Niqkita's Sock Journal

EG Smith is one of our original suppliers and still among my personal favorites…
so when I was told Eric was creating a “green line” I was ecstatic. I thought it would just be a handful of environmentally friendly styles like our beloved Two Brothers Organics. Instead it is 40+ items! So I’ve been ordering them in small batches to get us started, beginning with the ones I found most appealing…

These Slinky Knees were most certainly the first one I wanted to try…

But first, just what was recycled and where did it come from?
I asked our rep Frank and he spoke with the resident yarn expert for the company in charge of EG Smith and it turns out that our recycled yarns are actually regenerated yarns. The mill takes the scraps from cotton jersey manufacturers such as HANES, and breaks them down, reweaves them and produces new product, it is recycling waste, but it comes from products never worn and cleans up the end result of “scraps” which in the old days would have made the rag bag or the dump. Also on the information highway, the uncertified cotton they are using as blends in the ECO socks comes from Poland and China and is reported to be Organic (they are working on Certification), which gives us an even better Green Product. They are also starting to blend in ECOFIL yarns (plastic water bottles recycled into polyester fill yarns). So they are recycled, regenerated, and still PURE enough to satisfy even the most ardent organic mavens.
So there you have it, the official explanation of the origins of our lovely new socks. More of these will be added this week, and over the coming weeks and months…
They are all pretty awesome!

Made in the USA, to our specifications…

Traditionally a men’s sock garter, we think they are equally practical for girls…

downright sexy on ladies…

…and just plain fun!

They haven’t been the easiest item to find…
at long last we have secured a source for classic sock garters!
with stripes & without stripes
Thanks to my determined crew we’ve received, tested, photographed & labeled a slew of these for you and will be adding variations in the future (more colors and hardware options including clips and faux-leather!!!).

We even made one a few inches longer in case you have extra large calves or want to wear them at your thighs…

Lots more Dreamy news to come!

This isn’t even all of it…

We have among our latest arrivals being tested & shot this week:
E.G. Smith Eco line of Green Socks
…made of recycled & organic yarns
Strange Monster Arm Cozies
…snug and oh-so-lovely!
K. Bell’s Soft & Dreamy socks
…with a name like that we better be selling them!
but do they live up to it? yeah, they’re pretty scrumptious.
These will start showing up on the site Monday…

and what you don’t see above are…
Classic Men’s Sock Garters

and an in-store exclusive of Betsey Johnson:

Don’t worry though, we’ll definitely offer our favorites online soon too!
But in store exclusives aren’t a bad idea either…

It isn’t often I manage to fulfill a special request in little more than a week.
So these dragons must be part magic because it happened this time, with one small fault: the actual request was for knee high dragons and these are merely crew socks, high on the ankles but not quite to the knees. In their defense, they come in two sizes, “men’s” and “women’s” …I found them to be so very stretchy & soft that I think they will be very accommodating to your feet of all sizes, though they may be loose on smaller feets below women’s size 7.5. We put them on and trekked through our favorite forest of bamboo safely and silently with our little herd of new dragons following our every step.

…maybe someday we will have a magic sock machine that we can create anything we want on, including dragon knee highs.

The choreographer/director of the dance video in the last post sent me this still image this weekend. I love that they are all wearing our striped Dream Stockings!
I don’t get a chance to post every worthy picture people send us.
…but some are just so charming I can’t resist.

Now, to start our week…
two nice letters I found in feedback this morning:

Message:
I just received a variety of your socks/thigh highs from my hubby. I love the socks & your site and have added you to my bookmarks. I sense an addiction brewing ;)

Sincerely,
Rachel

Message:
Just found your site… where have I been. Thank goodness there are others who share my passion for socks. My faves are stripy ones - there used to be a store here in my town called Socks Appeal, but they have long since closed down, so I was left to scour the shelves during Halloween mostly to try to find some comforting socks… I had almost given up hope. Thank you again - soon to be a very loyal customer! :)

Malena

and an odd one…

where can I get info on mens floppy socks

thank you

Brian

Can anyone tell me what “men’s floppy socks” are exactly?

11/28/07 update, loose socks was what he sought.

You might’ve noticed that we’ve added a bunch of new socks from Sock It To Me in the past week, including the new SITM men’s socks. We now have nearly everything she offers except some of the patterns which we’re sure to bring in this winter to help brighten those long dreary days we’ll be having. Everyone who was here on picture day last week was more than happy to get a new pair to try (and for many, including the Great Amanda above, it was not their first pair). So how do we really feel about Sock It To Me? Here’s some of the buzz around Sock Dreams about them:
“Some of the cutest/funkiest socks around”
“One of the consistently most satisfying socks”
“The super heroes fit perfect, but the Maroon tri-stripe are kinda snug”
“Super fun and super cute”
“Really stretchy, comfy on little feet and they stay up forever”
“One of my favorites”
“Vivid, perfect knee highs that don’t shrink down to half size in the dryer”

By request…
Originally I didn’t think “slouch” socks were dreamy enough to bother with, one of those things you could just as easily pick up cheaply at a department store or sports shop I figured. But people kept asking so I started ordering some. We’ve tried quite a few “slouch socks” over the years since then & though you can slouch a whole lot of socks that are not specifically called “slouch socks” we have two main favorites…

1. the EG Smith Original Bootsock: thick with so little elastic in their tops that they will fall where they may with the greatest of ease.

