Niqkita's Sock Journal

For the first time in years I ventured out to see a concert…
it was my third time seeing Tori Amos, and thanks to the splendor of the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall it was the best. I took along two of my dearest friends, Sock Dreams CFO Kori and Sock Dreams web designer Olivia, we had an amazing view from our balcony seats and had a fabulous time.
I wore a dress I found on Etsy ( wearydrearies.etsy.com) and layered the Pyramid Nets over the sheer & opaque vertical stripes (both are fully thigh high on me at 31″). The effect was pretty stunning and they stayed up perfectly without garters. I highly recommend that combination.

…and all that it brings!
more sunshine, warmer breezes, shorter dresses & many socks.
We’ll be doing a couple of outside events in March…
Hip Chicks do Wine is hosting an evening of self-indulgence, sipping, and shopping at the Grab hosted at their winery here in southeast Portland. The event is sold out and we’re really excited to have an opportunity to be a part of it.
Portland Fashion Week Boutiques Unleashed, hosted by Dove Lewis. We’ll be there showing off and auctioning some socks for pets in need. Lola will not be there due to voice modulation issues (okay, okay, she barks kinda loud, she just has a lot to say sometimes and wants to be sure she is being heard), it’s too bad too because I think she’d look super on the catwalk!
I’ve added a bunch of yummy new things these past few days
and have at least a few more coming for you.
(more…)

We here at Sock Dreams have been cutting up socks for years. It’s a great way to add new life to damaged socks and tights and it’s surprising how few things unravel upon being cut, not that we guarantee that most socks won’t unravel but we sure can attest to many that won’t. So when Ozone came out with their Cut-Up Jambière I had to bring them in, if for no other reason to encourage everyone with a creative spark to try this. They even give you guidelines…

Our own talented Flaura has done really cool things with our Lemonade stockings for our little shop here in Portland (I was just sure I had pictures of her creations, but I can’t find them, sorry ’bout that!). She’s done neat stuff with other socks she’s modified too so I let her pick her color and give these a try…

Hand warmers, knee warmers, toe-less anklets and a bracelet, quite cute! she’s wearing them over grey tights and highly recommends cutting along the straight lines, much fraying occurred where cut through the pattern, but no unraveling.

In previous years Ozone has had an angora jambiere that was quite popular.
This year they’ve made a mohair version and wow is it warm!
thick, soft and really toasty, especially if you wear them over a pair of cotton or bamboo tights (try MP cotton lined wool tights or leggings for the ultimate warm combo). I wasn’t sure I needed a pair of these mohair socks til I tried them, then I thought about it… long ribbed mohair socks that are actually made in France and only cost $45. I know, times are tough and we’re all watching our spending, uncertain what the future holds. For $45 I can stay warmer without turning the heater up, I can enjoy wearing skirts on chilly days, and they are really stylish not merely functional, suddenly they are sounding like a very good value. But I hate itchy wool things and don’t always want to layer to lessen the itch. …that’s okay because I wore these over bare skin on a very windy day with a cute skirt and a light velvet overcoat and I was totally comfy. Only had to pull the socks up sporadically, not every step or every five minutes, just once in a while. Plus, uncuffed they went just about to the tops of my legs! of course, your results may vary, but my body double Dara (I say that only because several of us often have a hard time telling which of us is in a picture of legs if there are no hints given) has longer more muscular legs than I do and they were nearly thigh high on her too, but she cuffed them down for the photos to help keep expectations realistic…

Another high end treat:
Orkney Angora leg warmers…

For years I ordered their anklets, knee highs & thigh high angora socks as well, but as they and they’re staff get older they have decided not to make those by hand anymore. Happily, they are still making us the wrist and leg warmers, though for how much longer I am uncertain. If there is still a strong enough market for $60 fuzzy warmth this winter I may bring in more colors, for now I stuck with the classics: black, brown, charcoal and olive…
Stay warm with us, and we’ll keep the comfy socks & warmers coming!

The O Marled are among very-very favorite socks, in the top five for sure!
But on chilly days, or nights, nothing beats snuggling into a cozy pair of our
Super Marled Dream Stockings (except maybe the Super Dreamy Stockings…)
So, why were we out of these for the past couple of years? The mill we work with was having trouble getting the yarn and we could get lots more over the knees out of the supply than we could these thigh highed Super version. This year we’re thrilled to be fully stocked on both lengths!

These come all the way to the tops of my thighs and stay up pretty well for around the house. They are super comfy for pulling on first thing in the morning or for a cozy layer under your pants. They are 90% cotton and a heavier knit than the Super & O Dreamy stockings. The Dreamies, being an acrylic blend, have that super soft feel, almost a fluffiness to them, the Marled are very soft also, but it is different…
more substantial.

