Bigger Ideas

Single Socks helps the community through people and organizations in many ways. Donated materials in poor condition have Bigger Ideas awaiting them - becoming very useful and well-loved items out of previously differently-configured materials!

Margaret Hadderman

My approach is to use unwanted, overlooked yarn and fabric, scraps from clothes and sheets to make useful items to wear, carry, and decorate rooms. After years of "gifting" my quilts, pillows, curtains and knitted berets, I needed another outlet - and Single Socks was it. The store's anti-hunger goals motivated me, along with my love for sewing and making somethings out of nothings. The first were a few tote bags from some green-striped corduroy fabric with my own added touches. I have been repeating the process ever since with materials from Single Socks.

Unfortunately, all scraps are NOT created equal, so some morph into purse linings or pillow casings. After three years, my ongoing struggle is discovering how to use scraps creatively and invitingly so that my finished items have appeal and sell FAST at Single Socks. A relationship with [ Border Partners ] allows me to use smaller, odder bits of fleece, flannel, and sheeting to make small receiving blankets and easy comforters for bigger kids.

Rags To Britches – Guerilla Prayer Flags

In Rancho Anpara, Mexico, mothers on both sides of the border have started a small business that uses old T-shirts and other recycled fabric to create prayer flags and a line of clothing known as "Rags to Britches" that helps families of special needs children. In the urban sprawl of Juarez, a group of women are stitching together a future for their families inside a small shop.
 
"People really need to make a living here," explained Siba Escobedo, who crosses the border weekly to work with the women in Mexico as part of her Inspiring Imports project. 
 
She first started coming to Anapra nearly nine years ago. Escobedo and her daughter Rosario sell the prayer flags and clothing made out of recycled material at the farmers market in Las Cruces, New Mexico and a tea shop in El Paso. They started mailing some of the items to customers who live outside the area.  "Nothing goes to waste," said Aleman as she handed a cut-up T-shirt to another mother sitting at a sewing machine. The women transform the old T-shirts into prayer flags, like those that hang in Tibet with spiritual messages promoting blessings. The mothers also make clothes out of recycled fabric. The mothers are helping mend the tattered social fabric in their community, which is just beginning to recover after years of coping with violent crime and drug gangs. Learn more . . . [ RagsToBritches.org ]

Bibs Are Useful

  Minnie Bell Hudson's unique and wonderful ideas get support from Single Socks in the form of clothes, pieces of material, buttons, towels and bedding. Kathleen saves those things that come into Single Socks that seem just what Minnie needs to make bibs... each one totally unique.

Since 1994, Minnie has made 15,236 bibs from these kinds of materials and those bibs are useful to many of us, including seniors and people in care homes. Nothing is left behind - materials, ideas, history, names and family recipes. Minnie draws from her experiences on cattle ranches to author a unique book.

Home on the Range: Her Story & Recipes Roundup.
[ Git A Rope! Publishing ] Order from: Minnie Bell Hudson, HC 61 Box 115, Buckhorn, NM 88025. Call: 575-539-2334

Denise Ashton

You'll never know from what grew these flowers! Truth is, they are made with cardboard, T-Shirt scraps, Styrofoam, packing material and duct tape.

Lots of T-Shirts pass through the doors of Single Socks, some a bit over-used but with parts still worth saving. Kathleen and Denise began making carry bags from these T-Shirts. The sleeves and necks cut out (but not thrown out) and the bottom sewn closed. A BAG! These bags hold a lot and can be re-used for a long time.

The Bikeworks
Backpacks and water bottles go to this a non-profit community bicycle workshop, working to make bicycles accessible to everyone, and providing a fully-stocked bicycle workshop and refurbished bicycles for sale to support education programs. [ bikeworksnm.org ]
 
The Imagination Library of Grant County
Books go to this local organization to promote reading readiness and language proficiency for all Grant County preschool children by delivering books to their homes monthly, thereby giving them the foundation for future learning success.
[ imaginationlibrarygc.org ]
 
Art on a Stick
Broken Toys are saved for Jean Beffort who works in a 4000 s.f. warehouse where he creates assemblage art, and features local artists at a)sp."A"©e : Studio/ Art/Gallery. [ aspacestudioartgallery.com ]
 
Rag Rugs - Old cotton sheets, Dawn Sanford
Grant County Food Pantry - Books for kids, Sunny McFarron
Palomas Kids - School supplies, Ester Melvin
SC Gospel Mission - Bedding
Quilt Makers - Fabric, Joey Hiller
Denim Patches - Denim, Chris and Traci
Help for Stray Animals - Bedding, Carol Morrison
Theatre Group of NM - Single socks for puppets