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Saturday 11 February 2023

Socks For Your Hands

Socks remade into hand warmers by eSheep Designs
A practical way to recycle old socks...
By the time either I or my hubby decides to part ways with a pair of socks, they have holes in them. And while I recently watched one of my favourite YouTubers demonstrate the art of darning socks, it's not something that I can see myself doing on a regular basis... if at all.  

From a crafting point of view, however, there's not a whole lot that one can do with socks in that condition. If you've ever seen a sock puppet, doll or snowman idea, wouldn't you agree that they always look like they were made with new socks?

In our home, discarded socks would usually be tossed into a bag for future use as rags. Hubby is always polishing something or other and old socks are often good for that. From a crafting perspective, I suppose they'd be useful for stuffing plushies if you cut them up into small pieces.

But in my case here, I had a couple of pairs that the other half bought for me years ago because they were adorned with certain black and white flightless seabirds, for which I have an affinity. Despite being no longer wearable as socks, I was reluctant to let go of them.

Socks remade into hand warmers by eSheep Designs
Socks about to get a new life...

Then I had a thought: how about turning them into hand warmers or quasi fingerless gloves?

I tell ya, it's a quick project with a solid return. And if you have socks that are similarly decorated, the result can even be a fashion statement of sorts!
 


The project is as simple as can be.

Just take your old pair of socks, stack them up and slice them off right before the damaged area. (In this case here, both the toes and the heels had holes in them.)

Socks remade into hand warmers by eSheep Designs
Cut away the toe to heel area...

You might notice I have a bit of an angle going on here under the ruler. How you make this cut is totally up to you. You may want to retain as much of the sock as you can at this point, just to see what your preference is regarding overall coverage for your thumb. (You can always trim it down before you sew.)

Socks remade into hand warmers by eSheep Designs
Create a division for the thumb on each sock...

On the side opposite to where the heel used to be, use a pin to create a divided space for your thumb. Try it on for size and then you can decide if you want to do some trimming.


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I have seen this project done up as fingerless gloves where the crafter has gone to the trouble of creating four additional stubby little compartments, but in my mind, I'm thinking, why bother?

Once you're satisfied with the size of the compartment that you've created for the thumb, go ahead and sew a line anywhere from 3/4" to 1.5" (roughly 2 to 4cm) in length at that location. (As indicated by the broken white lines in the photo below.) 

Socks remade into hand warmers by eSheep Designs
The only bit of sewing that you'll need to do...

The longer the sewn line, the more coverage your thumb will have.

I would highly recommend that you use whatever stretch stitch setting you have on your sewing machine for this. (And perhaps a ballpoint needle.)

Socks remade into hand warmers by eSheep Designs
And it's done!

The sock won't fray, so you don't need to do any further sewing. As a matter of fact, the top part will eventually curl a bit to create some added dimension, as you can see on the other pair that I made.


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See what I mean about simple? Can a useful project get any easier than this? This one hits all the right chords with me, especially in being a recycling effort.

Socks remade into hand warmers by eSheep Designs
Two pairs of new hand warmers!

Now I can leave a pair of these wherever I "hang"... upstairs, downstairs, and in between. I've been regularly using my minky fingerless gloves while at the computer, but I find it a bit constricting to type while wearing them, since minky doesn't really stretch a whole lot. (Those can now go in my sewing room.)

Socks remade into hand warmers by eSheep Designs
Staying warm while the fingers fly...

On the other hand, these recycled sock hand warmers enable a great range of movement at the keyboard. All in all, very happy to have kept my penguin socks out of the rag bag!

'Til next...


8 comments:

  1. Hi Rochelle, what a fantastic idea! I have piles of socks with holes just waiting to be useful again! Marie

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    1. Well, isn't it good that you kept them, right? Not only that, since I can only use so many pairs of these, it's got me thinking that I should transform other pairs so that they can be donated to the city's homeless.

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  2. Too cute! We have a whole colony of those birds here in my hometown! I’ll save this idea for June…then it is cold enough to care about socks😁 Keep warm🌷💗🪡🧵

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    1. Yes, the upside-down-ness of living in the southern hemisphere! It's weird for those of us on the "top" part of the world to think of cold starting in June. BTW, did you know that we too have African penguins living (at the big mall) in our city??

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  3. Rochelle, I just found your blog. As I was reading some of the newer posts, I saw this tutorial. Just recently, I suggested such a hack to my sister and a friend. Now they will have a tutorial with pictures to guide them. Thank you! PS: I am enjoying reading your blog! I started with how to make my own wedge rulers.

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    Replies
    1. Well, isn't that fortuitous! (I actually can't believe how much use I've gotten out of this sock redo.)Thank you so much for dropping a comment to let me know you're enjoying. As a blogger, it's always a thrill to pick up a new reader, no matter when.

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  4. BTW, I recently repaired 2 of my white turtleneck shirts by replacing the worn out cuffs of the shirt with the tops of some crew socks. The socks had holey heels, but the tops/leg parts were perfectly good white ribbing, which I folded and used as ribbed shirt cuffs.

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    Replies
    1. And this is also very clever. Can't say I've ever had knit shirt cuffs wear out on me, but if it ever happens, I'll know what to do!

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