Harry Potter Laundry Art

We’re pretty passionate about Harry Potter in our house. Insult our grandmothers, by all means, but don’t call Hermione a Mudblood. I’d been trying to come up with something to brighten up the laundry for months – frankly, hanging up a sign along the lines of ‘Wash, Dry, Repeat’ seemed more like a cruel taunt than cheerful wall art. I was deliriously excited when the idea dawned on me, and texted a friend immediately.

ME: It’s not weird to hang your used socks on the wall and call it art, is it?

HELEN: Yes.

However, my approach to criticism is pretty much the same as it is to measurements: I find out it’s not going to fit, and I do it anyway.

To build the frame I followed the same process as I did for the e.e.cummings wall hanging. (Afterwards I realised that I’d been sawing, drilling and hammering outside close to midnight, and if my neighbours had had a voodoo doll handy no doubt I’d be dead or at least severely maimed right now.)

I laid the sheet over the frame and taped out where the edges were, then took it back off and arranged the socks in a vague sort of order so I knew where my letters needed to go. If you’re confident, it’d be quicker to do it with the material already stapled, but I’d already spent hours removing staples from my craft chest until my fingers sobbed for mercy, so I wasn’t taking any chances.

For the stamps, I bought a packet of those foam letters from Chickenfeed and glued them onto cardboard backing so I’d have something to press them down with. In hindsight, this was a mistake, since once you’re finished stamping you have to wash the paint off. Cardboard, like cats, does not enjoy being bathed. A better idea would be some sort of thin plastic, or springing for actual stamps, you cheap bastard.

To figure out vaguely how many words I’d need to fit in per line, I measured how tall the letters were and divided it into the total length of the frame minus the socks. Once I knew I had four lines, I counted up the number of characters in the words (since some words are longer than others) and divided them roughly evenly. (See, high school maths was useful for something after all. Well, primary school maths, anyway.)

                            

Once the paint was dry, I safety pinned the socks on, and lost several fingernails and a good chunk of sanity to the cause. Plus, two months later I’m still stepping on safety pins bent like Twisties that I cast aside in rage. It depends how thick the material is as to how easily they’ll pin, but a decent roll of duct tape will do the job just as well.

Please note that washing the socks first is not essential, but may be advisable. What are you, some kind of greasy Slytherin?