones even though only one is shown (the one shown is already taken). There was four elephants, but two are currently traveling to Australia now. Lucky elephants!

Next up will be Christmas in July monkeys. I have a bunch of monkeys that aren't finished that I wanted to get done last year for Christmas, but I didn't have a chance. I'm going to finish them up and they'll be on sale this July, probably on Artfire, since they're having a Christmas in July event site wide. Etsy is having one also, but it's not organized.

None of the monkeys pictured above are the custom orders I've been working on. Most of those are pictured over on the Facebook page. I have to share my favorite though. This is Boris:

Boris is a special monkey. Last year for Christmas, I didn't have a lot of money with the impending loss of my day job and all, so one of the gifts I gave Ninja Muse and Imaginary Ninja were gift certificates for Monkeyville. They just had to tell me what they wanted, and I would make it. Imaginary Ninja picked a monkey like Jasper, and Ninja Muse asked for a monkey made up of leftovers (um... this was kind of recent, I didn't put off their Christmas gifts THIS long!).

This was something I was REALLY excited about, but I couldn't think of HOW to do it. Then I was working on monkeys this week, and I realized that I had a lot of socks that I either only had one of, or I had enough for just an arm or a leg, or an ear. That's how Boris came to be. I like this idea (it DID come from Ninja Muse).  I think I'm going to use it in the future and call them Foundling Monkeys. They won't have button eyes and patches like Boris (well maybe, but they'll be made from felt or fleece, not regular fabric) and they'll have another special detail that Boris has.

Cutest. Monkey bum. EVER.

I think all of the Foundlings (and maybe the regular monkeys eventually) will have the tiny heart on their bums. I also happen to really like the socks that Boris's tail is made from. I only had one of them though, so a tail was about all I could do with them. No one will really care about this, but I also moved the location of the permanent tags as well. They're now mostly on the back of the monkeys leg, instead of their tails. Depending on the style.

I still have lots of things to finish, so I should really get back to work. It's been full 8 hour days here at Monkeyville, and I'm trying to get as much done as possible while I still can.

Sock Monkey Monday: Sock Monkeys Save The World!

It sounds silly, but I really believe that on more than one occasion, sock monkeys have saved me. The first time, it was when I was incredibly sick and in the hospital. It's a bit of a long story, but I was so sick I couldn't *do* anything but lay there. I couldn't talk, I couldn't even breathe right on my own. For the first couple of days, before the doctors could figure out exactly how to treat me, they had me in my own room. Mostly just in case I had swine flu. I didn't have swine flu, so after um... some number of days that I don't remember at all, they moved me to a more public "room" in the geriatric area of the hospital (this is because I needed so much care, I'm not *that* old).

I'm not ashamed to admit that I was scared. I was scared I wasn't going to make it out of the hospital, that I wasn't going to be able to move on my own ever again, and because I was on morphine, I was having HORRIBLE nightmares all the time. This was bad enough when I was in the bright, sunny room of my own. Once I was moved, there were a lot of people around me. All very sick as well and requiring lots and lots of care. What I remember most though, was the woman immediately adjacent to me.

I don't remember much, but I do remember when she was awake, she was yelling, throwing things, and when medication time came around (which it did frequently in that ward), she would scream. The nurses were all EXTREMELY patient with her, and did the a pretty exceptional job of trying to calm her down. Every time this happened though, I would be roused from my morphine induced nightmares into reality that was even more confusing. I was TERRIFIED, but next to me were Eli and Sirus, my sock monkeys. I'd cuddle Eli and while I would still be scared, it wouldn't be quite so bad.

It's hard to explain how something made of a pair of socks, a bit of stuffing, and some thread can make everything seem not so bad... but whatever it was, Eli monkey was there for me to snuggle just when I needed that most. It's harder to be scared when there's a cute, smiling face looking at you.

Every day I'd ask when I could go home, and every day the nurses would tell me "well get you out of here tomorrow." It was almost a week's worth of tomorrows before I could go home, but I did get out of the hospital. I wasn't back to normal, that took several months*. For a while, everything was a mess, then a friend (the wonderful Ninja Muse) asked me to do a photo project with her. I agreed, but not being a photographer, I just took photos of Eli and Sirus as they had different adventures. This was in December, so when Christmas rolled around, I knew I had to do something big. Something cool. Something with more than just two sock monkeys and whatever other stuffed animals I had around the house.

I needed MORE MONKEYS!!!

To me, this is when I really started to get better. My body had been... not normal, but acceptable for months, but my life was broken and I didn't have a clue how to fix it. I have my Ninja Muse and George (as well as Eli and Sirus) to thank for that. It took me about three months before I was willing to let one of my monkeys out into the world. Mostly because when I first started making them, I didn't know how to sew. I started with a sad little $20 sewing machine because I didn't think it was something I COULD do.

I'm stubborn though, so I kept at it. I kept thinking "Grannies have been making these for decades. I'm going to figure this out damn it!" Eventually, Ninja Monkey (the very first Ninja Monkey) was released into the wild. Well, he was sent to live in the care of Imaginary Ninja, who needed a muse because hers just wasn't working. Sock monkeys make very, very good muses, when THE Ninja Muse isn't available that is!

Now, I'm very much better. I'm healthy enough that I can do the things that I want to. My life still isn't perfect, but it's good enough. It's not BAD by any means, just tough sometimes. Thankfully, it's now the normal, I can deal with this type of difficult. I still have the sock monkeys to get me through the hard times. Now, I'm sending out monkeys on a regular basis to help put smiles on other people's faces. I make a lot of monkeys to be auctioned off at charity events. I wish I could give a monkey to every kid who really needs a pal to bring along to the scary places. I still bring Eli and Sirus with me when I have to go into the hospital for things. When I was in the recovery room after having surgery, one of the nurses said "OH! the sock monkeys-- over that way," when one of my family members was coming to see me.

Being a sock monkey maker wasn't in my life plan, but even with the bad things that had to happen to spark that to happen, I'm glad it did. I don't generally think about how sick I was back then, or how worried I was when I started getting dozens of calls from collection agencies on the bills**, that stuff is all in the past. In fact, the place where I was working closed down (not because of me, it was a big corporation decision thing). I miss the people I used to work with, but now, I can focus on just making monkeys to make people happy.

Best of all, now I get to do things like make monkeys to help other people, I can do fundraisers, and things like that and know that Monkeyville is doing the same thing for other people that it did for me. I have the word "phoenix" tattooed on my arm in Chinese because even though I crash and burn, I always seem to make it through. I think someday I'm going to have to get a monkey tattooed on the other arm.

I was thinking about this because in the past few months, I've made a lot of monkeys (and other sock animals) for different charities, but also because when people meet me in person, they're usually very surprised to find out that I don't have a background in art at all, but biotechnology. When people ask how I ended up making sock monkeys of all things, I usually tell them about Eli and Sirus being there for me when I was sick.

I've never actually considered the monkeys art-- they're toys, and even the fanciest monkeys I make are still toys. They're still good at cuddling, still good at being brave in the face of doctors with needles and scary tests to be done. Yep, even the zombies and skeletons I make are cuddly. If they're art at all, then they're art that's meant to be cuddled, not just collected.



*Though some weird side effects still remain. I'm physically incapable of screaming for instance.

**It was uncertain for a little while if I was going to have to pay these or someone else. After about four months, it was decided that someone else was responsible for those. I still got the calls for a long time though.