a knitted sock blank

Because it did start out that way; a blank, knitted rectangle; a blank “canvas” as it were. Usually knit double stranded on a knitting machine and with a total of 100 grams of yarn, enough to knit one pair of socks. This one is pinned out on a foam board, ready to be painted with dye.

sock blank being painted

Thickened dye is applied with a foam brush, or other painting tool, in any pattern or design you can dream up.

ready to wrap and steam

Continue to add layers of color until you have achieved sock-blank nirvana…  or at least something you are reasonably happy with. Seal with a heat-proof plastic wrap (Seran works well) and steam your blank to set the dyes. I’m assuming here that you are using acid dyes on a protein fiber.

knitting socks with a sock blank

After the dyes have been set and the yarn blank rinsed and dried, you are ready to knit. Since the blank was knit with a double strand, you can knit both socks at the same time. Both socks will be done at the same time, avoiding the “second sock syndrome”, and both socks will match exactly. Simply unravel at the appropriate end and start knitting.

Toe-up socks with waffle stitch instep

Yes, the yarn you are knitting with is kinky, like Ramen Noodles. Once you have gone a few inches you will be used to it and it should not bother you or be a problem. For those that are annoyed by kinky yarn there are two possible solutions. To lessen the kink  (but not eliminate it) you will need two ball winders. Simply unravel the blank and wind the yarn into two center-pull balls as you go. Let them sit in your stash and “mature” for about a week/month/year and the yarn will be more relaxed when you go to knit with it. To remove the kinks entirely, unravel the blank into two skeins, wash them in cool water and hang to dry. Ball them as you would any skeined yarn and knit.

Waffle socks are not fattening )

Colors combinations and designs are only limited by your imagination, dye supply, and time. You must remember that the design you paint on your blank will not be reproduced in your knitted sock. Blanks are knit flat; back and forth. Socks are knit in the round. For what-you-see-is-what-you-get socks, stick to simple stripes. For everything else, you can only rely on a general mottled color distribution in the final knitted project. If you have a dominance of brown at one end of the blank and mostly blue at the other, so will your socks. Don’t assume that a fancy design or pattern painted on your blank is a waste of time. You will enjoy knitting from a beautiful blank and the dyer has enjoyed creating something wonderful, even if it will get ripped apart. 

Zig-Zag painted sock blank

Cool idea! Use your double stranded sock blank to knit a scarf. Cast-on with a provisional cast on and knit your scarf from the center out. Go about one inch in one direction, then pick up your live cast-on stitches with the other stand and head off in the other direction. Just keep switching back and forth so both ends progress at approximately the same rate. This is the same technique (knit on one for a while, then the other – back and forth) for knitting your two-socks-at-a-time on double point needles.

Now, are you sorry you asked?

I even have a finished pair of socks out of this deal

Sock yarn is a superwash merino and nylon (90% wool/10% nylon) that I got from Heritage Spinning & weaving. I knit the blank and dyed it as you have just seen. I love the way the colors came out so speckly (is that a word?) and no pooling or flashing. I knit the sock in the same waffle stitch as my fitted teal vest in the hopes they will look dapper together.

Deb H

Under plied yarn

I was about to knit with some yarn and discovered that it was was too loosely plied for my taste and therefore split annoyingly when I knit with it. Having purchased a large amount of this yarn, I was not happy to just forge ahead. I stewed over this for several days, then a memory tried to surface in the back of my quick-sand brain. I remembered something about ball winders and twist.

Google to the rescue! Two Blogs popped up that were a huge amount of help. Ask The Bellwether actually tested it with some ribbon and gave me the hints and clues that lead to my yarn’s salvation. True Blue Fiber Friends gave me the technical information that saved me from the trial-and-error method.

Adding twist with a ball winder

In a nutshell; my yarn was a loosely plied yarn that I wound off of a cone, onto a ball winder. Winding yarn onto a ball winder actually effects the twist in the yarn very little… But pulling it off of the cone effects the twist in the yarn a lot. Likewise, so does pulling it out of a center-pull ball.

