Valentine Voodoo Doll!

I saw this tutorial on Martha Stewart for making a skeleton out of a pair of white socks.  I must have seen it around Valentine's Day last year.  I thought it was cute, but following the directions and just making a skeleton seemed a little too simple!  If you have seen my Valentine's Day cards, then you know that I like the dark and sarcastic side of the holiday.  I decided to add a few details to turn Martha's Sock Skeleton into a Valentine's Day Voodoo Doll!

You can find the official Martha Stewart template and tutorial here, or you can follow along with my pictures.

First, you get two basic white athletic style socks

Cut the ankle ribbed part off of one sock.

Cut the one ankle ribbed part in half.  These will become the arms.

Lay the other sock so that the heel part is visable.  You are going to cut this socks ribbed ankle part in half lengthways.  These will be the legs and the heal will be the skeleton's rear end, so check to be sure that the legs are going to be in the middle of the rear end before you cut.

Here are the basic pieces lined up in their approximate locations.  Unfortunately this is also where I got either too sick or too busy to document the rest of the progress.  In a nut shell, I sewed each of the arms and each of the legs to create a tube.  I stuffed the doll through the open ends of each arm and leg tube.  To make it a little easier, you probably want to stuff the body BEFORE you sew up the legs.  Last, I sewed the hands and the feet shut.  I sewed a gathering stitch where the neck should be.  At that point I switched to black thread and sewed the button eyes, the skeleton smile, and a few lines for ribs.

At this point it is pretty close to the Martha Stewart version.  I added some nice quilting pins to turn it into a voodoo doll.

To turn it into a Valentine's Day Voodoo Doll, I cut out a small felt heart and slid it under the rib threads.  I just didn't think the skeleton was swanky enough, so I made him a little stove pipe hat to complete the look.