I have quite a few skeins of handpainted sock yarn in my stash. I can’t resist the pretty colors, but they don’t always knit up the way you expect. Colors often flash and pool, causing odd patterns. The designers featured in Knitting Socks with Handpainted Yarn present 21 creative ways to overcome these problems.
Carol Sulcoski also has a section describing the properties of handpainted yarns, and the special considerations required when choosing patterns, including color value and the length of color repeats.
The April theme for the Thrifty Knitters Sock Club was to knit a pair of socks from a book. So I pulled a handpainted skein from my stash, picked a pattern, and cast on. The yarn is dkKnits Technicolor Dream Toes, hand-dyed by an independent dyer on etsy. It was beautiful in the skein, and the pattern shows off the colors very well.
I modified the pattern a little, substituting a stockinette round for the double figure eight called for. While I agree with the designer that it’s a great technique for resetting the color repeat, the only pooling I noticed with my modification was when picking up stitches for the gusset, which I can live with.
I was a little concerned about the picot cuff, having never done one before, but it was surprisingly easy and makes a nice decorative edge
Technical specs:
- Yarn: dkKnits Technicolor Dream Toes
- Classy & Sassy colorway
- Needles: 2.5mm magic loop
- Pattern: Potpourri Socks by Deb Barnhill
- New skills:
- picot cuff
