Hand dyed sock yarn, and a shot of me with my sweeties

I had a request for a couple of pairs of socks, cranked out on my antique sock knitting machine. The blues that she wanted were easy to find in commercial sock yarn. However, she also wanted some rich earth tones with touches of brown and green. And wow, the easily available varieties of sock yarn have diminished since I started making socks. However, I did have a skein of white wool/nylon that I had been meaning to experiment with. And I had some Procion dyes. Now, those are really meant for cellulose fibers rather than protein fibers, but if you swap out the soda ash in the soak for vinegar, it works pretty well. I liked the colors that I got.

The remaining question was, was this yarn going to work in my finicky machine? It doesn't like yarn that is too thick, and commercial sock yarn is kind of a hit or miss as to whether or not it will flow through the machine. Luckily? This works!

I still need to run the resulting pair of socks through the washing machine to wet finish them, but if that turns out well I will definitely be ordering more of this yarn. And, experimenting with a few different methods of dyeing sock yarn. I'm seeing a new obsession....er, product line....in my future!

Oh...and since I know some of you were curious after my post of a couple days ago, here is a shot of me with my two sweeties.

Both of my kids and my son-in-law were in town last month, so we got our family portrait done. While we were there anyway, I grabbed a shot of the three of us just for fun. The photographer was a little puzzled, but she rolled with it very nicely.

And now, I really ought to put the yarn away and get some sleep. It is 3:30 in the morning. But I am wide awake, and I want to play in the color some more!!