hey, Mikey!

(Let me say a huge THANK YOU for the prayers and well-wishes for my flu-riddled girlies. They are doing MUCH better, no fevers, and now they are bored and stir crazy, always a good sign. H1N1 seemed pretty much like any other flu, 'cept maybe higher fevers and shorter lived. Michael and I are still feeling well, so thank you, Lord!)

Here's my version of a boy Molly Monkey. I've seen several really nice ones in the flickr pool, including ties and overalls and tennis shoes, and one kind reader even took the trouble to send me the instructions for a boy monkey she did herself!

I tend to be girl-centric with my crafting, for obvious reasons, but as it happens my beautiful niece, Erin, is having a baby boy in October. Here was the perfect opportunity to develop the Mikey Monkey I've had patiently waiting in my brain almost since I made the Molly Monkey for Thing 2.


I had a lot of fun coming up with these tennis shoes. I modeled them after the Converse-like shoes I drew for Robyn's baby announcement. Michael saw them and said, "Tennis shoes...with a shirt and tie?" But that's just how Mikey rolls. Oops, I think I still see some purple disappearing marker on the shoe. I was on a tight deadline, as usual.


Close-up of his shirt and tie. These are Erin's nursery colors, and the I think the tie fabric is also included in the baby quilt that her talented mom (my sister Leigh Ann) made her. I love love love the colors Erin chose for the baby's room. It's all robin egg blues, browns, greens, with touches of yellow and orange.


Here's Mikey without his newsboy hat and shoes. Since he'll be in the baby's room, I went ahead and sewed the hat and shoes on after this picture, so they wouldn't get lost. His linen short pants look a bit like jodhpurs to me. Which was unintentional, but I don't mind it. Maybe he is a polo player.


I cut a hole in the back of the tie to turn it more easily, so of course I had to glue a label over the slit. Fancy Monkey is an exclusive line of designer ties for equestrian newsboy monkey types.

To sum up, in order to transform the Molly pattern to a Mikey pattern:

1. I altered the Molly beret to get the newsboy hat,
   
2. added a tie and collar,
   
3. divided the torso to make a waistband for the pants,
   
4. switched the socks to legs and the legs to pants,
   
5. and made the tennis shoes.
   

Of course you could skip the tie and collar completely and give him a t-shirt and jeans instead. There's a lot of possibilities.

If there is some interest out there in having the new Mikey pattern pieces so you can make boy versions from your Molly pattern without the guesswork, let me know. I can make the new pattern available in my shop at some point.

On a sour note, a fellow crafter informed me recently that she saw my Molly pattern on a craft site being passed off as their own design. She had the same experience with them with one of her own designs. They had indeed made .gifs out of my pattern pieces, deleted my text, and placed their logo on everything, including a photo image taken by me. Pretty cheeky. I guess that is the peril of a free pattern and the honor system. I've contacted them and requested them to remove it, but so far no response to me, although they have removed the offending page. I also recognized some other 'borrowed' tutorials there, some Martha Stewart images among them. That seems a little foolhardy. If you've posted a free tutorial, you might want to check it out.