Hi there
I don’t know about your children, but mine are loving the llamas and alpacas all around at the moment! Possibly due to a well know computer game? Anyway, having been known to create sock creatures before, I thought that I should have a go at making a llama, maybe for one of my children for Christmas.
So then I thought that it would be nice to share with you how I made my Llama out of a sock, without the drama! Easy peasy!
Items used:
- 1 pair trainer liner white socks
- 1 fluffy soft novelty sock
- White sewing thread
- Polyester toy filling
- Scraps of felt and thread for details
Note
From previous experience, the ‘fluffy’ very soft socks are fragile and can come apart when worked a lot, so I have used a normal white sock for the ‘base’ body parts and covered these with the fluffy one so hopefully they will stand up to being handled.
Face
This photo shows the starting sock part (I used trainer liner socks here):
I decided to use the heel of the plain white sock for the face of the llama.
Stuffing and then sealing one end of the tube, with a round-the-hole gather stitch and securing with some tacking stitches.
Stuffing the heel as much as I could, I then set to embroidering the face.
Awww he’s smiling at you!
(In case you’re wondering, I added the eyes later, as I wanted to make sure I got the placing right.)
Neck
After cutting the toe off of the remaining sock, I used the curved bit from the heel area to angle the top of the head and the neck of the llama.
Making the ‘tube’ neck part:
I attached this sock part to the face to make the neck:
After stuffing it quite firmly, I added the heel of the fluffy sock to see the llama coming to life:
Using the curved heel part of the fluffy sock:
Ending up with this head and neck shape, leaving space for the eyes on the face. The fluffy sock was sewn securely onto the white sock around the face to reduce fraying.
I then completed his face, using felt for the eyes and embroidering some eyelashes!
Body
Another white trainer liner sock was used to make a tube from the toe towards the heel. Once it was stuffed firmly, it was inserted into the toe end of the remaining fluffy sock.
And then sealed with a gather stitch around the hole and secured with tacking stitches.
Attaching Body to Neck
The body and neck were brought together to create the angle of the llama:
I used a ladder / secret stitch here without pulling too tightly, as I wanted it to appear as seamless as possible!
Here I started to panic and worried that the fluffy sock would not quite meet :0
But, phew! they did:
I used the ladder / secret stitch here again, and went around it a good couple of times and catching in the white sock sometimes, to keep it all secure.
Legs & Tail
For some reason, I didn’t photograph the making of the legs or tail … it is a simple thin tube of white sock stuffed firmly and sewn securely with the ladder stitch, and then attached to the body with the ladder stitch.
So here is the finished sock llama no drama, before his ears and face reconstruction:
Ears
The ears were made from a two pieces of semi-circle sock fabric, sewn together and then folded at the flat end to form the ear. Then attached to the side of the head, just above the eyeline.
At this point, the face was a bit too ‘sheep’ like for me, so I sculpted the nose with stitches above and below to push it forwards, and a couple either side to keep in place.
Ta Dah!
Here is the fully finished llama, no drama! Cute!
What do you think? Do you like him? Better before, or after the face sculpture??
Thank you for reading. If you liked my tutorial and would like to see more sock creations or tutorials, send me a comment!
And of course, send me some photos of your own Llama creations! I’d love to see them taking over the World!!
Bye for now, Janx
#sock #llama #handmade #tutorial #sewing