Sock it To Me!

painting by Taravat Talepasand.

I just can't believe it.  I made my own socks - sewed them, that is.  I'm so excited about it.  I mean, just think of the possibilities.  That was one thing I was wishing I could buy...some colored tights or thigh highs or knee sox - and now I learned how to make my own - and it was soooo easy!

I found a tutorial on Handmade by Carolyn about making your own tights. I didn't have enough 2-way stretch fabric in my stash for tights, so I went for over-the-knee-sox.

I followed her idea of pinning the fabric while on my foot creating a inner side seam, but deviated from her suggestion of making a right angle around the ankle.

For me, it ended up baggy and oddly shaped at that point.  But it was easy to remedy by stitching an incline (rather than the abrupt right angle) that smoothed the area out.  I didn't even have to remove the old stitching.

Here's some important points (or lessons learned):

1) make sure your fabric has 2-way stretch and that the stretchiest part is going around your leg, i.e. is parallel to the top of the sox.  Otherwise you won't be able to get it on and off the ankle/heel area.   (I did that the first time...not paying attention...tsk, tsk.)

2) use your machine's stretch stitch on a small setting, or zig-zag at narrow width and #12 or so. (I found out that my old sewing machine had a cam just for stretch stitching and used it for the first time in 20-some years!!  better late than never...)

3) once you have it pinned and ready to sew, make a paper pattern so you don't have to do the on-the-foot-pinning every time you want to sew a sox!  (I did it for sox #2!)