sock animals! Well, a sock animal pattern book, to be exact. Okay, well maybe not every woman, but me at least. It has been such fun to make these! The beauty is how fast they come together, and that hand sewing is actually easier than using the machine. They are a great project to have in hand while catching up on Mad Men. The gray heffalump was a  joint project with my daughter, who received her first sewing machine this Christmas! She was in charge of stuffing, some sewing, and creative direction. Now I'm scouring the clearance aisles for socks and gloves (the little striped dog is from a pair of stretchy gloves I scored for 50 cents!) before they go out of season. You can find a tutorial for sock monkeys here,  although the animals from the book I used generally used a separate head. Once you get the basic idea of the construction, a whole range of friendly beasts is possible. Put a lock on those sock drawers!