Niqkita's Sock Journal

A fresh batch of “men’s socks” were recently added and includes skulls, stars & checkers. Our official men’s sock tester Bsti was issued a pair of the skulls & a pair of the checkers while I kept the stars to get a girls perspective on these male motivated styles. They have a larger size range than “women’s socks” and fit Bsti’s men’s shoe size 10ish feet perfectly. While the heel came up my ankle a bit I was able to get them nicely adjusted on my girly 9ish feet so that I barely noticed….

(shown above with the K. Bell leggings/footless tights).
Not too thin, quite comfy, black toe seams and they stayed up well.
Plus, the stars & checkers are made in the US!

our long dreamed about shirts were finally a reality.
Because we currently have limited space and funds we kept it simple.
After reviewing our list of sock-fiend related phrases we decided on
Sock Addict & Sockaholic
Short sleeves & long sleeves, one color of each in 4 sizes.
I’m not a fan of white shirts and we almost went with all black, but Brigid suggested livening it up with purple since it is kind of our color and I agreed, so we did the short sleeves in purple and the long sleeves in black. We chose a local silk screener who does really nice work and used an image that has long represented our Dream Stockings (previously known as M Stockings), been on our business cards, in magazine ads

and even on the front page of the original site (which, BTW, is not likely to ever be updated and will actually be set to redirect to the current site one of these days).
The effect of the silk screening gives it new life with more vibrant shades & a nearly 3D appearance.
The short sleeves are American Apparel
the long sleeves are Bella (and those sleeves are nice and long~:)
I found the mediums fit best but modeled all the sizes to show the variations, except for the XL long sleeves which our very own Shelleopard was lucky enough to be here to model for us. She also got to help Bridig fold them all last weekend (that’s right, come visit a workaholic and you too will be put to work ~;)
We’ll do more in the future, not sure how soon, but we plan to use more unique designs on different styles & colors, probably in limited runs…

Or a Sock Addict?

Prefer purple?

more about the t-shirts tomorrow…

more about the arm warmers after his weekend…

For the past few months suppliers have been offering up an increasing assortment of footless tights, leggings & capris saying they are all the rage on the runways this year, the current “must have”. I’ve always loved leggings, they can be slimming and allow you to wear all kinds of things without pants, so I’ve been looking forward to testing them as they arrive…

These nylon/spandex footless tights are the first I’ve selected from K. Bell, there will be some cool patterns coming later from them. These are semi opaque, nearly sheer, a bit shiny, soft (silky even), so comfy! They come out of the package looking positively tiny but had such fabulous stretch I think they will even fit some of my larger friends. The waistband is flat and looks the same on the inside as it does on the outside. The bottoms ended high on my ankles, but didn’t ride up to my knees…

I only ordered them in black for now, white and pink may be an option in the future…

lily will be 3 in may, and she is tall for her age, as a result her feet are a little on the big side of average – she currently wears a toddler size 8 1/2 shoe. The toddler toes fit her really well right now, and since they are a tube style, it looks like there is enough “wiggle room” that she will be able to easily wear them into a toddler size 10 shoe.
A few things I have observed that I like about them – they don’t make her feet sweat, the tops don’t leave elastic indentions on her legs (this is actually a common problem i’ve found with toddler socks), they go on pretty easily and her toes stay put in the little toe pockets.
Lily’s observations are that they are “cute” and she “lubbs them” ;)

In my quest to find the perfect sock, I have gotten really close with the Flat Knit Cotton OTK by Hot Sox. They’re soft and slightly fuzzy, not too thick, not to thin, they’re comfy as can be and they fit me like a dream! They remind me of cozy flannel sheets.

Shown here in two of my favorite colours: black and grey. :) One of the unique things I love about these Flat Knit Cotton OTK is the toe seam sits farther back than most toe seams do. It sits about where my toes start out from my foot. This cuts down on blisters which will make my feet happier. They have formed heels which land perfectly on my heels. They have such great stretch that I think they’ll fit larger sized feet wonderfully too. They also have good recovery {from stretching} which allows for knee bending without them being pulled down or leaving a pucker in the knee after kneeling.

