I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Years! Ours was very busy, a little stressful, a lot wonderful and filled with cookies, family and twinkle lights. We even took a little impromptu trip to Chi-town for four days. Lets just say that after carting two babies around Chicago four days, right after what was one of the most stressful Christmases in Olson family history, it feels good to be home! We had a wonderful time though, so I’m really glad we took some time, just the four of us. More on that trip later.
On the agenda today (first post of 2012… boom!) is making baby leg warmers! These have been one of my favorite baby accessories. They’re perfect for the winter season we are fast approaching (though don’t seem to quite be able to reach it…) and are just too cute for words. I found them super handing with Sophie last Christmas, and didn’t want to fork over the kind of money they charge for baby leg warmers in the store (seriously, a baby’s leg is less than a foot long, why would I want to pay over five bucks for minuscule piece of knit tubing?) and so… I just made my own.
They’re really easy to make, and you can do them either by hand or with a machine. I used my machine of course, but it would be just as easy too do it by hand, it would just take a little longer. Although sit down with an episode or two of 24 and you could crank those leg warmers out like a pro… just saying.
The first thing you’re going to need is supplies. You’ll need some regular tube socks. I bought mine at Tar-jay because they normally have a buy 2 for $5 deal.
Then you’ll need a scissors that will cut fabric, needle and thread or a sewing machine. That’s it. Of course the ones I picked are shamelessly pink and girly, but they have all kinds of different patterns, and colors of tube socks. I even saw a really cute grey and blue pair, perfect for the self-confident baby boy! Do baby boys wear leg warmers?
To start with cut the foot off the sock so you have the leg of the tube sock separated at from the sock, right above the heel. Then, on the foot, cut the toe off and the heel off, so all your left with is the middle piece between the toe and the heel, like so:
At this point you can scrap the toe and the heel, you won’t be using it. Tip: Try to cut as close to the toe and heel as you can so that your middle piece is nice and big. It’s harder to work with when you only have a little fabric to use.
Once you’ve remove the heel and the toe, take the small piece that is left over and fold it in half so the right side (side you’re going to want everyone to see) is facing out.
If you’re using a sewing machine, don’t worry about finishing the edges or anything. You can if you want but the knit won’t fray or anything so it’s kind of an unnecessary step. Anyway, once you’ve folded it in half, pull it over the end of your tube sock and pin it to the cut edge of your tube so that all unfinished edges are touching and the folded edge is facing up towards the finished edge of the tube sock. I didn’t take a picture of this so I apologize for the confusion. Hopefully the next picture will help explain it a little bit.
Once it’s all pinned, you can either do a simple running stitch with your needle and thread (make sure you don’t get impatient, you’re going to want to make small stitches) or use your sewing machine to stitch it all together.
Okay so maybe this picture doesn’t help at all, but you can kind of see how the large tube is inside of the small one. If you’re still confused… I’m fired.
Once it’s all attached… you’re done. Seriously. Just pull the folded end of the small tube over the sewn part of the sock a voila… you have a baby leg warmer.
Make sure to trim any long threads from where you did your sewing but it’s really that quick and easy. One thing that I’ve learned from having two children, fast projects are golden. I think it took me a grand total of 30 minutes to turn all four sets of tube socks into leg warmers. That’s what we call a big win.
