Our little surf group is taking a short road trip in the morning, so I wanted to whip up a quick board sock for my 7’0″, since we’ll be stacking boards on the car. I don’t want to get my nasty wax job all over my friend’s board, and a towel placed in between boards just doesn’t seem to cut it anymore.

Now, I’ve had board socks in the past mind you, but they were ALWAYS:

• Too snug
• Not stretchy
• A general pain in the ass to use
• Expensive

Now I need one. Tomorrow.

Glad I picked up a few yards of cheap, but good quality Lycra about a year back. It only cost $3.00/yard, but it is ugly as sin.

This Lycra was about 60″ wide, perfect for folding over and stitching up one side. My surfboard is only 22 1/2″ wide, so it only needs to be cut to about 25″ folded, to give me plenty of slop and seam allowance. Working with this heavier Lycra guarantees some movement of the material, so I want to allow some “slop.” Too bad its striped- I’m going to mess up a bit, but oh well, I’m in a hurry.

This is quick-n-dirty, yo.

I cut about 2 1/2 yards from the length for my sock. My board is 7’0″, so that gives me extra for the seams, and also a casing at the bottom for a drawstring.

Since this was heavy Lycra, I used a 90 ballpoint needle with a longer zig zag stitch using a roller foot. A walking foot works best, though.

Next, I wanted to put a little curve in at the nose of the sock, not as if it was really necessary. Since the board’s nose is pretty wide, I honestly guessed and marked it out with my pen while the sock was folded over. Then, I cut it and clipped it (don’t pin Lycra, it can snag).

After the main sewing is done, I serged my seams. You can just clip them, since Lycra doesn’t fray.For a drawstring, I used some old 1/4″ craft bungee cord I had saved. So what if it’s blue??? I had it on hand.

I made a simple 3/4″ casing by flipping up the bottom edge of the board sock, leaving a section open, then feeding the bungee cord through.

The finished product rolled up pretty compactly.



This afternoon, after I got back from surfing, I tucked my Funshape into the boardsock to check out the fit.

BUT, it was a breeze to get on, and it will be soooo easy to pop in the washing machine. Schweet.

I’ll can fix anything needing tweaking on the sewing machine later. ‘Cause I’m going surfing tomorrow, and to quote George Costanza….