The most amazing thing I love about these Flat Knit Cotton OTK is that they stay up ALL THE TIME. Once they settle after a good knee bending, they’re set and they’ll stay put. They don’t require any attention all day, yet I keep finding myself gazing lovingly at them, I’m so happy to have a near perfect sock. The cuff is thick enough that it doesn’t roll into a doughnut, it stays flat, the way a cuff should. They are the perfect OTK height. Wonderfull! They do appear a little thin, mostly showing a little skin at the knees when bent, but they’re very durable. I think they’re the perfect springtime OTK sock. They come in four colours and they also come in knee highs. The only thing that would make them perfect is if they made my legs look like Demi Moore’s. ;)

I wore these new on a first date. Wonderfully enough, their biggest flaw became their biggest draw that particular night.

You see, These come undone…

Constantly.

The ballerina thigh highs by ‘Chinese Laundry’ are supposed to criss-cross gracefully up your legs like the ribbon ties on pointe shoes. When they are tied up they look great, that is until you take a step or two… Then they come cascading down your legs, tangle about at your ankles, untie and unravel until you are stepping or tripping on them. So why were they such a big draw that night? Well… It’s really pretty nice (read as cute/sexy/chivalrous) when the guy you’re crushing on keeps bending down on his knees to tie up your ribbons. He wrapped them around my ankles several times (in hopes that they’d stay there better than they did up my legs).They did stay a little better at my ankles, but not consistantly… as I still got to have my date tend to them a few more times that evening. It really was fun and flirty, though a bit dangerous in the trip possibility department when they were undone.

The first thing I noticed about these is that the feet fit my 11’s beautifully.. yeppers, you heard me right… Me.. ‘miss nothing fits my larger feet’, got sockies that fit! They slid on my feet quite happily with no pulling, tugging, or toe curling, and the heels stayed right in the perfect place all the time! They were in no way “thigh high” on me… As a matter of fact I couldn’t really even enjoy them as true OTK’s… But they comfortably came to about the center top of my knee and stayed devotedly there. I could pull and tug them up just over my knee but they weren’t comfy pulled like that and would not stay without a strong garter (though I am determined to try a few wet stretches on the length of these to get them to stay over better). They do have a sturdy top portion, so there was some slight “denting” when I pulled them up to the more voluptuous bits over my knees. The other not so great thing that I noticed was the slight shine these have from their elastic. I really prefer a more matte look in my socks, as I feel the shine accentuates my larger curves and I rather that be played down. BUT… Honestly… I adore these despite that and the fact that they are just tall knee highs on me. These are actually awesome socks, the manufacturer just didn’t fully think through the functionality of the ribbon design. But I’m sure there are so many creative ways that you guys made these work for you. (I’d love to hear about them).

For me, the biggest affection I have for these sockies is in the feet. I JUST LOVE THE FEET IN THESE SOCKS… They feel and fit so good! I like the writing on the bottom of the feet too… I have no idea why I like it.. it just looks cute and sort of curves in the sway of my arch. (Since I was showing the bottom of my foot, Vel decided to show his bottom too).

Vel really had fun with these tonight. The ribbons were like little doggy toys attached to socks… What a brilliant idea! tee hee. I let him play to his hearts content as I knew the ribbons would need to be altered (to let me enjoy my lovely well fitting footed sockies without falling on my face). Can’t always have a knight in shining armor around to tie up our ribbons now can we.

(or can we?????).

When Vel finished playing, I cut the ribbons down to about 10″ in length. This left me lots of ribbon pieces to play with, tie around my thigh, wrists, on Vel, etc. And this left just enough ribbon on the sock to tie a pretty bow on the back of each ankle (which looks adorable hanging over my low top cons). I LOVE them this way. No more tripping and lots of cuteness.

Cutting the ribbons on these really let them shine as the great socks they are.

Yay for pretty pink shorter ribbons…
Yay for socks that fit my feet…
Oh.. Just YAY!!! :O)

I picked up some pixie tangerines for the tangerine tube pictures…
the pixies are lighter & brighter and our tubes are snugly & warmer.
Despite their differences a google image search confirms a large variety in shades of tangerines and a quick search on Sock Dreams reveals a large variety of tube styles, not to mention lots of colors of nice long, thick tube socks.
We’ve got them in basic shades and pastels, with stripes and Dreamy stripes. All but the natural now have images, and those will be added soon.
Some colors are more snug than others and we need to determine if it is color specific or if it is a batch by batch variation because it sure would be nice to know if some shades will fit more generously batch after batch. Until we can verify (and that could take longer than it sounds) I continue to suggest these for 19/20 inches around and smaller thought they could surely be broken in or wet stretched to fit larger…