Sock Rattlesnake

Ann Jacobs Mooney shows Carol how to make a rattlesnake out of socks.

Carol: You know, these cute little guys really have come a long way. Since I first featured them on the home show a few years back. They hit the big time in the film Cabin Boy, they even co-hosted the Oscars with David Letterman. But no long ago, they were on the verge of extinction. Had it not for the efforts of Ann Jacobs Mooney, they might not even be here today. Ann is the author of Tiger’s New Friends, a book about the life and the time of a sock monkey. Welcome to the show, Ann. Ann: Nice to see you. Carol: Did you know you're going to get a welcome like that? Ann: I didn’t expect this kind of production. Carol: Did you have any clue when we first spoke on the phone, how many years ago was it? Ann: 1992, ’92. Carol: Okay, that was when I first showed sock monkey and did a thing with it on the home show. Got so many letters and photographs of folks that have sock monkeys throughout their childhood. And was one of the people who wrote and send some articles about her and her book in the papers. So you have written this. What possess you to write a book about sock monkey? Ann: Well I started just making the monkey and elephant, the ones that come with the socks. And then my son talked me into making the tiger. And, that just kind of evolve from there. I started taking pictures of them doing funny things with my son and ended up with hundreds of pictures and they turned into a book. Carol: That’s actually great, and really I'm not kidding when I say that she all but saved the company from extinction. Because the original company that made this socks, and they’ve been making them since? Ann: The original company are 1890’s. Carol: That’s where all these socks go back. I don’t know when the monkey started. But anyway, the new company bought them over and they were ready to toss out this particular sock, right? Ann: Right. Carol: And then, Ann came in there and say, no, no, sock monkey. Ann: You want this. Carol: Cannot die. Ann: You want these socks. Carol: Okay, but now, on beyond sock monkey. Ann is, she mentioned she's been making other animals and the latest is Jake the Snake. Ann: Jake the Rattlesnake. This is actually very simple, I can just move right into it here. This is how you cut the socks, and very simple. This the main body of the snake. Another body segment. And two more body segments. I’ll show you how to make the eyes from the toe. This is the last section of the snake and the diamonds. This is his little rattle tip. Carol: But actually you cut off the top of each sock, the toes of each sock, and it’s only the center that are cut a little differently. Ann: Exactly, it’s fairly basic. It’s really quite simple. Carol: And don’t worry if you don’t get all of these, because we’ll tell you later on how you can get the directions for all of the different animals. Anyway. Ann: Sounds good. This is a toe of your sock number one. Basically as you're looking at it, you’ve be cutting it right down the middle. Okay. So you take one and run a little running stitch all the way through that. Just in a circular motion. Put a little stuffing in there. Pull it tight. And what you’ll end up with are little eyeballs. Now I put, I have smaller children so I just put just a button on this. If you have really little children, like babies, you really want to embroider those so that the babies can't pull them off and choke on them or whatever. So you end up with two eyeballs. The next step is put them in to this section which is really quite easy. This is this section right here from sock number one. And this looks complicated, it’s very simple. You take this opening, fold the edges under. Carol: Of course you put some bedding in there. Ann: I put a little fluff in just some sort of polyester fiber fill, usually the standard. And you just stuff those little eyes in there. Carol: That's pretty funny and pretty cute just as it is. I mean they can be just little puppet if you finish off the ear. Ann: You can do a lot with these socks. They're really a very fun. Carol: So now then, to the body. Ann: The body. Basically, spread this out a little better. When you cut these, this section goes here. Cut them in a little bit of a progressive way. So you cut a little more off each sock to make it narrow. Carol: Oh, so these are cut lines. Ann: These are cut lines. You start with maybe ½ inch to an inch, have an inch off this section and a little more on this section. So you cut them, seam them just like that. Now the way to attach them is also really very simple. Pull this through. Carol: Now this is wrong side out. The way you’ve stitch it. Ann: This is wrong side out. And then pulling it over the guide that is already done here. All you're going to do, when I do this on my machine, this is really fairly simple. You just do a seam right around there. Remember, you have your right sides together. So when you pull it out, you’ll end up with this. You’ll just keep seaming these brown sections on so that they get smaller and smaller and that's all the way through here. Also with the head, you can take a little gathering stitch to give it a little definition. Now you're already in the end here. Carol: They make me laugh. They're wonderful. Go ahead. Ann: The face kind of strike people that way. These are the two white sections, okay. Carol: Oh, this is a diamond back rattlesnake. Ann: Absolutely. Carol: Oh, I just realized that. Ann: These are the two diamonds and one there. And this is this last section here. The white section, you got to do exactly as you did the other sections. Okay, you seam it, pull it over the brown section just like this. Seam, flip it inside out or right side out actually. And you’ll end up with this. For the rattle. Carol: See, I told you. You have to have these socks. You have to have that red part for the rattle. Ann: It wouldn’t be cool without this. Okay, this is, we're talking sock number two. You have this, trim it right along here, cut it open. And your rattle goes in this direction. So what you do is you just turn this edges under, seam it. You’ll end up with a little rattle, just like that. Carol: Sew that on the same way. Ann: Put a little bell or something or some noise maker in there. Carol: That is so, so cute.