Sock dresses and the anger they seem to generate.

This is really still going on?

 

I haven't seen any of these sock dresses, though I have made dollie underpants out of a sock toe. To me, honestly, the underwear doesn't look bad. It's not very good but still.
I sort of believe that if you can execute it well then there should be no problem doing it. If someone can make a superb sock outfit without it looking downright tacky then great. I mean socks are pretty nifty; they're stretchy and can come in a lot of different styles and patterns. I wouldn't think less of an owner no matter what the doll dresses; the owner has a certain personality applied to the doll and if a sock dress is included in that personality then so be it.

 

Well, I would never let my doll wear a sock! I am myself a very passionate and devoted hobby-seamstress, and even though I'm still a beginner with sewing, I always try my best to make my dollie look special and classy. Sometimes I spend 10 hours without food in front of my sewing machine because I'm desperate to get an outfit finished, my dear Ophelia sitting beside me.
It always makes a beginner like me so proud to see that the outfit fits and suits the doll, so it's not that sock dresses make me angry, it's just that I can't understand people who just put a sock on a dolls body to dress them.
But, then again, not everyone is like me.
I don't really care about sock dresses, but wouldn't even think about my doll wearing them!

 

How crazy! If a person wants to dress their doll in a brown paper bag then it is entirely up to them! However they choose to enjoy their doll is their business. Too many people make other people's business their own.....LIVE AND LET LIVE, that's my motto.

 

Assuming that you are not being sarcastic, you are quite fortunate to have the experience and talent to make your own doll clothes. I think what you are not understanding can be explained in a few ways. First, as was pointed out many pages back, there can be clothing made from socks that utilize the innate form of the sock as the jumping off point for an amazing outfit or dress. There was a contest last year that generated some really creative and beautiful things.
Second, for a person just exploring their creativity/sewing capacities sock clothing can be a great place to start. Do you remember your first clothing or sewing attempts? Mine were pretty scary. Everyone has to start somewhere.

 

Sock dresses are not outfits that are made using a sock and pattern. Sock dresses are just a sock, slipped on like a dress. NOBODY is saying that if you use a sock for material but use a pattern, or actually sew, that it is bad. That is all.

So can we PLEASE stop using that argument? That's not what the thread is about. At all. One requires sewing. One does not. One requires creativity and effort. One requires access to a sock drawer and some scissors.

 

A sock dress (no, not a dress actually sewn using sock material...I can't believe we're still having to make that distinction at this point) is not a stepping stone or a "place to start" when learning to sew. It's a waste of a sock and 5 seconds of your life. You've learned nothing at all about sewing or making clothes by snipping the end off a sock. Everyone has to start somewhere, but making sock dresses isn't starting anything. You've gained no skills and no knowledge. You're never going to learn to sew unless you actually start sewing with a needle and thread or sewing machine. Your first attempts are going to be crappy, no doubt about it but you'll learn from them and eventually get better, maybe even amazing. NO ONE starts out awesome at sewing, so saying "well some people just have the TALENT to sew and I don't" is just a BS excuse. Snipping toes off of socks will never get you anywhere towards anything.

 

Like I said, it's not our place to tell other people what to do with their dolls. Some people don't care about "developing talent" for sewing, and just don't have the time. For example, I'm busy with schoolwork and in my free time playing video games, drawing, and designing a tabletop RPG campaign. I occasionally knit. But I can't cut a straight line, much less sew one, and a simple cape is just about the only thing I've been able to sew myself. Every other time, I've had someone else use the machine to make a hem while I watched. Sewing is not something I have the patience for. This may sound odd, as I spend a lot of time and energy on other artistic endeavors, but it is what it is. I BUY or COMMISSION all my doll clothes for a reason. and some people just don't have the money to do so, so they temporarily slip their doll into a cut-out sock until they have money for clothes. I see no problem with this. Eventually, that person will save up the money for real clothes and buy them, and besides which, it's not my place to say what a person should and shouldn't do TO THEIR OWN PROPERTY, so I guess I don't really care.

 

What a lot of emotion to use on the way someone else dresses their doll - just too weird ...

 

In terms of learning to sew I totally agree with the Nefla sock dresses are not a good way to learn (though. To cover a naked doll however I would say they're perfectly fine.
To be honest I don't know how anyone could keep a sock dress on a doll permanently (unless it had actually been sewn well to be a sweater dress of something as for people like me who cant knit socks can be useful). I think the only time I would do that is if it fitted the character and I do have a character who is supposed to make her own clothes and do a bad job at them so if it's a character quirk and explained then I have no problem. I think the biggest niggle I have with sock dresses though is people never seem to hem them so the bottom begins to roll up and I can't stand that even on my own clothes. I'm not totally against them but I think it has to be tastefully done.

I do own a few socks myself for the purpose of possibly making into clothes but I find I just end up using them as practice for stuff as I'm not the best seamstress so I always try and make a trial version of what I want to make before cutting into the intended fabric and it's cheap and easy to pick up a sock. However this has bitten me in the ass if a sock has a design on it can screw me over at times so I dunno if I'll end up touching them again

 

Whoops so sorry did not realize there was an official definition for "Sock Dress".
No. Let's not stop. I should, at this point, because there is no allowance on some people's part that everyone has dolls for their own purposes.
Also, I think several pages back there was a photo of a doll in just a tube of fabric that totally disproved any "sock dresses always equal crap" theories.
IMO this subject is kind of out of gas.
In fact, why don't you sock dress naysayers run over to Hobby's thread in the Games section, and see the really cool stuff made from re purposed items. Kay? Maybe it will change some minds. Disclaimer : these are not just socks with holes cut in them.
Also I totally disagree with those who say sock dresses are not a good way to learn to sew. Any way that makes an individual begin to examine the relationships between cloth and the human form is a good way to start. There is never just one way to learn anything.

 

Definitely out of gas-- now we're on to "Why don't you go stare at the sun through a telescope? I promise you'll see the light." The proselytizing, jayzus. Everybody just accept that some people have viewing preferences that don't match yours.

 

So to sum it up:

Accept that people are different and have different views!

Yeah. That'd close up half the debates on the forum, wouldn't it.

 

I think the entire point of debate is proselytizing, in a sense. Right? So if you don't want to participate in those reindeer games, beat it. Just as I am doing.

 

Definitely think this one is paste.