Saturday, March 27, 2010

Baby Legs


My sister emailed me yesterday to see if I could make her some Baby Legs type legwarmers for the boys. Baby Legs are apparently a great way to keep lower legs warm when wearing shorts, if it's not quite warm enough for pants, and can easily be whipped off if the temperatures get higher, and also fantastic for when not wearing pants at all- making diaper changes much easier.

The actual baby legs seem to be a very high quality product- made for all ages, they are big on your infant, and scrunch up a bit (which looks adorable), fit the full leg of a toddler, the lower leg of a young kid, and can even be arm warmers for teens and adults. Very cool. The problem- they cost $12 each. Which seems like a fair price for the product, but when you have twins, and need a new pair every day or so, or even a few times a day- that's way too much.

So a bit of googling, and it seems a DIY solution is possible, and easy. Just cut women's socks above and below the heel, cut off the toe, fold over the foot of the sock and use it to form a cuff on the top.

Because the twins are very tiny babies (Courtney estimated their legs as the size of the index finger to the joint of the thumb- I can't fathom that small of a baby!) I decided to get ribbed socks, because it pulls in more. As they grow, the ribbing can stretch, so hopefully the width of the sock will last awhile, though maybe the length won't? (I'm not sure how much leg needs to be covered- ankle to mid-thigh, or more? How long are babies legs anyway?) So I did that process with the blue and green sock. They kind of look like bell bottoms because of the ribbing, and I worried they were too short. So that's where the blue/white sock comes in.

That's actually one of my old socks (if she likes it, I have a black/white one, but I didn't want to cut up a sock if she didn't like it.) These look less weird because they don't pull in at the ribbing, but if the babies are as small as she says, then I think it will be too loose. But they are longer, so she can hang onto them, and they can grow into them.

Okay- so I need smaller width, but maybe long length? That's where I got the idea for the dual color ones. These don't have the cuff from the foot (I saved the feet of the socks to dust with...) instead, I just sewed two cuffs together. They are longer than using the foot, but take 2 socks to make. I can make them solid colored if she wants.
Each of these took only a few minutes.

And last, if what she really needs is smaller than a women's sock, I hand knit one (still working on the pair). That actually stretches enough to just barely fit onto my lower arm, so it shouldn't be too small (though maybe too short? No idea what length I need...). I'm only making one pair until I hear back from her. If it's what she wants, I'll get working on knitting more. (That was a 1 day project, so no big deal... though I did have to put off my Cauchy socks which are part of a March KAL, and probably won't get done in time now- but twins are way more important.)

In other news- Kevin did the tile at the upstairs door. Only 2 more areas to tile, and lots more laminate to do. Also we go curtains for the bedroom. They are dark purple. Pictures eventually.

2 comments:

Brad & Kimber said...

You know i saw these a couple of places and had no clue what the purpose was! Thanks for clearing that up for me! I love the craftiness!

IASoupMama said...

Very cute!