Sock Monkeys at The Crafty Cafe

Emmaline and Rose

The Crafty Cafe is one of the businesses at The Old Needle Works in Redditch. It is a great place to meet friends and when I am teaching Experimental Textiles we always have our lunch in there. Joan and Sharon are very funny and fabulous hosts - they make wonderful cakes and sandwiches and you can choose your own tea pot and cup and saucer from a display on the dresser.
It really is all very civilised.

 When I was there last weekend Michelle Edinburgh was running a sock monkey class in the cafe.
 A happy group creating gorgeous monkeys.

Michelle is an art therapist and uses the making of sock monkeys as part of the therapy - however the class in the cafe was purely for the joy of making monkeys. Any kind of sock can used. The decoration is always the fun part, deciding what kind of hair and eyes. Do you use buttons or beads? Decsions, Descions . . . .

I love the spots and stripes that are being used.
The creature on the left is a sock 'bunky', a cross between a bunny and a monkey.


(Image by Michael Wicks)  I do so love these two . .  

 Both of these sock monkeys were created by Michelle. I won Emmaline (on the right) at a 'guess the name' charity do. Rose is also one of Michelle's  monkeys and comes out to play at most classes. I love the way you can use just about anything to decorate these wonderful creatures. These gorgeous girls are featured in my next book.

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A little Antipodean news for my readers and friends further afield. 
My workshop at Fibrearts Ballarat, Australia next April is full. 
I have just had confirmation that I will be teaching at Wanaka Autumn Arts School in New Zealand 28th April - 2nd May next year and am trying to decide what to teach. I would like to do something around design with the Journey but wonder if I ought to do a newspaper based workshop. Do any of you have any strong ideas either way? Let me know if you do . . . 

My favourite sculpture in my garden - a hubcap fish by Ptomely.
(5ft long)

I hope you all managed to catch some sun this weekend - I escaped from the computer and trimmed a couple of hedges in my garden - very satisfying, and now my arms are aching!!! But the garden does look so much better. There are still PLENTY of weeds, but I will do a bit every day and hopefully break the back of the weeding over the next couple of weeks. I am teaching locally until I head off to Denman College on the 10th so I am home for while - Yippee!!

 I am teaching my Tinkering with Tyvek workshop on Wednesday. Southwick Quilters are hosting the day - should be great fun. Will report back with what they get up to . . .

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Jill - 50 sleeps to go!!! Whoopee. x x x


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