Sensory Sock Monkey

In this guide, we are creating a Sock Monkey with sensory-focused designs/details. Packed with different textures. nice crinkly sound when squeezed, as well as the comfort to help you when your overstimulated or anxious. This sensory sock monkey is perfect for calming anxiety, sensory play, or simply gifting to someone you think would benefit from it.

So, grab your materials, choose your sensory fillings/stuffing, and let's get started!!

-Old recycled socks

-Cardboard

-Sewing needle and thread

-Scissors

-Hot Glue Gun

-Sewing Machine(optional)

-Plastic grocery bags

-Marker/Pen(optional)

Take one of the pair of socks, pulling it inside out and cut a straight line that stops in the middle of the sock. Then sew the perimeter of the fabric of the legs, leaving a hole at the top and/or at the bottom of the feet. You can also use a sewing machine for this step.

I hand-sewn mine, by just going in and out through BOTH sides of the fabric, then tying a knot once I was done that section. I pulled the legs back through the right way, which is a step you should be sure not to forget before stuffing your monkey.

For this step, you can take any reused materials that will give the monkey a "sensory" aspect. You can add things such as sand so it's weighted, newspaper so it makes that crinkly wrinkly sound, or even some of the extra socks you didn't use yet.

I used old grocery bags and scrap fabric and socks. If it turns out looking a little chunky, like how mine does, try fluffing around the stuffing, or adding more or less to make it more even. You can then sew that part closed.

Your monkey should then be stuffed enough to the point where it can sit up, and isn't super empty and spacious. A lot of stuffed monkeys I've seen before have details on their bottom, although some people may think it's weird I think it's a cute little funny detail to add to your monkey.

For my monkey, I had sewn at the top middle of the pink part, and bought the needle back all the way to the bottom of the pink part, then to the middle, and back to the top and pulled it as much as I could to scrunch it.

There may have been a more efficient or effective way to do this, so you could always do it a different way, this was just how I thought to do it!

Now that you are done the body, you are going to take the other sock that is going to be used for the tail, arms, nose, and ears. Cute along the outline of the pink sections, then cut down the middle of the gray pieces left. The sock should look like the photo when you are done.

Click the photo to see which pieces would be used for which part of the monkey. If you can't see it, the top 2 pink pieces are the ears, the grey pieces right below will be sewn together for the tail, the singular pink piece in the middle will be the nose, and those last two grey strips are for the arms.

You should sew the ends of the longer pieces of fabric together. After those are securely connected, you can sew along the sides so that it's a 2d cylinder type shape, then you can stuff the tail with leftover materials from the body. Drawing a small circle above the monkey's bottom where I will attach the tail helped me a lot. For me, the thread kept loosening so be sure to tie knots tightly and make sure the fabric is sewn together firmly.

It's okay if the ears turn out a bit misshapen or uneven. You should sew the bottom part to the side of the head, you can either fold the grey part under or just leave it as is. After putting some stuffing into the ear, pull the pieces of fabric together before sewing the rest so it's not a weird U shape and more of an oval.

To create arms, basically just follow the same steps as the tail except the strip of fabric is long enough so you don't have to sew any together. For the hands, I folded over the corners of the hand and sew the left corner to the middle, middle to right corner, then back to middle, then back to left corner and pulled it tightly.

The nose pretty much can be sewn anyway you'd like. It is similar to how we sewn the ears to the head but it's a bit bigger. I just tucked the grey against the front face before sewing, making sure it was even and after sewing halfway along the perimeter I was sure to add enough stuffing so they wouldn't have a flat nose.

There are many things the eyes can be made out of. Buttons, fabric, bottle caps, plastic. The reason I chose to use cardboard is because I've never seen someone use cardboard for eyes for a doll/toy before so, you know it seemed pretty artsy and unique. (I also didn't have any buttons..) I used a hot glue gun to attach the eyes but if you don't have one I suggest using the sewing needle to sew it to the fabric.

For cutting out the eyes, there are many different shapes you can do. From a oval to a circle to a square or star. A mistake I didn't pay attention to is the size of the eyes. If they are too big, the doll looks creepy. And if the eyes end up too small, it looks even creepier. This is a important step because a small little detail like this can change a person's entire perspective of the doll, determining whether they hate it and it appears in their nightmares, or it's their favorite doll and treat it like it was their childhood toy.

For the last step, you can add any small details you'd like to complete your monkey! Any designs, no matter how small, that will help you and your anxiety or help to calm you down when you get overstimulated. I added a few patches of scrap materials to give the feeling of the different texture on the monkey. I also added a mouth type thing by scrunching the mouth, sewing it similarly to the way I did the bottom. These are just the small things that can help show the uniqueness of you and your creativity and individuality through art because I doubt you'd find another amazingly one-of-a-kind sock monkey that looks like yours!