2. our Cotton Slouch Sock: a little thinner than the EGs and with enough spandex to keep them knee high if you prefer or push them down for alot of little scrunched folds around your calf/ankles.

We’ve had a longer version of the EGs off and on for most of our sock dreaming & fetsihizing years in the Pippy Longstocklings and now we have a longer version of our cotton slouches with a little modification… Before committing to them we requested samples of a longer version of the slouches as they currently are and a shorter version of our original Ribbed M Stockings which are thicker with nicely padded feet.

When the samples arrived we all tried them on and overwhelmingly agreed that for this sock thicker was better. Pulled all the way up on larger legs they are just a knee high, but the ribbing is very solid and looks great! On smaller legs they reach nicely over the knees, either way you can scrunch them down for lots and lots of wrinkles and cuteness for being sporty, sexy or just plain comfy! They seemed to work pretty well on smaller and larger feet alike, but we could be convinced to do a little more modifying in the future…

About the future, there are also two more variations of the pippys up ahead, one that is being made for us and us alone. And, I’m told the long-coveted Japanese version will soon be available to us! I’ll give more info on that as soon as I have some…

We’ve been blessed with beautifully cool mornings here in the pacific northwest. Some mornings & evenings have even been nearly chilly making socks and extra covers ever inviting so we gave a few of our newest men’s socks a test run, or test walk to be more accurate. All three of these have varying amounts of virgin wool, nylon, viscose, cashmere & angora. Virgin wool is wool that has been spun for the first time, as opposed to recycled fibers. Viscose fascinates me because it is what they make rayon and cellophane from and according to Wikipedia Rayon is a very versatile fiber and has the same comfort properties as other natural fibers and can imitate the feel and texture of silk, wool, cotton and linen. The bad thing about rayon is that it isn’t usually machine washable but these are, though gentle handling is recommended. The Giacomo argyles were my favorite to look at…

Since they are “men’s” socks they fit men’s shoe sizes 8-13 so any of you ladies who have trouble with the usual girl sized sock will find a friend in these since that would cover women’s shoe sizes 10-15 with generous ankle/calf room.

These were my sweetie’s favorites…

They were the first pair he picked out when shown the selection and have the loosest tops as you can see they don’t have the the turned welt cuff like the other two, though all will fit muscular calves just fine. Almost itchy before being washed, extra sensitive people beware, they do soften with gentle washings as the fibers fluff up, cotton socks worn under is also a good solution for sensitive feets, I thought they were very comfy for wool socks, I love that about Biella socks!

The crowd was beautiful and the feedback fantastic, at the end of the day our cheeks hurt from smiling so much and not because we had to but because we were just having so much fun being there and talking to everyone. To me, supporting pride is not so much about supporting this preference or that, but supporting the right to be who you are and dress the way you like; and being surrounded by unique individuals is just about the best place I can think of being, besides being safe at home that is ~;)

Here’s a small sampling of our little booth…


I caught Liz having a good giggle here with Janey.

I wore my extra special socks that I will be sharing with all of you this fall…

paired up with some of Shelleopard’s ever adorable pompom garters
(which we now need to restock)
Late in the afternoon we noticed an invasion of pirates, as if their ship had just come in (we were at Waterfront park so it did seem possible). We were told they were having a Pirate’s Booty outing, I think that’s what they said, it sounded like an awful lot of fun and many of them had stripes on their legs. The best we saw were these two, who, it turned out, are repeat customers of ours, not to mention terrific dancers!

Karissa is wearing vertical stripes and Joshua is wearing rugby stripes.

Sunday will be far busier due to the parade, but we’ll still be happy to see each and every one of you who comes down to support the right to an independent thinker!

Because we’re a quirky bunch of open minded individuals here at Sock Dreams I decided to sponsor Pride this year. I thought, what better way to promote us to the community during the slow months of summer? I was thinking a banner, an ad, a mention and a really good feeling of contribution for me and Sock Dreams, but wait, there’s more! a booth at the NW Pride festival was included in the package, well, usually the mention of a booth makes us shudder, we’re kind of spoiled working out of our comfy little building safely tucked away from the masses here in the Moreland/Sellwood area, but not this time, no, we’re very excited to be out and meeting everyone this weekend. So if you happen to be in the Portland area and are coming down to Waterfront park to celebrate pride this year be sure to swing by and say hi and get yourself a pair of socks while you’re at it. Better yet, buy some socks for everyone your proud of! We’ll also have some stockings, leggings, garters, petticoats and two exclusive sock garters that we’re not selling on the site yet (Shelleopard made us some nifty little slave garters complete with D Rings and I have some lovely little green flowers on black elastic with the prettiest purple thread you ever did see). Of course we’re going to have just about every rainbowed style we carry with us too!