Until Rivendell I’d never bothered to block my socks.  No need. They look good when you pull them on & they stretch out over your feet and legs.
However, as a sample for Gwen of Craft’s Meow, Rivendell needed to look good OFF a foot. Thus, it needed to be blocked.
I didn’t have sock blockers and didn’t quite want to spend the $ right now on some nice wood ones (there are a lot of nice ones on Etsy).
However, I did have a flexible plastic cutting board (purchased awhile ago at Trader Joe’s), that was currently only used during soapmaking, that I was willing to sacrifice. Using the template by Little Sesame Knits, I ended up with a lone plastic sock blocker that, while not pretty, works fine.
And of course, now that I’ve seen in person just how nicely a blocked sock photographs, I want to make some more blockers.