Norman the Sock Monkey

Norman the Sock Monkey is almost as old as me. He is the one in the middle with the glasses. He was stitched in the mid to late 1960’s by my Mum from the Nelson Rockford brand of red heel socks. Norman has been restored once, as has his buddy, the Sock Elephant. She is vintage as well, having been stitched by my Nan (Grandmother) around the same time.

According to a sock monkey resource publication available from the Midway Village Museum website, red heel socks were first manufactured by the Nelson Knitting Company of Rockford, Illinois in 1932. The red heel was added to make it distinctive from similar socks made by their competitors. The resource publication provides additional details about the magnitude of sock production in Rockford during the Depression and through WWII. It’s interesting and I recommend a read. The creation of sock monkey dolls may date back to the 1930’s, but was confirmed by competing patents and even law suits in the 1950’s. The Nelson Knitting Company provided free sewing instructions with the purchase of the socks – Norman is holding such instructions in the photo above. The patent for the sock monkey doll expired in 1970 and, as the resource publication says, “now the sock monkey belongs to everyone”. The Nelson Knitting Company was purchased in 1992 by Fox River Mills and red heel socks, now manufactured in Osage, Iowa, continue to be available.

I started making sock monkeys in 2017 and have only made one traditional red heel sock monkey as a special request from a client. The rest (over 200 of the cheeky little creatures), have “evolved” in their own style. The main difference between Norman and the rest of the monkeys is the part of the sock that is used to create the mouth. Norman’s mouth is the heel of the sock to get the red “mouth”, and the other monkeys have the toe of the sock as the mouth, to get the more rectangular shape. Norman also gets a pretty cool toque or hat from the remaining toe.

The layout or cutting/stitching diagram for the red heel sock monkey is shown below, and PDF versions of the vintage instructions are available from many sources on the internet.

For the sock monkeys that I make, the layout or cutting/stitching diagram is below. Full instructions will be available soon, and in the meantime, some tips are saved as Highlights on Instagram. Happy Stitching!