Finished this pair of socks last evening. Too bad I didn’t take a photo of the skein – the colours were luscious – and distinct. But unwind and ball the yarn and you get this kind of blurred mixture which is relatively boring when knit into socks. I tried choosing embedded colours for cuff, heels and toes but they don’t blend – they stick out.

Here’s what hand-dyed yarn can look like: you can get large swaths of colour

Hand-dyed Yarn – Sectional

or it can look like this

Variegated Hand-dyed Yarn

In either case, they knit up looking more or less like my socks.

While the colours are enticing, I find this yarn much less satisfying to use than commercial balls dyed to create an actual pattern. Socks with hand-dyed yarn always seem to take a lot longer because there are no pattern shifts to indicate the progress you’re making.

So back to another patterned ball of yarn….