Product Description

Hand painted sock yarns have captured the hearts of countless knitters. Colorful sock yarns are little gems of the knitting universe, providing hours of knitting bliss that result in a luxurious hand-crafted item. Author Carol Sulcoski, owner of Black Bunny Fibers, a popular indie fiber sock yarn source, delves into the mystery of the hand painted sock yarn and divulges its secrets, explains how to make the best of these much-loved yarns, and shows how to knit with success with 20 new patterns designed just with these yarns in mind. Knitters struggle with hand painted yarns.How do you design projects with them versus other types of yarns? How do you avoid the pitfalls of pooling and splotching? How do you combine multicolored hand paints with other types of yarns? "Knitting Socks with Handpainted Yarn" is designed to provide sock knitters with technical guidance so these wonderful yarns can be used to their best advantage, explaining the differences between various kinds of hand painted yarn and showing how to avoid undesirable effects. Combining her hand dyeing and knitwear designing knowledge, Carol shares techniques and tips to help every sock knitter turn out fabulous footwear. Fun, original sock patterns from a variety of contributors illustrate these techniques. The patterns will be written for widely-available hand dyed yarns so that readers can get the same results, but readers will also learn to identify patterns for their unique yarns.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #148346 in Books
• Published on: 2008-12-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 128 pages

Review
"Some really nice sock patterns, but it's the chapters at the beginning about how to use handpainted yarn that I really love." --KnittingScholar.com Finding the perfect pattern for a skein of hand-dyed yarn can be tricky, but this collection makes it easy with 21 patterns designed to make the most of handpainted yarns. With patterns from new faces alongside top designers like Ann Budd, Veronik Avery and Nancy Bush there is plenty to choose from. The designs use a broad range of techniques to create stunning effects that make the most of the carefully chosen colours in a hand-dyed yarn. From the chevron pattern shown on the cover to a colourwork pattern inspired by a motorcycle shop, there's a great mix of funky and classic patterns. Hand dyed yarns come in a wide rante of styles and colour patterns, so the information at the front of the book is invaluable for anyone who hasn't spent time with a dye-pot themselves. The variegation and pooling which is characteristic of hand-dyed yarns can put some knitters off, so we love that this book not only supplies you with 21 patterns to knit, but in doing so shows you a number of interesting techniques for working with the colour changes in a strongly variegated yarn to create a stunning knit. Even if you prefer to knit your socks in solid colours, the collection is well worth a look as it includes a number of patterns with fascinating and unusual constructions, such as wrapping stitches and invisible horizontal seams, which are useful for all knitters.-Simply Knitting

About the Author
Carol Sulcoski is the owner of Black Bunny Fibers, an independent company creating handdyed yarns and spinning fiber. As a knitting designer, she has had designs published by Knitty.com, KnitNet.com, MenKnit.com, MagKnits.com, and in Big Girl Knits. She is a staff member of Rosie's Yarn Cellar in Philadelphia and regularly designs for the RosieKnits pattern live. She is the author of the knitting blog GoKnitInYourHat and is a co-author of Knit so Fine. Carol lives in Villanova, Pennsylvania.

Customer Reviews

Just what I've been looking for!
As a fan and "collector" of one-of-a-kind skeins of sock yarns from a variety of Indie dyers, I am all too familiar with the delights and pitfalls of knitting with hand-dyed yarns.

This book starts out well, with a section at the beginning on colour theory, and why handpainted yarn "pools" or not according to the way it is dyed, and the way you knit it up. The author suggests broadly categorising handpainted yarns into three groups, and each of the patterns in the book has a symbol "key" to help readers choose an appropriate pattern for the yarn.

The patterns themselves are well thought out, and there are a variety of techniques used in them to allow the knitter to find a pattern to help combat even the most stubborn pooling!

I am half-way through knitting the Pot-Pourri sock pattern from this book, it is well-written and has a simple chart to follow. The pattern is enjoyable to knit, as I am never knitting the same pattern on two subsequent rows, but it is easily memorised (the repeat is only seven rows, of which two are plain knit rows). So far the results are good too! Although it has not entirely eliminated the pooling in the handpainted yarn, the zig-zag pattern leads the eye in such a way that it breaks up the colour blocks, and I must say the effect is much more pleasing than the pooling on a completely plain sock!
Next I will have to try one of the really radical patterns designed for serious pooling issues - there are two sock patterns which totally alter the method of construction to take full advantage of the tendency to stripe, by mixing sections that are knitted as strips running around the sock. These innovative patterns look really stunning in the illustrations - I think I might have to buy some "wildly" dyed yarn just to try them out!

There is a good deal of variety in the patterns - lace, chevrons, wrapped stitches, cables, horizontal construction... plus plenty of useful information and great photographs throughout.

A must for any lover of hand-dyed sock yarns!

Fantastic book for sock knitters
This is a great book for those who love to knit with handpainted yarn. It gives details of how yarns are dyed, and how this creates stripes, pools etc. It teaches you how to assess the yarn you have to see whether it will pool, and then gives advice on how to avoid this (if you want to). The patterns are great - some really pretty socks in here, but you do need to know how to knit socks already - it is not really a book for a beginner.

stimulate your mind
Excellent book with great variety of patterns for socks to stimulate your mind as to what to do with all those lovely coloured yarns you may have in your stash.