Friday, December 24, 2010

Making slipper-socks from socks

I decided to try my hand at making slipper socks. I wasn't satisfied with just wearing through athletic socks around the house and thought slippers were too hot and didn't cover the ankles. To make slipper socks:

  1. Start with a choice sock
  2. Put them on and trace out the outline of your feet on a piece of cardboard.
  3. Cut out the shapes
  4. Use the outlines to cut out a piece of fabric that has non-slip surface on one side (got it from a fabric store)
  5. Put the cardboard into the sock to hold the shape, and then glue the fabric to the sock, using fabric glue.
  6. For good measure, I then added a felling stitch around the edges to help hold the fabric on in case the glue doesn't hold.

And the results:





Quiet an exceptional piece of work, if I do say so myself :). One refinement I want to try next time around: When glueing the fabric to the sock, rather than pressing it against the sock with the cardboard inside, instead press it against the sock with your foot inside. I introduced a small registration problem with I pressed the fabric - I didn't quite center it to where my foot naturally rests in the sock. It's possible you could get away without using the cardboard at all.

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Full custom neoprene jacket for glass water bottle




On vacation with some time on my hands, and figured what better time to construct a protective jacket for the perfect water bottle (see my post earlier on the bottle). Pictured here is the result of a sheet of neoprene laminated with a cloth-like layer, 8 coat hooks, 2 yards of 1mm yellow line and a few hours sewing sprinkled with the occasional curse.

The intent is that the neoprene jacket will cushion the bottle if it falls on a hard surface so that it hopefully won't break. The important areas protected are the corners because they are what is likely to hit a hard surface if the bottle falls on the ground.

The reason for the separate pieces and line connecting is so that it is easy to remove and clean, and also so that you can see the contents of the bottle.

Update: As an alternative, I also tried a rough cut at a version using eyelets instead of stitching. In the image below, I haven't glued the sides or anything, so it appears a bit flappy. I like having a lower-profile to the protective case, but th eyelets pop out too easily. Also, not sure how the glue will work to glue the edges of each piece together...