(Hello again to Jen, one of the bloggers trying out for a spot on the Re-Nest editorial team. Her first post on Water Bottle Notebooks can be found here. Comments are welcome!)
Where do missing socks go? More importantly, what to do with the remaining single sock? Until now, my useless spares were regulated to an (overflowing) drawer for a TBA reunion. So I was thrilled—and so was my boyfriend, who now has extra closet space—when I found a way to repurpose the extras into a potholder.
Remember weaving kits from summer camp? Back then, the cotton rings that came with the loom were actually surplus fabric from sock factories, but today they are manufactured. In an attempt to be green, I got retro by cutting a few unmatched socks into1/4 inch thick loops. Because of their tube shape, socks are perfect for making the bands -- just wash them first!
You can find directions for the weaving process here. I purchased my potholder loom from a craft store, but you could just as easily make your own by nailing brads into scrap wood. Space the brads a 1/4 of an inch apart in a square the size of a potholder. Just like when I was a kid…I'm giving it to Mom for her birthday.
-Jen
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talk about a blast from the past! i remember the sock scrap potholders. my mom still uses the ones i made as a kid. now, our dog likes to steal socks--so we have plenty of leftovers and i'm thinking this is what i should do with them.
I actually tried doing that once but I wasn't too wild about the loops I came up with. It may have been that I wore the socks out just a little too far... ;)
This project looks great -- my daughter is a fiend for making potholders with her loom but decent, mostly cotton loops get pretty expensive. So now we can use up our old socks AND continue making enough potholders to carpet our whole house :)
Cute!
Yay! I remember making these. Now I have a plan for all those stray socks I've been saving in my closet for no reason. Thanks for the great idea Jen!
Awesome - I'm about to go through and weed out my worn out socks, so now I know exactly what to do with them!
no way! these are cute! my boyfriend just made me trash all my old socks. my idea was to make a quilt out of them, but he told me there was no way he would sleep under a quilt of old socks....
2.5 yrs later, I post this... but
btw:
You don't have to purchase a plastic loom.
You can hammer nails into a block of wood, or a little picture frame.