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These sock horses are an adorable baby-shower gift or great for a small child who loves to play dress-up! This is my method, but feel free to adapt your own ideas and materials. My girls love to play with these and the fact that they’re homemade makes them that much more special!

What you’ll need:

  • Large woven sock
  • Stuffing
  • Wooden dowel
  • Yarn
  • Additional yarn woven into 2 triangles, or felt cut into triangles for ears
  • 2 buttons
  • Leather cording, about 4 feet long and 1/4 inch thick
  • Needle and thread
  • Optional paint

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I started by painting the wooden dowel. (You can choose whatever size you like; mine is approximately 3 feet.) Then I took my sock and stuffed it to the max, stopping about 4 inches from the opening of the sock.

Place your dowel into the sock and wrap tightly where the stuffing ends, several times around to secure the dowel inside! The sock should automatically form the shape of your horse’s head and neck.

Cut about 30 pieces of yarn, each 12 inches long, and tie a knot in the center of each strand. You can now sew with a stitch in each knot starting at the top of the neck down just above where you attached the dowel. Make sure to sew your knots very close to each other to create a nice mane. I decided to cut a few strands shorter on the top to give our horse some fringe between his ears.

Now sew your ears on either side of the mane. I knitted triangles for ears but you could easily cut felt into triangle shapes instead!

After sewing on the ears, you will need to sew on the button eyes and cut a few very short strands of yarn for eyelashes! I sewed the button eyes using a back and forth stitch through the head to create tension on both sides, giving the horse an inverted look where the eyes are. Then I attached a few eyelashes above each eye.

Now the final step is to attach your leather cord. For this I tied a knot, forming a loop with the cord. Then I attached it with thread in two places about an inch apart, just on the top of the horse’s head where the bridle would fit!

You are finished! Now give it a whirl and feel like a kid again!

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