Sunday, February 12, 2017

Sticky socks: Not everything should be DIYed

So I was doing Pure Barre 6x a week for 3 months. And the only real required gear for barre is a pair of "sticky socks" also known as yoga socks or hospital socks, etc. They are socks with grip stuff on the bottom so your feet are covered but not slippery. And - this should bring you no shock given how expensive barre is, $350 a month - they are about $15 a pair; more if you want a snazzy pair with top of foot cutouts (maryjane style) or other exciting patterns. I had one pair of toe yoga socks from Santa years back...but I couldn't wear the same socks 6x a week for 3 months. ick. And I'm averse to paying crazy prices so I decided: hell, I can make these! I thought about three ways to execute:

1) Caulk. Why not? it's stayed permanently embedded in my jeans from my years of home improvement. Unfortunately I then promptly and stubbornly messed up my caulk gun so it's now stuck with a hardened tube of caulk inside it. Oops. Next plan.

2) Hot glue. Duh - it's sticky/ grippy. So I broke out my early model glue gun
 
and two pairs of ooooold socks - look they have not one but TWO holes. and the stains. Ugh, girrrrl get rid of your ancient socks. Anyway - they came in handy for this. I stuck some flip flops inside the socks to hold them in position.
 
and then squirted glue on the bottoms in whatever pattern seemed good. I used the flat edge tip to smear the glue on the first sock. But that was so hard! and it seemed like it wasn't the most sticky?
 
So I just left the latter three more three dimensional.
 
They weren't awful in class, but then they went through the wash and the three dimensional stuff just basically fell off. And the stuck down one just became sloughy and gross.
 

3) Puffy Fabric Paint. So I then went for what the interwebs said! I bought some fabric paint and then set to work on some not-as-old-socks. Fabric paint is not as easy to use as they make it out to be! But I did what I could as a first draft. Look at that color coordination. Damn, I'm good.
The lines and dots I made didn't quite line up where I wanted them. Figuring out the exact position of your foot in a sock that's not on your feet is super hard. The puff paint takes hours and hours to dry so using your own feet as models is a bad idea. But maybe I should have put the socks on my foot, marked them and then put them on the flip flops and used the markers? Oh well. I knew from the first class they were taking damage. The green ones started almost flaking off and I would see small chunks of green puff paint in the carpet at the barre studio. The pink ones were applied thinner and so they just got less sticky. Also the non-uniform thickness of the applied paint kinda hurt my feet, especially my heels) in class. Like having a rock in your shoe.
 
I did also win a free pair of sticky socks from Pure Barre. So all of my socks have been worn about the same number of classes. And the Pure Barre socks have held up so much better. Even my from-Santa Namaste yoga toe socks didn't hold up super well to the 90 second planks. The ball of my foot on my DIY and my yoga socks are worn to almost nothing.

The moral of this story is that you should just buck up and buy sticky socks. DIY was not effective. Wait for a deal and buy a couple pair of good quality sticky socks!