Moving blog account!

I’m hosting a dedicated blog over at maribelmade.com. It’s the same WordPress blog, but I believe it has a new RSS feed so please, please update your feed! You can access it here: or http://maribelmade.com/?feed=rss2.

I also decided to keep my blog as my main site so that it’s always fresh with new content. Everything I need is pretty much available to me from this free service and since I don’t have much time to update a full-blown website I think it makes sense to keep doing things the simple and easy way.

If you’re wondering how I got all my content from one account to the other, all I did was export from my previous account and import from the new one. It was great! A little XML file did all the work. I’m also very happy with the hordes of plugins available. I used to be wrong about WordPress…now I love it!

New Maribel Made web site!

Maribel Made has a new site up at www.MaribelMade.com! The site is at its very early stages, but it will continue to grow as things progress for Maribel Made. It’s just a little something I whipped up before the domain mapping here to my blog expired. Next thing I’d like to add is a shopping cart, but probably once I get more up there.

Taking Mars Sock Monkey orders

I just listed Mars Sock Monkey orders on Etsy. Feel free to share with anyone that might be interested.

Mars Sock Monkey order
Custom Mars Sock Monkey order

Thanks,
Maribel

www.maribel.etsy.com
www.facebook.com/pages/maribel-made

Rosita Mars Sock Monkey photo shoot

It was so much fun photographing my latest sock monkey, Rosita! We had a lot of snow in London earlier this week so I thought she’d look great appearing like she wanted to go out and play in the snow. Of course, I didn’t let her because then she would have gotten all dirty and made it to her new home looking like a little brat.

If you’d like a custom Mars Sock Monkey contact me at or visit maribel.etsy.com for more info.

Rosita Mars Sock Monkey

The stages of a sock monkey fit

2009 Sock Monkey Kickoff!

Henry officially kicked off 2009 wearing a cable vest sweater and matching flat cap! He is such a gentleman. He’s also 100% British born in Hoxton, just like his brother William.

If you’d like a custom sock monkey contact me at for more info.

Henry Mars Sock Monkey

Henry’s cable vest sweater with bow

William’s flat cap

Last July when I was knitting William’s flap cap, I was thinking I’d be in trouble if I ever had to make another hat like this. The flat cap William wears was a spurt of the moment thing and it was perfect!

William’s flat cap

During the holiday my brother asked me for a monkey like William and I knew he wouldn’t be the only one. William was a very popular monkey and sold second to Robert from the batch I did last Summer. I had to give it another go!

William Mars Sock Monkey

The second try, even third and fourth, looked nowhere like what I had magically done before. You see, that’s my problem. I don’t write patterns for the things I make. I dislike it! It takes away the spontaneity and likelihood of those first time accidents that are so one-of-a-kind! It’s just like measuring things when I cook. If I can’t eyeball it, it becomes work and then it’s no fun.

If everything I made was for myself, I wouldn’t have to put that much effort into it, but now that my hobby has become my job (which I love!), I have to make it work somehow. And making it work means writing patterns! I set out to buy a notebook and began writing my patterns a couple of months ago. I’ve got some, but it takes so much discipline! It’s a good start though. The fifth flat cap, with pattern, was a success!!

It’s a good thing because I have two orders with flat caps this month!

Flat cap fails, exercise book and William flat cap pattern

This is Henry, William’s brother. He’s wearing the fifth flap cap I made while trying to replicate William’s.

Home Sweet Home

I’m putting together a Home Sweet Home set on Flickr of adopted Mars Sock Monkeys. The cool thing about this collection is that the photos are taken by the sock monkey owners themselves! Makes me very happy to see other people having fun with the monkeys. I should have done this ages ago!

Punk Mars Sock Monkey adopted July 08
Photo by Agne

LeAnn Mars Sock Monkey adopted Sept 08
Photo by Lyndsey

Changes for Maribel Made

To follow through on my promise to take the Mars Sock Monkey to the next level, I will discontinue to make jewellery, crochet hats, knit rings and Jebby the Whale toy in the future. Although these items will not be available for sale online, they might show up at events and fairs. I’m also stopping promotion of my shop on German-based storefront site DaWanda. I will continue to use Etsy, but there are plans to develop a dedicated website. There are a couple of other sites I’ve come across that I’d also like to check out.

Maybe some of you are already using some of these…would love to hear your feedback.

http://bigcartel.com
http://www.folksy.com
http://www.supermarkethq.com
http://www.1000markets.com
http://www.artfire.com
http://www.mintd.com
http://www.shophandmade.com
http://www.trunkt.org

I’m currently working on a sock monkey for an old friend of mine that will look something like this. So far she’s turning out to be a cutie pie!

February is going to be a very busy month. I have a more customs coming your way.

DIY lightbox hack

Some time ago when I read my rss feeds, I looked into making a spiffy light box in which I could take photos of things I would one day sell online. I didn’t know what I would sell then, but I did know I wanted to take professionally looking product photos. Apparently it’s one of the simplest things in the world. Some of the ideas I saw then helped me come up with this little hack of a lightbox. It’s specifically made for small items, like the Knit Rings I made before the holiday!

It’s really quite simple. I took a shoe box, carved a round hole on one side and stuck an Ikea light socket cord from a lamp I broke before it even made it home (ikea might sell these sockets thingies separately). I also thought it would be neat to take photos from the top so I carved a window on the top for these birds eye view shots. As a finishing touch, I stuck a folded piece of paper for a smooth backdrop. I used white and black drawing paper in this case to avoid transparency.

These photos were taken with a basic Canon PowerShot A570 point and shoot camera. Here are some before and after photoshops:

The ones taken from the top required less beautification in Photoshop since the light bulb was almost directly on top. Neat! And that’s that.

Fruits for Mars Sock Monkey sweaters

My next custom sock monkey calls for a hoodie with a fruit! My clients are awesome.

There are so many options when it comes to fruits, but I picked some of the fruit I thought would do well in knit form and created the starting vector graphics. It includes: a lime, cherries, a strawberry, bananas, a pear, a watermelon, an apple and an orange.  Simple yet cute! I’ll probably choose the one that works best with the sock design.

Fruit vectors waiting to become knitted designs!