by gr8typist

Peeps (Not the kind you eat)

Peeps

Boat Sock with Peep Lace Project

 

I work in a cube farm.  There is no dress code that I’m aware of, although it seems for the most part to be dress casual.  For me, I feel most professional, and comfortable, in slacks, reasonable heels, and a nice shirt.

Being no fashionista, little things throw me, like what to wear on my feet with my shoes.  Summer is easy when you’re wearing nice open shoes that don’t require socks or stockings.  Wintertime has always been a mystery to me.  “Socks, Stupid.  You wear socks,” would seem to be the obvious answer, but again, being no fashionista, sometimes socks with heels just doesn’t look right, and I don’t like bare feet in closed shoes.  If anyone thinks for one second that I might consider wearing hose or tights — oh, good lord no.  Just wrap me in rubber bands.  Several years ago I discovered trouser socks, which I really liked.  My husband, however, really didn’t, nor did my toenails, which regularly shreds anything hose-like.  There is also, of course, the footie, but I’m not 98 years old and I think footies look positively orthopedic.

I’m a new fan of Pinterest and have many projects pinned. I also get the proverbial bee in my bonnet.  A couple of days ago I ran across this single picture that went nowhere.  Absolutely no link whatsoever to where you might buy these adorable “boat” socks with the lace peep.  The solution to my winter shoe dilemma was before me and I couldn’t find them anywhere.  I want THESE.

Operating under the “If you can’t find it, make it” rule of life, brought me to today’s bee in the bonnet.

I did a lot of searching and I found a tutorial with a pattern for making your own standard lace boat socks.  Unfortunately after cutting out the first pair, it was obvious the pattern, although sized for women’s 8-9 US, was much, much too small.  Even with 20% stretch lace, there was no way this pattern was going to fit my size 7-1/2  (US) foot.  I also noticed that the shape was far too square for my liking and created corners that I thought would bunch up under my foot.  I’m certainly no princess, but I was having visions of rocks in my shoes.  With some scaling and redesign, I came up with my own PeepsPattern that I’m sharing here.

So here’s how you do it.

Download the pattern above, and buy your materials.  You’ll need some stretch lace, that has at least 20% stretch one way.  It needs to have a fairly distinct pattern to it so that your sewing machine will have something to grab on to.
You’ll need some decorative 1-1/2” lace edging for the peep, cut in 6″ segments for each sock.  You’ll also need 14″ of lightweight elastic, or lingerie elastic, for each sock.  I used 1/4″ width.  Some every day gift wrapping tissue paper would be very helpful too.
Cut two squares of fabric, 9”x9”.  Fold in half with the stretch going lengthwise.  Pin your pattern to the fabric, matching the fold.  Cut two of these pieces.
With the fabric pieces still folded, sew the heel and toe seams close to the edge using a zigzag stitch.  I used a 2.5 stitch length and here’s where the tissue comes in — my machine wanted to eat the very thin fabric, so reinforce it with some tissue to help it feed through properly as you sew.  The tissue will come right off after you’re done, but will leave some bits in the stitching.  Don’t worry about those bits, they’ll come out in the first wash.
 Whoops!  A picture is coming! Mark the center of your 14” piece of elastic.  Turn the footie right side out, start your elastic at the heel and pin the center mark at the toe seam on the right side (outside) of the footie.  Zigzag the elastic on, stretching the elastic, but not the fabric, as needed so that the elastic fits around the entire footie.  You may need to do a quick seam at the heel where the elastic ends meet, just to finish it off and make it neat.  Don’t worry about your thread showing on your elastic, because if your thread color matches, it won’t show.
Pin right side of lace edging to wrong side of center front, matching centers.  What you want to do is pin the bottom of the lace edging to the center seam and elastic, and then the slide the edging down into the footie so that by the time you get to each end, you’re pinning the top edge to the elastic.  That way your peep has a nice rounded effect to it.
Sew the lace edging on from the outside.  Sew along the elastic, then trim corners of lace off inside.  You’ll have to see the pics on this one, I don’t know how else to describe it.  (I’ll get a better picture for this step.)

Wash and you’re done!

Adjust the pattern for your foot size, and to raise or lower the location of the peep on your foot.  Don’t forget to adjust the elastic as well as you make changes.  Have fun!

Props to my hubby who helped redraw my crude hand drawn pattern using Adobe Illustrator (I’m a Corel person, I don’t have a clue howto work Illustrator).  He helped critique, and is absolutely mortified I resorted to using HTML tables to organize the instructions.  Sorry Sweetie, it’s been too long.

And next time I’ll let him take the pictures.

8 Comments

  2. This was so clever Milady. I am not crafty with a needle and thread or sewing machine but I have a mother in law who is awesome at sewing and coming up with new ideas and making her own patterns. I think she would love to make hersefl some of these and some for me too if I am lucky. These are very cute.

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    1. Thanks, Paula! Marty is unhappy with my pictures, so I may be updating the blog with new pictures soon, but otherwise, I’m very happy with my project and I’ll be making quite a few of these.

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  3. Wow, Milady – how cute! And what an awesome tutorial too! Congrats on the new blog – you do have something to say, indeed! My blogs have been high on my Things To Do List every year since 2005. Maybe this year I’ll finally be able to check it off as “done” LOL.

    I feel your pain with finding only a pic of something on Pinterest, with no identifying link – been there, done that. But this time your fruitless search and frustration turned out to be a good thing – for you and the rest of us!

    I think these socks would make a great gift – and how special to know that they were handmade! I have a few questions for you in that regard:

    1. Did you preshrink the fabric and lace? If not, have you noticed any shrinkage after washing? And speaking of washing, how exactly are you washing them?

    2. Not everyone is going to wear your shoe size. Can you offer any tips on how you came up with the shape and exact length of your pattern, so we could use that as a guide to adjust it for different sizes? I’ve already got four people in mind (including me), and while two would be your size, another one is smaller, and mine would be larger. Hats off to MartMan for the graphics work!

    I think you should encourage people who make their own to post pics to your site (and any new patterns that might come along in the process).

    Kudos again – they’re absolutely beautiful. And what a perfect alternative solution to trouser socks or old lady peds!

    ~Karen 🙂

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    1. Thanks, Karen! I did not preshrink the fabric because I used a polyester lace. If there’s any cotton in your fabric, preshrinking is always a good idea. I did include a line in the center of the pattern that is a good spot to size the pattern for your own needs. I think my pattern would do well for sizes 7-8, maybe 8-1/2,depending on how stretchy your lace is. It may start getting too big at 7. Just fold the pattern over a bit at the center line to shrink it, or cut it and add a spacer to enlarge; be sure to adjust your elastic as well if you adjust the pattern. I’d love to see pics once you’ve made a pair or two! Share, girl!

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      1. Ah, great idea, Milady, to just fold or expand the pattern from the center to get the correct size – just like with any pattern … DUH! 🙂 I was envisioning that a whole new pattern might need to be drawn in order to make the entire thing bigger or smaller, but it makes sense that the only thing you really need to be concerned with is the length, unless you’re making it for someone with an unusually narrow or wide/plump foot. Thanks for the additional info. I promise to post pics after I make mine! Meanwhile, I think I’m tempted to go on a hunt for more cute Pinterest pics that don’t have any identifying links and send them to you (knowing it will drive you crazy, after all!), just to see what else your creative brain can come up with! [g]

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