New life for felted socks - suggestions please!

I'm decluttering my house! Well I've started anyhow....

We have a pair of what were lovely long woolen boot socks that have felted, they must have been washed incorrectly in the machine. The way they have felted makes me 100% sure these are pure wool. The material is lovely and soft, but there is no way they will make socks again. I’m contemplating cutting the foot off and seeing if that fits me as a slipper, or ankle sock (I suspect it will be too tight). The leg is a softwhite tube that fits on my wrist nicely, but not my leg. So I’m looking for suggestions for what to do with this pair before I get the scissors out.

Thanks!

It seems a shame to cut those. I believe that sometimes wool can be soaked and stretched? Maybe the ankle and foot portion can be reused as warm socks.

I have some socks like that, I cut the foot off, hemmed it, put a hole in it (hemmed it) for my thumbs and I have lovely wrist warmers :D

Other thing might be to put them in shoes as warm bottom liners.

Do women still use hand muffs, hand mufflers, to keep their hands warm? This might be an option. Of course you can't use your smartphone at the same time, which may be a drawback. EDIT: Or a feature?

If you stop thinking of them as socks, and think of good uses for felted wool, the options expand. I used sections of old woollen socks to cover the thumb to finger area of my oven mitts to make them more heat resistant. In a house I owned, I used felted wool as insulation in some spots that needed it.

If you cut open each upper sock area, how big a square would it make? (an estimate is all I'm looking for)

If you decide to make them into mitts (fingerless mittens), you can also use the foot part as a soap-sock, for bars of soap. They're great for both body and facial bars, and if they're too scratchy for your face, you can stuff them with a solids dish washing bar, like lye. Felted wool is perfect for this, because it holds up well, dries fast and let's the bars get dry, instead of going mushy. With a drawstring added, you can even hang them from the faucet, giving more room around the sink/shower/tub edges, and promoting even faster drying.

Another option is to find someone with a child they'd fit.

Nancy Reading wrote:  "We have a pair of what were lovely long woolen boot socks that have felted," . . .  "The leg is a softwhite tube that fits on my wrist nicely, but not my leg. So I’m looking for suggestions" . . .  

 

I like the wrist-warmer idea.  To make wrist-warmers more beuatiful, I have gathered my selection of unmatched single socks and:

*  cut them into short tube sections, avoiding stains and holes.  

*  mixed and matched them for looks, for two long matching wrist-warmers

*  sewed zig-zag stitches over the cut edges,  

*  sewed them together with 0.5 in. seams, .  

I intended the seams to be hidden on the inside, but my partner adopted them and likes the ruffles they make when warn on the outside.  I have offerred to make a thumb-hole, but that isn't what they want.  Now they consider those wrist-warmers one of my gifts to them, and consider them daily winter wear at the keyboard, and too special to mess with.  I always keep a clear bag of unmatched socks at the back of my sock drawer, and review it occassionally.  Ever since then I watch over my single-sock collection to see what wrist-warmers are gestating there.  I haven't been losing many lately.  Time to get more warm socks.  It will be years before I have enough orphans to make interesting new wrist-warmers.  It is probably time to see if I have held onto shrunk sweaters.  Sweater sleeves will work.      

Thanks for all the good ideas. Unfortunately the pairs that I thought were good are also slightly felted. Not enough to stop them being socks, but instead of fitting my husband's feet, they now fit my feet nicely, but I can't pull them up over my (muscular) calfs, they have lost their elasticity.. So I'm planning to cut those down to ankle socks, giving me more lengths of slightly less felted wool to use.
Question - how would you finish the edge of the new cut down sock? I'm thinking a normal folded hem would be a bit bulky.

I hadn't thought of use wrist warmers, but thanks for the suggestion Antigone and Pearl. I can imagine that brightly coloured socks would be quite pretty. They may come in handy when sitting at a keyboard - I do find my fingers get cold sometimes. Maybe normal socks that have worn out at the heel and toe would be better for that though? These are a bit stiff, particularly the fully felted pair.

Oven mitt linings, is a good possibility thanks Jay. Boot linings are also a good idea - maybe for the foot section which would be less useful as a flat piece.

