Soft-sculpture Lips

I found this great workshop, that describes sock monkey construction really well. I will describe my patterns here, but this is a good basic instuctional site, with good photos.

Here are a couple of more monsters.... the basis for these are the soft-sculpture mouth. A bit different than the sock monkey muzzle, you anchor the sturdy matching thread at the Xon the left,

then following the arrows, push needle under the mouth (into the monster, to gather some stuffing between the needle and the surface,) take a tiny stitch above the fabric in the middle of the mouth, then go under again and come out at the bottom edge of the mouth. Turn back and put the needle in a half inch to the right and go under and UP through a small stitch in the middle and finish at the top edge. Continue to do this running stitch up and down until the right side of the mouth is reached **** gently pulling the stitch so it gathers the lips together in a snug, but not TOO puckered way. When it seems right, secure the thread at the second X.

This one also features ball shaped attached eyeballs with buttons on his head and a crooked lips design, done like above with uneven spacing of the gathering stitches.

This one has the classic straight mouth and a curved top of head with the cut off sock band used as a pony tail band!