I made the ugliest toy imaginable.

Sewing has never been my strong suit.

Let me rephrase that. If we lined up suits in order of "Incredible Hulk Strong" to "Strength of a Sea Sponge" sewing would fall far below "sponge level". I consider myself a fairly artsy craftsy girl at times, but let's make this clear...I can't sew. Does that stop me? Nope. I'm also a stubborn girl. I'm always up for a challenge (...and wildly overconfident)

So, when we pulled up at a yard sale this weekend and I saw the book, Stupid Sock Creatures staring me in the face, I knew it had to be mine. I forgot about my frugality for a second and forked over the 100 cents to purchase it. (I know, right?? That's steep) The bug-eyed sock monkey/rabbit hybrid on the cover just called out to me! I'm always looking for fun homeschool projects for Lana and this seemed just weird enough to fit the bill and hold her perpetually divided attention for more than a few seconds.We could talk about reusing and recycling and also have some hands-on fun resulting in a quirky, new friend. Sold!

So, we sat down with our arsenal of ingredients ready to perform a complete transformation: Major plastic surgery on an unsuspecting pair of socks. Scissors, needle, thread, buttons, my newly acquired book and my iPhone (to document the madness) were all laid out in front of me.

We followed the advice in the beginning of the book and picked the least complicated pattern, a strange little gigantic-lipped bird-like creature (sans wings) with disproportionately large arms and legs. This seemed simple enough. Lana eagerly started helping me cut and lay out the various different components of our new creation. We worked, cutting, pinning and hand sewing for a solid hour and we were making good progress!

(I see you...)

But, as Lana's attention span started to deteriorate, I quickly realized I was in this for the long haul...by myself. I could have taken a break but I just wanted to finish! I'm impatient (and irrational) like that. Backstitch, Basting stitch, (I know absolutely nothing about stitches. Every one of my stitches looks like a fourth grade home ec project or the result of a bad accident in a horror movie) pin opposite seams together, crimp the neck portion using the neck method on page 23, check your work, flip back to page 30, attach the arms using the circumference method, flip to page 29, attach the arms inside out. Two hours have now gone by and Lana has moved onto her reading assignment. I have not eaten anything but a bite of her breakfast and 3 cups of coffee.

This creature was taking shape. In my malnourished, overly caffeinated, crafting haze I was figuring it out! Lana was cheering me on "Good job making my toy, mama. I'm going to ride my scooter now." ("Sure, dear." This makes a lot of sense...) and then... onto the lips. Oh the lips. I literally stared at this page in the book for 15 minutes. My eyes started crossing. Lana was worried. She exclaimed "Mama! She doesn't need lips! Let's just finish this!" But, I was determined. It took me a few minutes to realize that we were supposed to stuff the thing and turn it inside out before doing the lips. So, Lana helped me stuff it to capacity and we sewed it up! After we finished, Lana picked out perfectly mismatched button eyes and we stood back and admired our creation.....

Now I love sock monkeys, but this is literally the ugliest toy imaginable.

Her arms look like two lumpy sausages. Her lips are uneven and too low. Her ears never filled out. Her stitches are ragged. Her head is three times bigger than her body. Her legs are minscule. And, to top it all off she hangs by a completely unnecessary loop. (The book says "you can hang him by your car's antenna by the necktie loop in his head." Um, if you ever see something like this hanging on someone's antenna....run the other way. The person is clearly has issues.) Lana named her Lulu Monster and we had a little photo-shoot.

 I thought placing Lulu in a natural setting would help her beauty shine through. I was wrong.

I ran her through a number of photo apps, but nothing could help Lulu. She looks even creepier in black and white, as you can see at the bottom of this picture. She is just plain hideous.

So, next time maybe we'll try to make the deliciously adorable eight-eyed "Socktopus" in the back of the book. Or the creepily cute "Geneveive" with her tattered sock bows attached to her floppy ears. Or we'll leave the sewing to the professionals and just splash paint on things like we normally do. Yeah, that sounds like a plan. Actually...maybe we'll start with splashing paint on Lulu Monster...that might help. For the record, we both think Lulu is (a tiny bit) cute (in the ugliest way possible). So, for those of you who are worried, we will love and cherish her (until the dog decides to rip her apart). 

Get the book and kit here and put me to shame!