Niqkita's Sock Journal

This pretty new Marabou anklet arrived shortly after a gorgeous bouquet of French Parrot Tulips for Daffodil. The huge blooms hung heavily over their vase on the ledge between or desks begging to be photographed. A day or so later their bright yellow pollen began tumbling down and irritating my assistant’s touchy sinuses so I carried them out to a bright spot in the yard and realized it was a perfect setting for the new marabous we sort-of-accidentally got to be shot.
Liz has been cleaning up the text on the site, correcting my punctuation and grammer when time allows. Not here in the journal obviously ~;) anyways, she made a suggestion that at least a few others have: feature socks that are good for spring/summer weather. Back before the site got all fancy I simply rotated the ankets and bootie socks to the top of the main socks page and rearranged each section to show the lightest first. Now the main sock section lists styles alphabetically so anklets & bootie socks are always on top. But for technical coding reasons that are beyond me we can’t currently arrange the socks within the sections perfectly (this is on a list to fix). What we can do is add it to the quick search list. My questions for you all are: what do we call them in the list? cool socks? lightweight? summer? and, of course, which socks do we put there? And finally, are socks for hot weather (Southern California, Arizona, Texas, ect.) an entirely different quick search listing?

Last year we ran out of our fav pedicoats from Leg Avenue and no matter how many I ordered they never sent any. Til now, though they’ve renamed them Layered Tulle Petticoat Not only have we restocked the best selling black, they sent the pink as it originally was, a nice, pretty, light pink . The neon they had replaced it with is listed as an option so maybe we’ll get them again too. Plus, they added a pretty light blue and a true bright red which we’ve stocked as well.
I’ve been adding images for days, lots of new stuff, new colors for stuff we already had and new images for stuff we’ve had for ages. Janey has been a great help in this area since she works with a few models including some who are plus sized. Soon Liz will be contributing images for the Dream Stockings as she is taking over responsibility for the ordering and management of that section. Much as I didn’t want to give it up after Alicia left us I just don’t have enough time to give it the attention it deserves.
The stockings above are the third and newest striped nylon stocking from Foot Traffic, black & grey, it’s a warm grey though, nearly brown. They also added a pin striped version and soon we’ll be adding both in leggings!

I adore fishnets but am kinda picky about the amount of cling factor. For years I’d only purchased fishnets from dance wear manufacturers (I like the resilient materials they use and the super elasticity of them). The problem I find with some “regular” maker nets is that there just isn’t enough return stretch and there end up being spaces where the nets don’t cling (like behind the ankles and knees). I am pleased to say that the Stay up Fishnets with Woven Satin Ribbons have just enough cling to hug every curve and stay there, and yet not so much of a tight grip that your legs look like a ham when you take them off (thanks to Babylon for that comparison… it was you right?). Though I must mention that the stay up top band is quite snug (but not painful) on larger leggies, and there may be a little thigh denty thingy. They stayed up great, and only had a small amount of top roll down every once in a while.

The shiny wide satin ribbon threads through pretty circle cut outs near the top of the stocking… and the ribbons are long enough to decadently trail down your leg in a loose bow.

I love these on bare legs, and adored them with my Dark Red & Fuchsia Mstripes as well. The look that ended up being my fav was with the Mstripes and Nets sort of lazily bunched over the knee, ribbon hanging down a bit too loose and sloppy …  though really pretty in a “I’m a mess but still cute as heck” sort of way, and I just looooove things that can do that.

We got some lovely unisex/men’s socks from Ozone when we restocked this week. They will join a rather large array of tempting new styles we’re working on adding. Sock sales are starting their slow descent into summer so we’re going to be working hard on catching up on and conquering many more dreams before the fall rush overwhelms our days once again. Among other things we are very close to choosing the next location for our warehouse, if we get the one I want it is going to be exciting beyond words, if we get one of the other ones I love it will be pretty cool. Either way we are making our selection with our future storefront in mind and our growing sock dreams at heart. Til then I’m going to keep editing and ordering and supervising the order fulfillment and advising Dan on our website upgrades and working with Olivia on design ideas and loving all of you for making all of this possible.

