Rag rug making using old socks - or applying the loom band principle elsewhere...

Some time ago I was listening to a gardening programme on the radio and someone mentioned that when their rubber gloves got holes they cut them up and made 'ties'... I was very surprised by this use : it made sense to give some extra life to good quality rubber gloves; so I made a mental note of this.

While trying to tidy up sort some of my bags of 'things-that-can-be-useful--one--day'... I came across a load of odd and not so good socks. The ones in the photo below are really very good quality but after a couple of washes they shrank considerably and are apparently not comfortable anymore.

Besides using them for cleaning which still mean throwing away good material, I kept on thinking what to do with them. There are so many sock monsters that one can actually make...

By chance I came across a youtube tutorial and thought... that's it ! Incidentally, the tutorial I saw is not the one I'm linking to; I just couldn't find the original one. The tutorial I'm linking to shows the same process... I can't speak that language, but I appreciate its content...

I shall show you briefly what I do in case you can't see the tutorial.

And if you have come across loom bands, you will have no problem following the process. Just to digress a little, Hive account@jen0revision produced this lovely penguin - though she didn't have any black loom bands at the time - a couple of years ago and won first prize in a local craft show.

Back to our task now.

So the photo below shows you how I cut each sock : cut the elasticated cuff; cut the heel section, and cut the toe section off.

You then cut the two tubes into 3 or 4 strips :

I stretch each one of them - it's amazing how much they can stretch then... have a look:

Have you every used a lucet ? This is like a fork with only two prongs, generally made of wood. I do find that it's a similar process. The photo below shows you how I do the first one. I basically fold each loop in half and then for the very first one I twist it to make a figure of 8 and then I start adding loops.

I fold the next loop in half; place it over my two 'lucet' fingers and aided by my other hand, I take the lower loops over the new ones...

I continue the process creating basically a long strip ...

In the photo I have added the second loop while in the photo below I have already added two and I'm about to add a black loop.

Here's what my gigantic loom band future rug looks like now. Every time I am about to sew the whole thing, new socks are offered to me thus lengthening the fun process...

Also every time I stop I use a pen to hold the 'open' end safe... When I find my lucet, I will use that rather than my fingers... It looks more sophisticated.

I will definitely start sewing it now because it's getting a bit unwieldy to carry around.