Sock Repair - Quick and Creative

Do you also have those socks?

Not really broken, but you wouldn't like to take your shoes off at a friend's place? Or if your family comes to visit you?

These store bought socks which are on their way to get a hole. I have quit some pairs and I don't want to throw them away, only because they have this small wannabe hole. And the next part, if I would throw them I away, I would need to go to the shops and buy new ones and I don't like shopping clothes. It's so time consuming, I prefer to do other stuff in my free time. So I was looking for a way to repair them.

If you google "sock repair" or "sock fix" you usually only get information how to darn socks or mend socks and in 95% of these cases those are knitted wool socks.

Of course you could darn them like our ancestors did with their woollen socks. But if store bought socks get darned, you either see it from the outside, which I don't like. Or you will feel it from the inside, which I even like less.

So I stacked all the pairs of socks which are going to get a hole on a pile and I racked my brain for a long time what I can do to solve this socks issue.

But now I have probably find a solution which seems quit well.

It works without darning and without thick parts which will probably blister your feet. And you can individualize your socks as creative as you like :-) If conspicuous or inconspicuous as you like.

Even if you don't have holes yet, it's also a nice way to pimp your socks up (or the one of your children).

The answer is very easy:

Flex heat transfer foil (or Flock)

...

Yes, it's really that easy.

So don't throw your store bought socks too fast away - help them to a new creative live :-)

---

I did a trial of different ways of foil application and wore the socks for five washings up till now. If you are interested in how the different foils react, read until the end, in the last chapter I will show some pics about it.

What you need:

• Flex foil (heat transfer) of your choice, I bought this
• Pair of socks
• Cutter plotter (I use a silhouette) or scissors
• Scissors
• Parchment paper
• Hot iron

Now the procedure depends on if you have a plotter or you're using a pair of good old scissors, or may be an x-acto knife

1. Check the size of your hole or almost-hole.
2. Decide what type of design you want to have on your feed.
3. I went for stars, since I like them and the stars can never be close enough. You can download my stars for Silhouette below.
4. Or take your scissors/x-acto knife and be creative (or just cut out dots…)
5. Preheat your iron to the desired temperature of your foil (that depends on the brand, but I usually take the wool program)
6. Iron your socks to get it flat and even.
7. If you have a real hole, put some parchment paper beyond it, otherwise the foil might stick to the backside of your sock.
8. Place your patch on the hole and some more around to cover that there is ONE hole to fix.
9. Take another piece of parchment paper and lay it between your sock and the hot iron.
10. Now press the iron with your arm and body on the sock, but don't slide it, just pressing and then lifting.
11. Wait some seconds to remove the transfer foil and heat press again.

Voila, you're done :-)

I didn't know which would be the best foil or way to fix my socks, so I took the most used pair and declared it as guinea pick.

I tried

Black and white: Flex foil

Violet: Flock foil

Petrol: jersey + heat transfer medium

Without pictures: pink jersey + seam tape

I used my most used pair of socks for this trial. Since the heel was very already worn and there were unsightly pills which needed to removed before I could press on the foil.

Until this instructable I wore the socks for five times and the flex and flock foil are still very fine.

.

I wore the socks always for one day and then send them into the washing machine again.

The black and white flex foil is still sticking as on the first day.

The same for the violet flock foil.

The petrol jersey on the heel got ripped of day by day and after the third washing it's not sticking anymore. I tried to re stick it with the iron but it didn't work out. Maybe if the borders would be sewn to the heel, but I wanted to avoid the sewing…

But for a big sock heel transplantation I might consider it the next time.

Because the white flex foil plaster wrinkles and doesn't look really nice (no matter what color it would be):

The pink jersey with the pressure seam tape didn't work for half a day wearing. It almost instantly peeled of due to friction between my foot and the shoe. That would have been a no sewing no ironing solution, but it didn't work.

I prefer the flex foil since I have the biggest variety of colors :-)

.

So, don't throw your socks away only because they have a small hole.

Go, grab a piece of foil and fix them :-)