I like the socks for the reasons above. I've found that without one, when I'm ironing a dark cover down, say the stripess on the bottom of the wing, the color will stick to the iron and transfer to the white. The socks greatly reduce this problem.

I make my own socks also, I use some soft muslin, polyester will melt, and sew in a cord like the comercial ones. The first one took an hour to do, but then I got the hang of it and I can cut out and sew a dozen in about 20 minutes.

For trim work though the sock gets in the way.

Don