Also high on my original list of socks I dreamed of selling: hemp socks…
The 2 Brothers Hemp Crew is our third, and quite possibly my favorite hemp sock yet; like the other organics it also comes in two sizes. The EG Smith version was nice, but has not been available to us since last year.
Hemp is known for being easy to grow without the help of fertilizers and insecticides and the fiber is perfect for all kinds of things from paper to clothing and much much more. Unfortunately hemp has a bad reputation from a shady past and we’re not allowed to grow it here in the USA, not even for its fiber or pulp that could save forests full of trees. Hopefully that will change someday, but for now the hemp yarn is imported and mixed with cotton to make a soft absorbent sock that will keep your feet cooler than cotton alone. I thought I had more to say about this, but now I don’t remember what it was ~;)
We’ll be adding even more organic styles in the months to come!

With these we see the biggest fault I’ve found in the new organics, they run a bit small. The quarter crew above looks like a child’s sock all wrapped in its 100% recycled package. Surely they must stretch a lot I thought as I unwrapped them. Sure enough they stretched right onto my size 8.5 feet & sure enough it wasn’t long til they were half-way off my feet. I think they’ll be great for petite feet, kids maybe? And then there were these:

Meant to be a men’s sock, they fit so well and looked so great I could barely hand them over to be tested by my fav men’s sock tester. They did fit him, just not as well as they fit me and I’ve yet to take pictures of them on him so I’ve not yet added them to the men’s section. For some reason people are sometimes weird about buying socks for men that are shown on a woman. These are an ultimate boyfriends sock if ever there was one! They have a terry looping on the insides of the feet and I feared that would make my Mary Jane’s too snug, but the gentle padding actually made them more comfortable, now I just need to prove that men can actually wear them too ~;)

Organic socks were one of the ideas I put on my very first list of socks I wanted to sell. But getting them wasn’t as easy as it seemed since not many companies sold them back then and I was a new unknown with a funny business name. Every so often I looked into it and would give up each time I didn’t find a new lead. But, recently one of our main reps showed me a new line they’d taken on: organic US grown & made cotton socks! So I picked out a few to start with, if they’re popular we’ll get more. They come in both men’s & women’s sizes so we’ve been testing them out the past couple of weeks (of course you don’t have to be a guy to wear the larger size).
These are called Organic Dress socks, but we thought they made great casual socks too. Besides wearing them to work & around the house we wore them for walks & playing at the park with Lola and, of course, I gave them a good sleeping test too, they stayed on all night and didn’t over heat my feet. Of the four I’ll be showing you this week these are my fav’s for their variety (four colors in two sizes) and their flexibility (scrunch em, cuff em, wear em tall, well, to the tops of your calves anyway).

O Yummies by nature require tasty names. It just has to be.
And these blueberries take me back to fields of tasty berries, nearly as purple as they are blue, or are they nearly as blue as they are purple? depends on the lighting, and the angle, and the mood. This was definitely a pair I had to have for myself and see myself grabbing from the pile for years to come. Which pile? yes, I have many, here and there and everywhere. In boxes and drawers and special shelves. I organize them and arrange them by season and whim. At least three have my favorite comfies, at least three have my favorite dress ups, at least three have those I’ll rarely wear. These will be in with my comfy fav’s but might get grabbed when I’m dressing up too because they make a lovely stocking for a day by the water or a night out exploring after dark, sneaking around in the shadows, even if those shadows are just in my dreams like they are tonight. It’s good to have new O Yummies to dream in!!!

These are so pretty that I’m willing to overlook that they are a wee bit tight at the top, but I suppose if they weren’t they would fall down. So just ignore my thigh bulge at the back there lol. Unlike the band the net part of the Lycra Industrial Net Stockings with Lurex Ruffle Top the fishnet is super-duper stretchy.

*close up of the ruffley goodness*

They’re not exactly “sandal toe” but I’m sure you could probably rearrange them a little so they would look a litlle better than me just leaving them the way they are… or wear boots ;) lol