Sock Monkey Tote

Some of you are going to think that this is the cutest project you’ve ever seen and others are going to think it’s the dumbest. I can't deny it, there is a sock monkey cold out there. You will probably like this sock monkey tote. And the rest of you who don’t think it’s so wonderful, it’s a piece of tote without the sock monkey face. It’s still a basic tote. You could make this out of any fabric. You could put flowers on it or sun and moon and stars or hearts. So it will work. We're going to make a lining of these to give us some body of the plastic mesh we've done in the past. It’s going to take two of this 10 ½ by 13 ½ inch pieces of mesh. This is the 7, you could probably use a 10 too. We just want to cut out pattern out of them. And we're going to need to have a pattern for the front and the back, which is to be the same pieces. We have the cut one for the two sides. We need one for the bottom, and then we're going to do a flap. Now, what size and how do we do this? Well, as it turns out here's how I cut my pattern to make the part of the inside. Its 9 ½ inches across the bottom, 7 ½ inches across at the top and of course, this is the width of the plastic mesh, that's 10 ½. So I find the easiest way is simply to fold the piece of paper in half, so it will be like this. And half of that measurement, then up here would be 3 ¾. Put a dot there. The bottom would be 4 3/4, put a dot there. Draw a line and cut. And when you do, there's your piece like this. Now then, the sides are much easier, because you don’t have to worry about the map on here. The top is 2 inches, the bottom is 4 inches. So that’s simple. You draw you dot at an inch and at 2 inches, you have to open it up and then there's the side. As far as the bottom piece on the tote, remember, this is the bottom. So the side piece goes here. So that’s 4 inches, same measurement. This is going to look cool. The bottom of the tote, so that will be the same measurement, 9 ½. Now as far as the little flap on the top, and this is optional. But you might want to have one. This one here. Well you see it matches the top, so it would be the same measurement as this, 7 ½ inches. And ours is about 3 inches wide. Okay, so we all have our plastic pieces cut out. And remember, you're going to need to cut two, front back, two for the sides, one for the bottom. Putting them together is just like you’ve always done when you’ve done this plastic mesh, just the over catch stitch all the way around. It’s going to be a little trickier because you cut these at an angle. So it won't be as neat. Don’t worry about it; it’s all going to be covered up. We've used a little cord in here, you can use crochet thread, and you can use yarn, whatever. Just get them together. And whether you sew the sides together all the way around or do the bottom first and up, whatever works for you, you get them together. So there's the basis. Now, we need to do the cover up in the inside. We're going to do a lining on this. So we take our pattern pieces, put them on our fabric and cut them so that they are at least ½ an inch bigger all the way around. Do that for everyone. Now for the lining, same as for the thing itself. We're going to need two, front and back. Two, to two sides. And one piece for the bottom. We will sew these together, and if you have a right side, of course you put the right side together. With this, maybe difference with this. And again, whatever sequence you do I totally up to you. Don’t worry about how this looks, because this is going to go inside the tote itself. For the outside, same thing except we cut two, we cut two. That's the front and the back, the two sides, the bottom. We also want to make that flap. So we're cutting two of these, these will going to have plastic mesh inside, that’s why I have two. And then a handle, which we didn’t mentioned. But this is about 3 inches wide and 7 or 8 inches long or 10 inches long. Fold it in half, stitch it up and turn it right side too. There we go. Okay. And you sew that together. There's no difference in the way you sew the outside of the tote. See it’s bigger at the bottom, smaller at the top. If you're going to pull this up, you're going to have a hard time, because it’s smaller at the top. So we're going to sew it together all but one side. Just as you did the lining and sew it together. But on the one side, you leave, you sew only about an inch. So this is all open and it will fit over the tote. But before you put it on, you need to add the little flap and the handle. So this is now, on the right side, this is going to be the outside. We are going to put the handle, we just brought the two ends together. Put it down like this. Now the flap goes right here. Now this of course, the two pieces stitched together on three sides and turned right side too and the plastic piece put in here. So these all get lined up. And the plastic piece, it’s why it’s smaller so there is room for you to take a row of stitching right on your machine there. Let me show you this is the way it is. This is the way you put it on stitching. Now this is the way it comes out. Okay. Now, inside, we turn it right side to inside goes the tote. This part is a little tricky, but you’ll see why you have to have that one side open. And doing this, watching me do this would be sort of like watching the grass grow. Now, you're going to pull the edge up. I have put some tape down here to hold this for me just so that it doesn’t look too complicated. But because then, you're lining is going to go in here. And you're going to take the top edge of that, you don’t have to worry about fitting it down that will go later. The top edge of that, fold that over and then you’ll hand stitch that along there. And you’ll do that all the way around. Let me show you on our actual purse over here. So as you can see how these are nicely along here. So it does work out. Now, we're going to make it a sock monkey tote for goodness sakes. Its coat time for the sock monkey. I couldn’t believe that this works for me, I just simply, I mean kind of work. I just kind of do, not exactly an oval, but sort of. And when you look at it, it was just like he's got, that’s the heel of the sock, the red part in there. And then his mouth, you could just monkey around like this to get the pieces. And once you get them, and then you get the googley eyes in here. And the hat and the ears. And when you finally decided you've got them okay, you simply cut out those pieces. And these are your pattern pieces. Cut the same thing out of felt. Put this in here, like this. This goes on here. And, because he's on that checkered background, this is sort of makes him looks like a shrine of monkey, doesn’t it? Without the tussle, it would be nice. The ears, you cut two pieces of fabric for each ear. And this is just to sort of the C, just the C. and stitch them around, turn them right side too. Take a little bit together, then sew those on. Now surprisingly enough, this work best to sew it on after everything else is done. Seems like it would be easier to do before you put it together, but it really work well just putting it on and then sewing around hand stitching. Because this gives you a based to do it on. You don’t go through that plastic, it would be harder if you tried to. And then as you go, simply stuff it a little bit with some poly fill as you go. And that’s how it works, it was just really was easier that way. Now we said we had a wallet to go with it. Well, okay, we got four pieces. Actually four pieces of fabric. 4 5/8 by 9. And then we're going to cut four pieces of plastic. And these are 3 1/8 by 3 ½. We're going to take two pieces of fabric, stitch it together, cut the corners, turn right side too. Stitch together, cut the corners, slip right side too. And then stitch right up the middle. After you’ve stitched them together, oh, before you stitch them up the middle, turn the hem in. so now it looks like this. The hem is turned in, you haven't stitch or anything, and this is where the plastic pieces will go in to give it body and you're good ½ inch from the top you see. We're going to stack this, getting it now, getting it now. And we're going to hand sew around here to put those together. Then, we're going to go back and give it that little red trim that is so associated with the sack monkey. And then of course we have to put a sock monkey on the front of it. Let me get my wallet over here. There we go. We didn’t bother with the stuffing down this one, we just simply glued him on. And of course, put the red across the top and there's your space. Put your money in the inside. So for those of you who would love to carry a sock monkey tote, or who have a daughter or a granddaughter who would, maybe you’ll think this is fun. And for the rest of you, you can do what you will with this pattern.