Advent Calendar: Part 2!

Part 1 of this tutorial is here!

So, you have now washed and dried your socks--maybe more than once.  I found as I worked with the socks that the red dye hadn't been completely washed out of the socks, so I got a few red marks on my ironing cloth later on. It wasn't a big deal, but next time I dye something I'll wash it twice before using it.

 And you have your stencils--if you're planning on painting your numbers onto your socks. In the original idea (from Martha Stewart), number stickers were stuck to the socks so that they could be re-used. I didn't care about re-using the socks, so I was going for permanent.  I made my stencils out of freezer paper.  Amy over at naptime crafters has a good explanation of how to make and use freezer paper stencils.  I just cut my paper to 8.5x11 inches, printed the numbers onto the non-shiney side (very important!) and then cut the numbers out with an exacto knife.  It didn't take as long as I expected it to.

 I laid my socks out on my ugly ironing board and rearranged them until I liked what I had.

 Then I laid out my numbers...

 ...and ironed them on!  Now, as you will see later on, I used too hot of an iron OR freezer paper doesn't do well with sock fabric.  I'll show you later how the plastic-y part of the freezer paper didn't want to come off of my sock.

 Back to our current activity: line up the socks in whatever way works best for you.

 Squirt out some fabric paint and get to work!

 I used my finger to put the paint down--it just works best for me.  Normally I would recommend putting a protective layer of something like paper between the two layers of the fabric, but the sock fabric was thick enough that the paint didn't soak through.

Here's the first layer of paint:

 Second layer:

 Again, first layer:

 Second layer:

 I stopped at two layers of paint, though some of the red socks could have handled a third.  Hung up, they look just fine.

Now, on to 24 hours later, after the paint has dried.  I tried to pull off the freezer paper...the paper part came right off, but not the plastic! (Note: please see the update farther down in this thread--or read on if you're looking for how to remove iron-on appliqué plastic.)

 Uh oh...

 So I tried the blow drier. It didn't work.

 What I ended up doing (and managed to not take any pictures of), was heating my iron up to its hottest setting (cotton) with no steam.  Then I laid an ironing cloth over it--mine is just a light weight "flour sack" dish cloth--and ironed the heck out of it.  When I lifted the paper off of the sock, some of the plastic-y stuff came away, but not all.  So I put the cloth back over the sock and ironed more. The ironing cloth lifted some of the plastic-y stuff away from sock and eventually the socks looked pretty good (and my ironing cloth got a bit stiff).

 You can still see a bit of residue where the freezer paper was adhered, but it's much, much better than it used to be. (Oh, and notice my new ironing board cover--thank you Black Friday!). :)

 It took forever--an entire naptime--but I eventually got all of the socks looking pretty good.

UPDATE: I figured out what went wrong with my iron-on stencils. I thought I was using freezer paper, but I was not. I mindlessly grabbed the paper roll stored next to my freezer paper, which happened to be my Heat-n-Bond No Sew Iron-on appliqué paper! No wonder the plasticy part didn't come off--it wasn't meant to! What's even worse is that I started to do it again and thankfully caught myself and saved that project. *headdesk*

So we hung them up!  I used some of those metal ornament hooks. I just hooked them through the sock fabric and squeezed the end shut. I secured a ribbon to the wall (the ribbon ended up being about 60 inches long) and spaced out my socks as evenly as possible.

 We will use candy canes to mark the days that have passed.  I can't wait to start using it!

That's all for now!

~Regina

Advent Calendar: Part 1

While browsing through projects on Oneprettything.com, I found this adorable baby sock advent calendar and decided that I was going to make it.  Well, something very like it.  We have tons of out-grown baby socks floating around the house, so I decided to put them to a new use.

First, I soaked them in diluted bleach to soften their colors. I rinsed them thoroughly to make sure I got out all of the bleach, then proceeded with the rest of my project.

Yep, I picked up "scarlet" and "kelly green" Rit dyes to try out. I've never dyed fabric before, so this was a fun project.  I decided to try making some stripes by wrapping some of the socks with rubber bands since the socks were kind of boring.

Then I weighed how much dye was in each package and halved it since I was only doing 13 socks in each color. The packages said they could work for 3 pounds of fabric and I didn't even have a pound.

I covered my work area since I didn't really want to dye our rental apartment's counter...

I decided since I wanted very rich colors, I was going to halve the amount of water called for (relative to the amount of dye I was using) and try the boiling dye method.  So I ended up with 1/4 of the amount of water called for (per color) and 1/2 the amount of dye.  Then I added salt into my pots (one of the Tips for Success on the Rit website) to help the color take to the fibers.  Mix it well!

The instructions tell you to dissolve the dye in hot water and mix it well--then pour it into your pots.

Look at that lovely color!  I was doing the green at the same time, I just found that the pictures of the red turned out better.

Pour it into your pot, mix it in, and add your fabric!  (Note: I may be missing a step here, make sure to follow the directions on your dye package!)

Bring your water up to a simmer and keep the fabric moving constantly.  This was a very time-intensive, labor-intensive project.  I was hot and sweaty and very tired of the socks by the time I felt they had soaked long enough.

After about 25 minutes, I pulled out a sock to test it.

Rinse, rinse, rinse!  Start with hot water and slowly work your way down to cooler water--this helps set the dye.  You want to make sure that the water runs clear, that's how you know you're done.

I like the color!

So time to pull out all the others!  I spooned the socks out rather than pouring the full pot of dye out because I wanted to make sure I still had some dye in case some of the socks didn't take the dye as well as others.

The sock laying on top is the one I've already rinsed.  See the color difference between it and the socks that have yet to be rinsed?

I rinsed all the socks together, slowly working down to cold water. Then I pulled the rubber bands off the socks that had them.  These didn't turn out too badly!  They look kind of like soccer socks, but oh well. :)

These however were a no-go.  Awful!  I put them back into the dye to soak some more.  No tie-dye for us!!

Ewww!  The double stripes didn't work either!  Back into the pot with you!!

Finally, I got all of the socks sufficiently dyed and rinsed and took a break!

Off to wash them (in cold water) and dry them for the next part of this project!

Oh, but wait!  A word about my pots...I was really scared to use my non-stick pots for this project and almost didn't.  But my wonderful husband insisted that it would be OK, so I did.  They worked just fine and have no residual dye stuck in them.  I made sure to refill them with very hot water and sprinkle some baking soda into that water and let them soak until cool, just to make sure that all the dye particles were sucked out of them.  Then I just washed them as normal.  It's been several weeks since dying the socks and I haven't given it a moment's thought when using the pots.  No problems at all!

Part two is right here!

~Regina