City crafter turns colourful socks into a company that’s climbing

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This article was published 06/02/2016 (3853 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s the Year of the Monkey according to the Chinese zodiac, and Sharon Forzley, owner of a simian-themed outfit called Monkey Business Card Company, figures the timing couldn’t be better.

A new shop, A Pinch of Creativity, opened in the Exchange District in January, just a month before Chinese New Year (Feb. 8). The shop, at 296 McDermot Ave., carries a wide array of unique, made-in-Manitoba products, including Forzley’s colourful troop of sock monkeys.

“I’ve been selling them at craft sales for the last six years, but this is the first time I’m venturing into retail, so yes, it’s pretty exciting,” Forzley said, noting the hand-sewn figures are as popular with children, who view them as playthings, as they are with adults, who regard them as kitschy folk art.

Not sure of the story behind sock monkeys? Turns out it’s quite the yarn.

For more than a century, Rockford, Ill., was home to the now-shuttered Nelson Knitting Company, a textile manufacturer that, in 1932, introduced a crimson heel to its line of men’s rugged work socks. During the 1930s, an Illinois mom trying to save a few pennies at Christmas made a stuffed monkey out of a pair of Nelson socks, using the red heel to form the toy’s mouth and buttocks.

Sock monkeys quickly turned into a “thing.” So much so, the Nelson Knitting Company began fielding sock orders from around the globe. Sock monkeys became such a hit that, since the 1950s, each pair of Original Rockford Red Heel socks has included a sock-monkey pattern and set of step-by-step instructions.

(The Nelson Knitting Company closed in 1992. For the last 24 years, Rockford red heels have been produced by Fox River Mills, in Osage, Iowa.)

Eight years ago, Forzley was trying to figure out what type of business she could operate out of her Charleswood home. She had a bit of experience making greeting cards for friends and family members. She also had a soft spot for monkeys, having grown up reading the adventures of Curious George, the playful character created by the husband-and-wife team of Hans Augusto Rey and Margret Rey.

That was it, she thought; she would combine the two and create a line of cards graced with images of monkeys.

And people went ape over them, right? Wrong.

“It wasn’t a huge success, to put it mildly,” Forzley said with a chuckle. “Rather than quit, though, I decided it would be better to build on my idea.”

One afternoon, Forzley was surfing the Internet when she spotted a sock monkey on somebody’s Pinterest page. She never had one growing up, she recalled, so she decided to make one for herself out of a pair of striped, pink socks she hadn’t worn in a while.

She showed the finished product to her husband. He was impressed and suggested she make a few more to bring along to her next craft sale.

“That first time I had a dozen (sock monkeys) on the table and they sold out in no time flat. The same thing happened the time after that. Pretty soon I stopped making cards altogether to concentrate solely on sock monkeys,” Forzley said, agreeing now that’s she sold more than 1,000 sock monkeys, it’s probably time to drop the “card company” from her business name.

In addition to traditional brown, white and red sock monkeys, Forzley also takes special requests.

Last year, a Royal Winnipeg Ballet employee commissioned Forzley to make a ballerina sock monkey, complete with tutu, bodice and pink ballet slippers.

Quicker than you can say “Cowabunga!,” another person asked for a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sock monkey. Minions are all the rage now, Forzley said, and then there’s the lady in her 60s who, every year around Halloween, places an order for a new sock monkey monster.

“So far, I’ve made her a zombie, a vampire, a mummy… the last one I did looked like Frankenstein’s monster,” Forzley said, noting she’s also shipped sock monkeys as far as Hawaii, Europe and Australia to people who spotted her handiwork on Etsy (www.etsy.com/shop/Monkeybusinesscardco).

Two years ago, Forzley made a sock monkey for a Winnipeg boy who was embarrassed to bring his EpiPen to school. She purposely left one of the monkey’s legs unstuffed so he had a discreet place to store the life-saving, anti-allergy injector.

“It’s funny — people are always calling me, saying, ‘Sharon, I saw a really great pair of socks at such and such a store — you have to check it out.’ But it’s true I do shop differently now. No matter where I am, I always find myself wandering over to the sock section eventually, to see what different colours or crazy patterns they have.”

Forzley’s sock monkeys come in three sizes and range in price from $10 to $30. Because sock monkeys are considered a good luck present for newborns, she employs thread stitches for eyes instead of buttons, which can be a choking hazard, if she knows it is going to be a baby gift.

In case you’re interested, the Midway Village Museum in Rockford, Ill., will host its 11th annual Sock Monkey Madness Festival March 5-6.

Attendees can pose for pictures with Nelson, a seven-foot-tall sock monkey, and take in the Rockford Dance Company’s live performance of Dance of the Sock Monkeys.

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca