Celebrate Easter: Sock Hop

It's Easter week and today we're making a sock bunny! Super quick and easy, you could whip one together in 15 or 20 minutes while you're frantically filling Easter baskets after your kids go to sleep. Everybody has spare socks lying around with long lost mates! Put a little hop back into your discarded socks of any color, pattern or texture with this easy sock bunny tutorial. I'm not the first one to do

this. Elsie Marley has a tutorial HERE.

A few weeks ago Baby P and I took a trip to the beach and met my sister and Mom. Grammy is a big favorite with P, when we say,  "where's Grammy?" he runs to the computer to skype! Cracks us up every time!

Of course, Grammy brought lots of fun things for P, including this great book!

It is adorable! The story is fun and creative and I love the simple illustrations that are all in shades of blue, white, black and yellow (and flesh...). It's all about a boy who wakes up with a bunny named Fred on his head. Even the endpapers are clever!

After the boy wakes up, he goes about his day, doing everything with a bunny on his head.

This is P's favorite page, he constantly turns back to it if we go by without reading it four or five times and pointing out all the parts of the moped.

Because this book has become such a favorite, I decided to make a Fred bunny for P to play with.

Here's what you need:

a sock (I used one of my athletic socks that has been lonely for far too long)

polyfill or scraps of batting

white sewing thread and a long embroidery needle

scissors

embroidery floss (I used light blue and black)

There's a lot of room here for variations, just push and pull the stuffing until you get the shape you want. I wanted my bunny to look like he was sitting up on his hind legs. 

After you get to the fourth step above, take your scissors and carefully cut down the front and back of the sock opening, leaving you with two ears. You may need to trim a little so that you are left with a real 'bunny ear' shape. I took blue embroidery thread and did a blanket stitch around the edges to give it a little cuteness and hopefully decrease the unraveling. A few dabs of no fray along the edges would be a good idea too. I also tied blue floss around bunny's neck and tail. If you had a girl you could use bright ribbon with a big bow. 

For the face, there are so many options, but I wanted to mimic the look of Fred the bunny. I started with a single strand of black floss, knotted at one end. I began stitching at the nose so it was easy to hide the knot. The only thing you really need to remember with this is whenever you make a stitch, you need to bring your needle out wherever the next stitch needs to start. In the middle picture below, my needle went in to finish up the mouth then came out where I wanted to position Fred's eye. 

For Fred's eyes, I made French knots. Simply wrap the thread around the needle a few times (see above right), and keep it snug while you sew back into the bunny through the loops. Bring the needle out wherever you want to make the second eye, sew another French knot. I brought the needle out at the back of the bunny's head, tied a small knot then pushed it inside the sock. 

Voila! That's it! Pretty sassy looking bunny for an old sock. 

This would be a fun addition to any little one's Easter basket! I'll add a picture of my little "boy with a bunny on his head" when he gets up from his nap!