Aha!

So I examined my yarn to determine whether it was a “Z” or “S” twist – as a plied yarn it should most likely have been an “S” and it was (drum roll please) an “S”! When I hold a strand of yarn vertically, the strands in the ply slant from upper left to lower right like the letter “S”. A “Z” twist (usually a singles) would obviously go the other way.

top view of center-pull ball

Following the True Blue Friends post I knew that to add more twist to my “S” ply I had to pull it from the center pull balls I made so that when looking down on the ball from the top, the yarn pulling from the center would unwind in a counter-clockwise direction. By turning the handle on my ball-winder in a counter-clockwise direction, I could guarantee it would do just that (your brand may differ). BTW – if the yarn unwinds in the opposite direction from which you want it too, simply flip the cake (ball) over and feed the center pull yarn through the middle – it will now unwind in the other direction – cool, huh?

Happy yarn, good twist

Happy yarn! After feeding the yarn balls (cakes) through my ball winder a couple of times (and setting the twist with a niddy-noddy and a steaming tea kettle) I have a happy (nicely twisted) yarn and I’m a happy knitter. Yes, it took time, but the smooth knitting experience is worth the effort and saving the yarn was too.

Life is good!

My heartfelt thanks to the Bloggers who shared so I could learn, aren’t fiber-freaks a great bunch? 

Deb H

I just wanted to show what I’ve been spinning; a lovely soft merino top of natural gray that is such a beautiful color, it is almost blue. I’ve had it in my stash for years — so long, I had started to spin it on a lace weight drop spindle when we lived in Virginia in 1995 (Ack!) and we would go to Floyd on Friday or Saturday nights to listen to blue grass music and watch the locals do flat bottom dancing. It was held in a small general store with great ice cream and standing room only. I would stand and spin while we listened and watched. Does that still go on there? I also used to attend a very artsy quilt guild there in an old church, it was a great group!

I digress.

This will be plied with the pink and blue-gray singles I’ve just finished spinning.

Deb H

kinky to straight

There are many reasons why someone might want to reuse yarn they have already knit into something (or even a sweater from the thrift store that has good yarn). It may not fit right (gee, it fit when I started it), the design was ugly or boring, he’s a jerk and we broke up, the yarn manufacturer included stealth knots that you did not find (because you were machine knitting and going like a bat-out-of-hell) until it was being blocked for seaming, that stripe across the bust was a bad idea…. you get the picture.

Ugh!

Knitting with very kinky yarn (just rescued from that abandoned sweater, all done except for seaming three years ago, when you decided the design was boring) is usually a disaster. The kinks cause it to tangle more easily; the annoying factor increases at an exponential rate in relation to how much closer to the end you get. And it will probably alter your gauge after blocking/steaming. Possibly, a lot. It is always (with one exception) best to straighten your yarn before reusing it. The one exception is when knitting with fine (fingering weight) yarn in a tight  (7 to 9 sts/inch) gauge. That is why you can knit socks from a painted blank without straightening the yarn and winding it into a ball first. But trust me, this is really the only time you want to short cut this step. It’s easy and fast with a few simple tools, don’t panic!

How to straighten your yarn

Winding onto niddy noddy

Wind it from the knitting (as you rip it out) directly into a skein, under tension. This is easiest if you have a Niddy Noddy or a warping board or clamp-down warping pegs, but a straight chair back will do. Tie some figure 8 knots through the skein at about four places around it to keep the yarn from tangling when you release the tension.

Steaming out the kinks

Fill the tea kettle and turn it on high. When it is steaming away at full boil, hold the yarn under tension between your hands and steam it over the spout until the kinks relax. I use a clamp to keep my spout open and not whistling. Don’t get your hands near the steam!! It will burn worse than boiling water. Rotate the skein in your hands and steam out the kinks until you have worked your way all the way around the yarn. Hang the skein on a door knob to cool.

