Thursday, September 8, 2011

Book Review: Sock Craft

A Book You Can Buy From Me

Title: Sock Craft

Author: Helen Roney Sattler

Date: 1972

Publisher: Lothrop Lee & Shepard

ISBN: 0-688-40004-3

Length: 150 pages including index

Illustrations: diagrams on almost every page

Quote: "This book is full of things you can make from socks."

More specifically, this book gives very clear, detailed instructions, with drawings, for using old socks to make eight different kinds of stuffed animals, six kinds of dolls, extra doll clothes, a hobby horse, a jack-in-the-box, a ball, a beanbag, a jumping rope, a bag, four kinds of puppets, headbands, caps, mittens, purses, dog toys, dog sweaters, pincushions, glasses cases, shoe bags, padded coathangers, doorstops, potholders, mats, and several kinds of decorations.

Different sizes, colors, and types of socks are recommended for the different projects. This book contains some suggestions for using up every discarded sock in the house, but the project you want to make may not be ideal for the socks you want to recycle.

Color photographs aren't provided. You know some of these projects will look like kindergarten projects, and some will make satisfactory gifts, but you have to rely on experience and intuition to decide which. Recycled bands cut from sock tops make satisfactory yarn for mats and potholders. Stuffed socks attached to broken broomsticks don't really look like horses, whatever you do. Some of the dolls and puppets will look like old socks, and some won't.

Sheer nylon stockings are recommended primarily for use as stuffing. Opaque nylon tights, which have gone in and out of fashion several times since 1972, would work for some projects; the author doesn't recommend them, probably because she wasn't sure that readers would have any to use up.

Sock Craft is warmly recommended to anyone in search of cheap craft materials and instant-gratification recycling projects.

(To buy it here, scroll down until you see a Paypal button.}










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