Socks For Your Dolls Upcycled From Regular Socks!! **Updated With Instructions!**

Greetings and Salutations Doll Friends!

As I said in my last post, I have been at my sewing machine all weekend! Here are some dolly socks I made. I plan to take better photos of them tomorrow but here is a small sample of how cute they are and how easy they are to make!!

I am posting this from my phone so it's mostly going to be a photo tutorial for now... I've given the step by step about upcycling doll socks from regular socks before. I'll come back and post a linky to that soon. (If you search socks it'll come up... they were some of the very first Doll clothes I made when I first started a few years ago. Here is a photo step by step for now. Once you get the hang of it you can make pairs and pairs and pairs of fun socks for your dollies!! I even used some of my daughters and sons socks from when they were little bitty and it'll be so much fun to see those on the dolls! 

Happy Labor Day Weekend!

XO

Heather

**Updated September 4, 2017**

Hi Doll Friends!

I mentioned in above that I'd written a tutorial on how to make doll socks from regular socks but I searched and searched my past blog posts and for the life of me couldn't find it... So I dug into my Pinterest because I remembered the photo of my upcycled doll socks being one of my most frequently 're-pinned' pins. And low and behold, it was just a pin and not a blog post afterall? Ooops! I guess I made the socks and posted the pin before I really even launched this blog! So I am back here to give a little bit more instruction along with the photos... Although it really is so simple that you can probably just look at the photo tutorial and learn even without a word writtten. 

Did I mention they are easy to make? Here are the ones I made on Saturday along with the plethora of other upcycling doll clothes I did. I am telling you, I got on a roll...! I hadn't pulled out my machine in over a year and I had kind of forgotten how fun and easy making doll clothes are when you upcycle. So much fun! Easy peasy lemon squeezy! I'll be making blog posts about the other items I made of course.... I took a ton of photos, it's just a matter of getting them posted here. 

So here is what you do... 

1) You take a standard sock with a top you like. 

     Note: This sock (above) was one I saved from my daughters elementary school years which makes it extra special. I love having socks for my Lilly Doll that actual Lilly wore once. How fun is that?! I digress... My point is the socks don't need to be new, sock tops rarely get worn out even if the foot portion does. 

2) Turn the sock inside out.

    (I, duh, forgot to turn one pair inside out when I got on a 'roll' and so sewed the entire pair on the wrong side! Hahaha!) 

3) Figure out how long/tall you want the sock to be on the doll 

     (Just measure against your dolls leg for approximate height,  remembering that their foot is going to take up some of the room in the sock so make allowances for that!) 

4) Take a ruler and make lines, one at the bottom where the toes part will be and one right in the middle of the sock top (fold in half to figure out where the middle is, that's the easiest way). This may seem superfluous and you think you might wanna skip this step but trust me, it makes it oodles more easy to have the lines!

5) Sew the seams. The line you drew down the middle is NOT where you sew. It's where you line up your sewing machine foot, on it's edge, so you can make a seam on either side that is exactly the same distance... So you sew a seam on either side of the line using it as a guide. If that make sense? I use a mid-sized zig-zag seam so they'll be sturdy. 

6) Then you carefully cut them out, turn them inside out and voila! Doll socks!

TIP: Sewing sock material is a bit of a pain in the rear... Because it stretches. So starting a seam and them 'backing up' like you normally do for a stitch or two as you should when you start sewing something (so it won't unravel)... Well, that invariably (in my experience anyway) ends up making a huge clumpy tangled mess that makes you throw the entire sock in the trash. (or maybe that's just me...?) 

So what I do is I start sewing the 'toe seam' at about 10% in from the edge, on zig-zag setting, and literally just run the seam off the sock... (Like sew off the edge...) Then I turn the sock over and start about 20-30% in (from the edge) and sew it to the edge, on both sides.... (see above, I used contrasting thread in my bobbin so you'd be able to see the difference where the seams are. The white thread in the center is the first seam and the darker thread is the reinforcement seams I make from the middle to the edge. Does that make sense? If you have any questions at all, holler in the comments and I'll try and help explain better. 

UPDATE again: Do that seam first and then sew the other seams from the top of the sock down past this seam and you don't need to 'back' up on those other seams. (Again if that makes no sense, holler and I'll try and explain better!!) 

Seriously though, once you get the little 'procedure' down, you can whip out a ton of these in no time. I would've made more myself but I only had so many socks set aside for 'future doll socks' and I used them all. Haha.

You can make different lengths... These I made 'thigh high' socks. Because how cute is that?

I laughed that the source sock said dollhouse on the bottom of the foot. Perfect!

This pair of socks had the 'ho ho ho' of Christmas on them... I wanted a pair of just the animal print socks so I made two pairs of socks, one with the HoHoHo and one without. I love how two pairs of 'people' socks yield two pairs of doll socks. Twinsies!! 

See the 'boy colored' socks? Those were my sons. He hardly wore them because 'dress clothes' have never been his thing but still, I get a kick out of them having been my son's socks. I'll smile every time I put these socks on my dolls since they were my kids socks. See the pair on the far right hand side? Yeah, those are the ones I sewed inside out. LOL. I am keeping them though because they really don't look too dreadful and will still work. And they'll make me smile at my mistake forevermore too... haha!

So, go find some socks you aren't using and make some socks for your dolly!

Have a great Labor Day!

XXOO

Heather