My name is Michelle and I am currently studying Fashion Design at LJMU. I would love to run my own business in the future creating new fashion forward clothes to fit women of all shapes and sizes, from old unloved clothes that we have knocking around in cupboards and drawers, with the concept of having affordable couture that reflects your personality and is friendly on your pocket and the environment. I could spend hours jabbering about it but i will save that for another day! !
I love looking at current trends in arts, crafts and design and have a quick tutorial for you to try your hand at which will recycle an old pair of knee high socks into a fun set of accessories, inspired by loom bands which i am sure everyone has seen or heard of. ! You will need two pairs of knee high socks (for grown ups unless you want tiny rings instead of bracelets) preferably in two contrasting colours but it is down to personal preference, i had white and maroon in a drawer so i used those… I would recommend that you use a cotton/polyester machine knit sock bought from a store rather than a lovely hand knit pair as the stitches wouldn't stay together after cutting and it would be a shame to ruin all the hard work your nan/aunt/sister put into making them for you in the first place! Oh and a pair of scissors!
You’ll need to cut the heel off from the top of all four socks and put these to the side. With the top halves of your four socks you will want to cut them into 1cm wide strips, you don’t need to measure it out or check that you have an even number i just did mine by eye (if you find you are running short of ‘bands’ when your making your bracelets you can always use the bit between the heel and toe as well) I also put the four bands from the top of my socks to one side as they were slightly thicker and used these at the end to tie off as they seemed more stable.
Now for the fun part I used the fishtail braid technique as I liked the effect it gave the stripes. If you have never made any loom bands before there are loads of tutorials on youtube but i have photographed the basics here with my fingers.
Firstly you’ll want to double loop the fabric strips if the socks you have used are quite loose. As shown above in the photo the first band is twisted in the middle between my fingers (to stop it from unravelling as I learnt) and then two more bands in alternating colours are placed above the first. To start off your braid your pull the ends of the first band up and over the two bands left on your fingers. Thats the hard bit done! From here you place another band above the two on your hand, and then pull the bottom one over the top two, continue doing this until you have the desired length (I made a choker necklace and a bracelet but you could easily make three bracelets instead.
I measured around my neck and my wrist as i went to make sure i was happy with the length, once you have decided it is long enough, stop just after you have pulled a band over but before you put a third back on. To end the braid pull out the top working band on you fingers and hold onto the loops on either side of the bottom band you had left on your hand (in the picture above it if the maroon one)
To secure the end simply pull one side through the loop on the other side, and pull tightly. Lastly pull you end loop through the first band you made (the twisted one from the beginning and wrap it around a few times knotting it to make it secure. Any tail your left with can easily be hidden inside the braid.
So now you should have a chunky soft bracelet or necklace from an old pair of socks! Wear it with pride, or tried and tested as a nice pillow for my forehead to rest on when i go to lectures ill or hungover!
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