DIY Sock Monkey Costume - Pictorial Instructions

From left to right: Zach, Bob, Babe, Stephanie, Smith

B loves sock monkeys!  He asked for 1 the Christmas of 2009 and was so thrilled to get him.  B named him  "Bob".  We were floored at his name; It was the 1st time B had named anything with an actual name.  Up to that point, anything he'd named was a literal or descriptive name.  A brown bear was named "Brownie", a frog was named "Froggy", etc.  Then Bob got a wife, Stephanie, and they got a child, Babe.  Then a pirate named Captain Sockbeard, nicknamed Smith, joined the family as Bob's brother.  B decided Smith needed a husband, so Zach joined the family.  Earlier this month, Harold the purple sock hippo joined the family.  One of his arms fell off, so he is not ready to be photographed.  The hubs will be sewing the arm back on this weekend.

Starting November 1st of every year, B starts telling me what he wants to be next Halloween and changes his mind at least 3 times a week.  By the 2nd week of October I told him he needed to decide once and for all and there were no takebacks.  He decided on being a sock monkey.  Much to my surprise, I could not find a single company that makes sock monkey costumes for kids!  You can get them for babies, toddlers and adults, but nothing in between.  So, I had to make one.  In my opinion, the head of a sock monkey would be the most difficult part.  Thankfully, I did not have to worry about that.  Ben's fabulous godmother, knowing his love of sock monkeys, had given him a Winter sock monkey hat last year and Ben wanted to wear that as the the head of his costume.  Sold!

Hat from his fairy godmother.

Supplies I used:

• A light grey set of sweats from Walmart.  I thought a charcoal or chocolate color would be better to match the brown in the hat, but B wanted the light grey.
• One sheet of white felt
• One sheet of red felt
• A grey, long-sleeved t-thirt
• Plain, white socks without colored heels or toes
• Sewing supplies - pins, needle, thread, marking pencil

B wore this shirt last Fall and Winter but it's too small for him now.  I cut off one the arms for the sock monkey tail.

I cut off the heel and ankle part of a sock to use as the end of the tail.

I folded over the cut end of the sock and ironed it to hold the crease in place as I sewed it onto the end of the tail. 

The tip all sewed onto the tail.

I filled the tail with fiberfill

And sewed the tail shut.

I measured the white felt next to the tail to see how big a piece I needed for the butt. I marked my cut line with a blue cloth pencil and cut off the material below the blue line.

The material above the blue line - I folded it in half top to bottom...

...and then in half, again, side to side.  I had to use pins to keep it folded.

I used the blue cloth pencil again to mark the arc I needed to cut off to make the white portion of the butt and then cut it off.

After cutting, I removed the pins and this is what it looked like.  I could not have cut it as evenly if I had not done the folding.

The white oval was 7" tall in the middle, so I cut a 3" tall piece of red felt and cut the sides off where the corners met the white on the sides.

The I folded the red felt into 4th like I did with the white, marked my arc and cut.

I laid them out and pinned the red to the white where I wanted it.  I sewed the red felt onto the white with red thread and then sewed the white onto the back of the sweat pants with white thread.

I am a beginning sewer.  To make it go by faster, I weaved the needle 3 or 4 times through the materials before pulling the needle and thread all the way through.

Here is the butt all sewn on!

The sewn end of the tail was so long, I folded it over with a few stitches before sewing it onto the butt of the sweat pants.

The tail is all attached!

I put a pair of white socks on B's hands and marked where his thumbs connected to his hands.  He wanted to have his thumbs out of the socks to better hold his trick-or-treat bag.

I cut a little hole where the Sharpie mark was.

I cut the toes off of a pair of socks for the bottom of his legs.

Here is Bob and B in his costume. He put on the sweat shirt, as is, the sweat pants, the socks on his hands, a pair of socks on his feet and the pair with the toes cut off over the bottom of the sweat pants.

Here he is from the back.  The hubs said he should tuck the sweat shirt into the pants to better see the tail on Halloween.

Here he is scootering around at our Homeschool Halloween party yesterday.

I started on the costume around 4pm and was done by 8pm.  However during that time, we ate dinner and I took several breaks to walk around the house and give my old, hunched-over back and eyes a break.  ;o)  So it was probably took me 2 actual hours of working.