Hanging on a warping board

No tea kettle? You can soak the skein in a sink of hot water (120 deg F) for 10 to 20 minutes. Even if it’s wool, as long as the yarn is put in the water dry and not agitated in anyway (just let it soak), it will not felt. When you see all the kinks relax, drain the sink and let the yarn cool to room temperature. Gently squeeze out the excess water. I put mine in the washing machine on spin only and get it pretty well spun dry. Finally, hang it to dry on a door knob with a weight at the bottom; a 25 oz. can of organic black beans works well  ;o)

Once your yarn is dry it can be wound into cakes (or balls) and knit with. It’s not hard or that time consuming. I had this yarn ready to re-knit with in less than an hour and it was a wise investment of time!

Take a look at some of your UFO’s. Is it time to think about re-purposing that yarn? I’ll post this on it’s own page under Hints, Tips and Techniques (on side bar) so it’s easy to find for future reference.

Deb H

Scarlet; as in flame red. As in a flaming rant.

Dear Yarn Manufacturers,

Does the phrase Quality Control have a meaning, or even a role, in your business? My particular concern at the moment are knots in yarn skeins. I completely understand that when winding skeins for sales to the consumer, occasionally the huge cones you wind off of do come to an end and a knot is needed to continue on. I understand that in these lean economic times, watching the bottom line and allowing a knot in a skein is a large money saver and allows you to keep the costs of your product in a reasonable range. I truly do understand this and even can live with it.

Explain to me then, how when a skein containing only 210 yards (or even just 80 yards) can have a knot in every skein purchased. I know for a fact that the cones you wind off of have thousands of yards on them. I went to school. I even have 92 college credits. I passed most of my math with flying colors – OK, calculus was a disaster but it’s not needed to figure this one out; a several thousand yard cone should be able to produce several skeins of yarn with no knots.

Furthermore, please explain how a single skein of high quality yarn, that cost a minor fortune, can have FIVE knots in a single, 210 yard skein. Does this not strike you as excessive? Am I just being a whiner?

To top it all off, the offending ball of yarn by you (Ber….)  had Stealth Knots in it. OK, this was not the most expensive yarn I ever bought. It wasn’t even a natural fiber. But you  (the yarn company) assured my LYS, where it was being sold that it was a superior quality yarn for afghans and children’s wear and far better than any yarns sold at the big box discount chain stores. Harrumph! Even Red Heart can keep their knots to a minimum, what’s your excuse?

The point of this letter is to ask you to keep your knots (1) a maximum of one per skein (better yet, one per several skeins) (2) and to leave at least one-inch tails on every knot so they can be easily spotted before they cause a knitting (or weaving) disaster.

Sincerely pleading,
Disgruntled

I’m sooooooo glad to get that off my chest. It’s been weighing on my mind for months now.

What is a Stealth Knot you ask? As illustrated by the two photos, a stealth knot is a knot that is tied as cunningly as possible to hide it’s existence. It is tied very tight to minimize it’s size and the tails are clipped so short they are right at the knot, rendering it nearly invisible. This is an unacceptable knotting process that is used by the most sinister of yarn manufacturers and should even be classified as evil. Why?

By it’s very nature, it is hard to notice. Hence, you are knitting along in a very complicated pattern or lace stitch and behold; a knot on your needle, before you can even notice it. The result is time spent (and very foul words) unknitting so you have several inches of yarn tail available before the knot so you can clip it out and splice in the new yarn. In the case of the lace pattern, unknit to the beginning of the row (for a shawl that has 430 stitches this causes very foul words). In the case of a machine knit garment, in a variegated, dark color this means the knot can go undetected until the garment is blocked. Meaning the entire section must be ripped out and re-knit. Very foul words, indeed. In the case of a wound warp, an undetected knot, once on the loom, is a serious breech of yarn manufacturer etiquette; an unacceptable low-blow.

Why would a yarn manufacturer use knots that they have gone to great lengths to hide? They have an evil, gleeful goal to cause pain, frustration and irritation to the yarn users of the world. They are evil. But we are their customers and we are on the Internet. And Ravelry. And their days of spiteful glee are numbered.

He, he (gleeful, spiteful chuckle).

Deb H