Rethinking the blanks
Okay, serious question — who here actually likes AND BUYS hand-dyed/hand-painted knitted sock blanks? Since they are designed to be use for Two-at-a-Time sock-knitting, do you knit your socks straight from the blank (which saves time, since you don’t need to ball them), or do you create a center-pull ball from them before knitting (so you can decide which end to start from), or do you separate the two strands into separate balls before knitting?
A few people who saw the pic I posted yesterday on Facebook
commented they wouldn’t buy them with the kinks from having been dyed on the knitted blank. They would prefer I pulled them out of the blank, soaked and re-hung them to remove the kinks first and then reskeined them.
Mind you, the sock blanks were designed to be used for knitting Two-at-a-Time matching socks, so knitting them straight off the blank is the most logical way to do this as it ensures the socks do actually match.
What is your opinion about dyeing knitted sock yarn blanks for gradients? And just how much work do you expect the dyer to do for you? Or rather, how much additional cost are you willing to pay to have the dyer do extra work?
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I like working from dyed blanks. I think you get a nicer, “water-colory” effect when the colors blend at the color changes. The kinky yarn doesn’t other me at all. I’ve knitted socks (2 at a time) from blanks, and made a couple of shawls where I dyed the yarn on several blanks, keeping my color sequence in order when I started knitting. One was from commercial yarn to see if it would work, and the second wass from handspun. They both turned out fine.