Where have all the socks gone?!?

As some of you know, we pin our socks together before they go in the wash. This is a trick I learned from my sweet MIL. She did this with her family's socks, and her boys were able to keep their socks from getting lost in the wash. Now, I'm sure that you who have had to wash baby socks will know, that those little things seem to get lost somewhere between their feet, and their drawer. I was convinced that the washer ate them.This is when I started pinning. Before that it hadn't been to bad. I asked a repairman friend of mine, where he thought they went. He said that the washer did indeed eat them. The socks can get sucked out during the spin cycle. The pin can aid in them not getting sucked out. And they don't get lost from each other. This makes the folding job much shorter.
Now, I haven't been able to convince the older kids to pin their socks. But they sure get to spend a lot of time fishing through the miss-matched-sock basket. Maybe they love this time to sit and dig through the socks and try to find the pairs. Some kind of challenge for their boring day.
How do I store the pins? I've done a few different things over the years. I've kept them in a pin cushion, or a small tupperware. What I'm doing now is keeping them in a paperclip container. The magnet at the top has slowed down the spilling process (don't ask me why it is so fun to dump them out). This one goes in our room.



I also have kept the little foam thing that the scrapbook brads come in and put some in that. I keep one in the laundry room for any socks that come through missing a pin (the little kids' and the parents, anyway). I also have one by the phone for pins to go in that have been left out by the kids.


In the kids' room I keep them in a jewelry drawer. They have a cute little box with 5 drawers. One is labeled "pins", and they go in that. (This isn't very child proof. The little girls climb on the dresser and get into the jewelry and they end up dumped everywhere. Oh well.)
My husband hardly ever needs a place to put his pin. He takes the one out of the clean socks and instantly puts it in the dirty ones. It is a rare occurrence when his socks aren't pinned. I think it means that he isn't getting enough sleep or has too many things on his mind. (Like any of that would ever happen.) Pin It