This week I have been experimenting with different samples that can be made using socks. I have been dying socks, painting on them, stitching into them, using them in stitch designs and so on. The samples are not yet finished, but as soon as they are I'll pop some photos on here. I wanted to make the socks look broken down as well, as all the socks hoarded by the sock puppeteer are old used socks.
It was then I had a genious plan, our house is filled with many many odd socks, which my mum has generously agreed to donate to my worthy cause. She also agreed to give me any socks of my brothers that looked like they had a life of their own, ie hole filled and caked in mud as he plays a lot of sport. All I had to do was replace them with a crisp, clean new pair that werent completely thread-bare! Everybody wins.
Obviously I can do this for all the socks, but by the sound of the designs, there are going to be A LOT of socks used and so this is a way of saving time and money. I dyed a load of socks the other day and am really pleased with how they have turned out. I used blue, red and yellow dyes and used them singley and also to make green, brown and purple. The yellow was disappointing, it worked and dyed the socks but the other colours overpowered it, making the green fairly weak and the brown didnt work at all, it just turned purple. But I now know that i need a much stronger concentrate of the yellow dye, with a lower addition of the blue and red to make the sock turn out better. Because the blue ink was stronger than the other colours I used, it has given some of the socks an inky look, like when the dye from the insed of your shoe turns your sock blue. The socks do look very broken down and in some cases I used a couple of different colour on one sock and I like the way they turned out.
The next thing I wanted to try on the socks, was putting puff paint on the dyed socks. I wanted to make them look mouldy and gross. To do this I strategically painted on puff paint to different areas of the socks, and on some I mixed the puff paint with shades of green, and with others sponged white and green tones on top of the dried puff paint. These samples arent finished yet but I am hopeful that it will create a good finish.