For my size 8.5 feets I prefer the small size
…though they both fit me, the small is just right and the large is loose. So I found it funny that I ended up keeping the large black cherry pair we used in the images and EG was accidentally sent a small pair for her size 11 feet.

I assured her that my large pair is indeed larger than the one she received
and we are sending her a new pair so she can give you the full run down on how they fit larger feet later this week or next. If only we could have merely switched pairs this morning when I read her email!

My pair is about 42 inches long from heel to rolled cuff.

One final thought before I open the discussion up for the rest of your thoughts….
the ankles can get baggy when they start to ease slowly down your legs. I tried wearing them with a pair of ankle boots so they could hang over the tops like leg warmers or leggings and it looked super cute, the top image shows this minus the boots which I had just removed before taking the picture.
(because I’m silly like that sometimes!)

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!

and oh-so-much more!!!
the black & gold fishnets are a sneak peak at the Betsey Johnson Metallic Magic Fishnet Shorties. Our full order just arrived today and will be live shortly…
The shoes? I found those on Etsy, hand painted by Hippy of Doom.
Lovely, I absolutely adore them, especially with these socks.
Oh, how I adore Betsey Johnson and her sexy styles!!!

When Raubynn & I went to Seattle last month I brought these along with way too many others, if only we’d had a whole week for taking pictures! these were my fav’s, the fishnet capris were just stunning! oh, and wait til you see the Grrr Fishnets!
They are subtle and were tricky to get a decent shot of. I loved how they looked and fit, really nice fishnet that felt great on and the pattern was evenly printed all over without gaps, overlaps or mismatches.

This has been my absolute favorite pair of socks since they arrived as a sample pair a couple of years ago. Knowing you’d all want them in thigh highs we started ordering them. And while I love those too, these have remained my one truly dreamiest sock, just over my knees, often hanging out just under them. They get softer and softer every time I pull them out of the dryer.
Now this great length is here for everyone to enjoy.
Many of the days since they arrived you can find at least a couple of pairs being worn around Sock Dreams so it seems they are well loved by many already.

I was super happy when the timing worked out perfectly for taking them up on my little sock getaway in Seattle with Raubynn last weekend…

We had lots of fun running around town taking pictures in our socks.

Surely some people thought us mad

I was mesmerized by the hibiscus, such pretty colors!

When I came home I found out the last couple of colors were in so I put them on

and climbed my favorite tree…

We also got this new color that we happily ordered in both lengths…

some said they looked like patina, some preferred antique. In honor of Amanda officially taking over the Dream Stocking section I gave her the final say…
antique it is, and gorgeous too!
~~~{:::=:::}~~~
I nearly forgot to add this one from before my trip…

These are indeed dreamy as a knee high on fuller legs!

one of the first socks I bought and sold were the Pippy Longstockings.
Always a favorite, they are the ultimate comfort sock.
But even early on availability was sporadic at best with at least a couple of dry years when no amount of begging the folks responsible for EG Smith seemed to help. Then it did and they became plentiful, once again, sporadically. And all the while it has been my quest, to have them made in greater variety, longer, different patterns, textures, but no one, but one, seems able to do these just as they are, let alone better…
longer, better top stretch, colors? We have obtained and distributed an amazing variety of really cool socks, some of them pretty darned close…
but these remain just out of reach.

Last spring I was offered the real thing, made for us, longer, under our label and I jumped at it, along with the original length, leg warmers, stockings & tights.
The labels are gorgeous, by the way, wait til you see them.
As some of the most promising things in life go, we never did get that one item I wanted, the one sock that I made the whole deal in hopes of obtaining never showed up in a big box too heavy to lift. Lots of these did though, and leg warmers, OTK stockings (soon to be added) & Lemonade Stockings (we still need to cut those lemons & mix in the sugar, but the first batch will be up & ready for a picnic soon enough).
As of this past week I found out that we could not get the longer version afterall, the sample of the replacement version was not at all the same sock so I rejected it based on quality and cost. But this quest, and many other sock dreams, are far from over.
and now, a little flash back…

It was a gorgeous day today…
dense fog in the morning, followed by a day of sunshine.
I was doing some work in the warehouse when I heard footsteps overhead.
I snuck up the ladder and peeked out over the roof…

and there I spied Liz
with two of our coworkers posing in socks.
You see, we have new Dream Stockings
and Liz, leader of the Dream Stocking section
is getting pictures of them for you…
what you don’t see is that Sixten is off to the side
in the new & improved M Squareds
and sock garters, because Lily, our resident sewing ninja
is sewing up oodles of sock garters so we may finally stay in stock
and we need pictures, lots and lots of pictures.
More on these latest items in the days ahead.

Sock Inspector Lola says: Get down from there at once!
…surely being so far from the ground is a safety hazard.