The Sock Blank

This title strikes me as sort of funny, as socks are anything but BLANK!! But for those of you who are new to this, a sock blank is a machine-knit piece of fabric about 12" wide and about 18" long. It is knit using two strands of sock yarn. You can dye this blank in any way you like, then ravel it out and knit with it. Some people suggest knitting straight from the blank and doing 2 socks at the same time. I know that the crinkles in the yarn would drive me nuts, so I raveled it out while it was still wet from dyeing and let it dry on my skein winder.

The first step is to soak the blank in water for at least 1 hour, but I always just loose track of the time, and I sometimes remember it the next day. Not to worry; it's always fine. I decided I wanted the socks to come out with lightning zigzags, so experimented with dyeing vertical stripes up the blank. Here is a picture of it partially painted with the stripes. and then raveled and drying on the skein winder.

When the yarn was knit up, alas, I did not get lightning zigzags, but I did love the the look of it.

Tomorrow is another day, another experiment. Today was busy doing secretarial work; I had to book a plane ticket and submit proposals to various places. I did get some time to work on my double knitting. I am teaching a class on this at Stitches East in Hartford Oct 28-31. It is a fascinating topic and very fun to do.