Make Boot Socks from Old Sweaters (super easy!!)

Recently, a couple of sweaters came in a hand-me-down bag from my cousins.

(Yup!   My cousins.   My youngest cousin is slightly younger than Joshua, so we’ve been lucky enough to get a steady stream of hand-me-downs from them.)

I’d been wanting to give boot socks a try for a while now, and since my girls have a lot of hoodies and sweatshirts already, we decided to put these in the refashioning pile.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Free stuff is my very favorite to refashion, since I’m not out any money if the project is a total flop.

It’s so risk-free.

Anyway!   Boot socks are pretty much entirely for looks, which means they don’t exactly need to have feet on them.

And which also means this version isn’t exactly a pair of real socks.

They’re more like legwarmers that look like socks once you have your boots on and since they can basically just be a long tube that goes from your ankles to your knees, sweater sleeves are perfect.

You’ll presumably want something to cover your feet, so you can just put these right over your regular socks and jeans, or tights.

If you have a wool sweater, you can wash and dry it before you make socks.   That process will make the wool immune to unraveling issues, which is really handy.

These sweaters were acrylic, though, so I just cut off the sleeves.

And then I had my girls put them on, so I could figure out how much more to cut off.   Once we had the length right (a little above the ankle), I did a simple zig-zag stitch around the raw ends.   The other end was the cuff of the sleeve, so it needed no attention.

That’s all you have to do-cut the sleeve off, trim it to the right length, and zig-zag the edges.   If you have a washed and dried wool sweater, you don’t even have to do the zig-zagging!

So that Sonia and Zoe could both have a pair from the pink sweater, I made one set from the sleeves and then I cut and sewed two tubes from the body of the sweater to make another pair, using the sweater hem as one end of the sock.

And since I prefer not-so-colorful clothes, I used the black and grey striped sweater to make socks for me.

I have not-very-curvy calves, which means that when I wear my boots with tights, they’re a little loose at the top.   So, I’m hoping these will help to take care of that problem.

I’ve only worn them with jeans so far, but Zoe sported hers with a pair of tights.   😉

Super easy project + $0 spent = happy me.

And now I’m going to be keeping an eye out for sweaters with sock potential at Goodwill.

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P.S. Food Waste Friday is over at Simply Being Mum today.