Son number two asked me for socks for his birthday. His birthday is less than a month away and, of course, I wanted to dye them myself. Insanity runs in my family.

I wanted to try out an idea from Spin Off Magazine, the Winter issue. The article included handspun yarn, knit on a knitting machine, dyed in stripes, and then re-knit into a finished object. I started with Briggs and Little’s Tuffy yarn (sorry, I don’t spin much white wool). It’s a wool/nylon blend in a worsted weight. I knitted it on the machine 40 stitches wide.

I then painted the giant swatch in red, blue and green.

Here’s where fate took a hand. I didn’t have time to steam it, so I let it sit for a day. In my opinion it got very muddy, but, as I’ve knit it, I like the way the bright colors peek out around the muddy/dark parts. Here’s the first sock:

I’m working on sock 2 and need to have it completed in about 10 days. I think he’ll like it!

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 17th, 2007 at 9:34 am and is filed under Knitting Works in Progress. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.