I Dyed Part of My Sock Blank

Marshall noted Sunday that he would like me to knit a hat for one of his co-workers who just had a baby boy. Well, I figured if he's interested enough to ask, I would love to knit a hat for his worker's baby boy. Sunday night I was laying in bed wondering what yarn I could use from my stash.

Then I thought, why not dye my own. I have two sock blanks that my sister got me for my birthday. She sent me 6 dyes and 2 of those were blue - Sky Blue and Sapphire.

I cut off 1/4 of the blank to give me 100yds. The blank is doubled so I have two lengths of 50 yds. dyed together.

I prefer tone on tone semi-solid coloring. While I didn't quite master that with my blank, I like what I got. I knew I wanted a light blue base so I soaked the whole blank in a weak mixture of the sky blue. I dropped dye in while the blank was in the jar and got some mottling in that process. Then I mixed another jar of the sky blue, slightly darker and a jar of the sapphire blue. I applied it with a straw. It worked OK. I darkened both mixtures and grabbed a paint brush, but that didn't really work. So it was back to the straw. Then I added black to the sapphire and got almost navy.

In the end, there was too strong a variation from the background to the markings so I dipped the blank into the sky blue. I finally just dunked it into the sky blue for a minute or so. I also dipped a corner in the sapphire - oops. That came out strong, hoping it will knit up in an attractive way.

I think for the more subtle look I'm going for I might need more water on the blank. I twisted all the water out of it so where the dye hit, it stayed. If I had the blank in a flat pan with water, I might be able to layer the color on more gradually. I'll have to give it a try.

If I don't like the way this looks once it's knit, I'll mix up another batch of dye and keep adding color until I'm happy.