Douglas - the fully felted pair are a bit small for a muff for me. They would probably do a child though. I find muff and mittens keep hands warmer than gloves. because you have more warm flesh inside rather than just a finger.

I've annotated the picture with the dimensions (in inches) of the socks as they are - so the really felted socks give me 2 off 14 1/2 by 6 inches thick felt, and the two pairs of slightly felted socks give me 4 off 9 x 10 inches of material.

While I was browsing I found this thread about making boots from scraps of fabric. I wonder whether I've got enough felt for a pair of boots? Now that would be pretty awesome!

(edit - oops forgot picture with dimensions!)

Maybe this is a man thing, but all the socks look quite useable to me.    I think my standard is that if the hole is small enough that I can’t get my fist through it, it is still good.

John F Dean wrote:Maybe this is a man thing, but all the socks look quite useable to me.    I think my standard is that if the hole is small enough that I can’t get my fist through it, it is still good.

Oh yes - they still look like socks - only the one hole that needs to be there! The trouble is that they have lost their 'stretch' so they are really hard to get on. They are also shrunk. I suspect they were all my husbands originally, and th  really felted one even I can't get on over my foot now!

Nancy Reading wrote:Question - how would you finish the edge of the new cut down sock?

Do they need to be finished at all? If they're fully felted, they're not going to unravel like a knitted or woven fabric.

OMG, I need to expand my standards!   Note to self:  Hole must be small enough that I can’t get my fist through, AND sock must fit on foot.

I want to thank those who reacted here too. I read this thread to find good ideas on what to do with felted wool clothes in general.
I have a sort-of collection of wool sweaters, all bought at a thrift store, that I felted on purpose. I wanted to have that really nice sturdy felt. Back then I wanted to make it into an artwork. I did. And then there was a lot of felt left....

I made a cosy to keep a bottle of cool water cool. I use it too for an insulated coffee flask that is not so well insulated. There's still a lot of felt left!
So: more ideas are welcome. Also for larger pieces of felt.

Hi, Inge! Since this thread is rather specifically about socks, I've begun another one to collect ideas for pretty much any accidentally - or even accidentally on purpose shrunken & fulled/felted wool: https://permies.com/t/238666/accidentally-accidentally-felted-wool-items

I just thought of something else to use the tubes for - in a double layer(one sock top inside the other), you could use them as a hot handle grip, to slide over the end of your pot handle.

This is a totally different idea but I have seen birdhouses out of felt. They are actually knitted, then felted. I believe you could cut the socks and re-sew them into a globe with the hole in the front.
I bought one of these felt birdhouses last year, hung it on a tree, and a little wren made its nest in it!
There is a slit in the bottom for clean-out.

I've seen several different videos using a variation of this theme, making socks from old jumpers.  I think both pairs of felted socks could probably be combined to make one new, thick pair by cutting them open from cuff to toe, right up the back (so the heel would be split in half vertically).  Then cutting up using one pair of socks for the two top pieces, and the other pair of socks for the two bottom pieces.

The lady in the videos used a serger but I'm sure a zigzag on a normal sewing machine is just fine, or even sewn by hand with a whip stitch or blanket stitch.  

John F Dean wrote:Maybe this is a man thing, but all the socks look quite useable to me.    I think my standard is that if the hole is small enough that I can’t get my fist through it, it is still good.

Aside: I'm an artiste when it comes to aligning the holes on good wool socks to prevent cold spots. Glad I'm not the only one!

Nancy Reading wrote:
We have a pair of what were lovely long woolen boot socks that have felted, they must have been washed incorrectly in the machine. The way they have felted makes me 100% sure these are pure wool. The material is lovely and soft, but there is no way they will make socks again.
Thanks!

Okay, responding again, with a manly-man low-tech notion: why not stuff a plastic bag down into the full depths of the sock, fill it with water, tie or clamp it off at the top (very firmly, so the pressure doesn't escape) and toss it in the freezer? It will expand roughly 10%. Hello socks, welcome back!

Or using my method from my backpacking days ….  Place wet wool sock on foot and waits for it to dry.  Or, maybe they are simply too small…even when wet.