Sock Penguins

Having completed the challenge of the sock owls, I had plenty of enthusiasm (and socks) to try the sock penguins. I decided to make the penguins for three sisters, as with my own sisters I made them using the same template but with differences to make them unique. I found the tutorials on Craft Passion as I had with the owls. I adore this site, the photos are really helpful and the descriptions very clear.  I loved making the feet, it was such a simple method to make them look webbed as well as giving a good base.

Sock Penguins

Once again the challenge came in matching the stripes on the socks and trying to get the faces to look right. The stripes took a lot of pinning on both the body and the flippers to get a pattern match.I found the faces shape very challenging, I used thin white socks, which in hindsight were more difficult than the thick socks as they moved more when I was trying to pin them. Despite being difficult to handle the white socks worked really well when padded lightly for the tummies. The beaks were easier to make than with the owls as they were a simple cone shape. I would be tempted to use felt in the future to get more detail in the eyes. As with many toys I make the expression comes as I sew the face which resulted in a slightly evil/stern looking penguin in a red scarf and a blue scarfed penguin with a larger forehead. The weighted bag inside was a great touch as it helps them sit nicely.

I had been working on arm knitted scarves as gifts so I decided to take it a step further and finger knitted the scarf using this tutorial. This is really simple to do but I felt that the wool gave a good finish.