Fall is Here!!!

It's officially fall here in New England! That means pretty leaves, weather I can walk to and from work to without feeling like I'm melting, and best of all-- ALL the Things are pumpkin spiced! YAY! *Kermit flails* Of course, I still drink my usually cup of milk and sugar with a bit of coffee added, but it's just nice to know that pumpkin spiced coffee is there should I have enough per-caffeine brain power to order one (I don't). Oh, and there's some sports things that nearly everyone I know is super excited about too.

I love this time of year, not just for the pumpkin spice coffee, beer (yum!), and pastries, but also because I get to start making my very favorite type of sock monkeys-- the Halloween monkeys! There's something about making zombies, skeletons, and pumpkin themed (though not pumpkin spiced!) monkeys that always makes me super happy. This year's Halloween Monkey Flock is called Dead Man's Tails and these monkeys combine some of my very favorite monkey styles-- they're skeleton (or zombie) pirate monkeys!

Captain Red Legs, the leader of the Pirate Monkey Flock

There's been a lot of activity on the seas of Monkeyville. There was a pretty epic Ninja vs Pirate battle with lots of casualties on the pirates side. Lots of eyes were lost to ninja stars, and those zombie and skeleton pirates remaining came ashore and have renounced their pirate-y ways. No more pillaging and plundering for them, they just want homes with lots of safe adventures and cuddling. The zombies have even gone to Zombies Anonymous to give up their addiction to eating brains. This wasn't really such a bad addiction since for sock monkeys, their brains are just fluffy stuffing. The only things in danger of being nommed were the couch cushions.

Gunnar the zombie pirate. Could that face be brain hungry? No way!

Several pirates have gone off to new homes, where they'll be loved and can "plunder" all the cuddles they want. I love making these guys, but I'm always glad when they get to go to a home where they'll be special and loved. Monkeyville is turning into a Monkey-opolis with lots and lots of monkey, so not too many of them get the special attention they need. It's kind of like having a litter of kittens. They're all cute and adorable, and you want to keep them all, but there aren't enough hours in the day to play with each one, so it's better to adopt them out to homes where they can be loved and cuddled and played with.

Fester the zombie doesn't actually glow. 

I haven't made too many other Halloween monkeys. This year's Fall Flock has been mostly non-holiday themed monkeys, though I did make Fester the zombie. There's something about tie-dye socks that just yell out to be made into a zombie. I have a few other pairs of zombie socks, but with Winter Cheer debuting soon (Hanukkah starts November 27th this year!) the rest of the zombies may have to wait until after the Winter Cheer monkeys are complete.


However, there are several pirate skeletons (and regular monkeys) just waiting to be adopted in the Monkeyville Etsy shop and I'll be hard at work in any and all available time making not just Winter Cheer monkeys, but non-holiday monkeys. My goal this fall is to use up all the socks I possibly can... which means LOTS of monkeys because I have at least 1000 pairs of socks in my house!



Stay tuned to the Monkeyville Blog and Facebook pages, because there's lots more exciting things coming soon!