Sunday, April 26, 2015

Re-Use Journal #1 Socks

I know this is meant to be my art blog but I have come to realize I have more to talk about than my amateur art.  I have so many re-use ideas that I have incorporated into my life that I thought I should share a few of them from time to time.  Today's posting is about socks.

When I had a much better job than I currently have, I would buy socks whenever the sock collection seemed skimpy.  It was my habit to always purchase black socks.  Even when they don't quite match you can get away with odd pairs.  In my present state of under employment I have more time to deal with these issues.   Socks began to show up from all over the house.  I'm still finding socks.  I think all the socks you folks have lost in your washers have ended up at my house.

I began to match socks and fold them the way my mom taught me; something I haven't done in decades choosing the "put the two socks together and fold the tops over both pairs" method instead. I will post pics of my Mom's method which is working better for me these days.

I have more socks than will fit in a drawer now so I began putting pairs into recycled food storage bags of the zip-top genre.  I kept misplacing those gallon bags of socks in various niches around the house when I remembered a zipper bag from a Posturepedic mattress topper.  I began to gather those gallon bags and put them in the mattress bag, zipped it all up and found space in the closet for this enormous collection of socks.  Unmatched socks go in here too placed in those plastic bags from the grocery store.  

Sounds a bit like sock-hoarding, but never fear.  Once they are all paired I will pick out the usables from the lost causes and either reuse or toss.

Re-Use ideas:

Sew them all into a sock afghan.
Cut them up and crochet them into an afghan
Make a sock-shirt out of them.
Mail them to my congressman in protest of wastefulness.


This is the way my mother prepares socks for the sock drawer

The plus to this style of sock preparation is that you slip your foot 
into the opening and slide the rest of the sock over the heal 
and up the ankles.  With my current bad back this is a lot
easier.

This is what a paired set of socks looks like.



This is socks in a plastic gallon bag



This is a full gallon bag of socks


Here they all are in their full glory stuffed into a big zipper bag.

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