Hello friends, I'm knitting my first pair of sock blank socks! I've always loved the idea of sock blanks but somehow managed to go my entire knitting career without purchasing a blank. I recently received a few sample blanks and decided to give dyeing them a go. The dyeing was fun, though certainly more labour intensive than our usual procedure, but the results are worth it I think. The blank looks super cool right? So, naturally, I snapped a few pictures and then started knitting right away. When thinking about sock blanks and the possibility of selling some TFA blanks, it was important to me that they be double knit so that you could get 2 totally matching socks out of one blank. However, I now realize that it makes the process of preparing the blank for knitting quite tedious. It's a 2 person job. Chris and I each pulled one strand of yarn and unravelled the blank into 2 balls ready for knitting. If it were a single layer of knitted fabric you could knit directly from the blank if you wanted to, or wind it off on a ball winder much faster. As far as I can tell so far, the nuisance of having to wind the 2 balls is the only downside to the double blank. What do you think?
Knitting these socks also feels like knitting with frogged yarn (which it essentially is since it's already been knit into a blank, then unwound and now knit again). It doesn't really bother me, but it's not as enjoyable a knitting experience as knitting from a fresh skein would be. I could have wound my balls into skeins, soaked and dried them to get out the kinks before I begun knitting if it really bothered me, but it doesn't seem worth that much extra effort. Despite what may be coming off as a lukewarm review so far I'm actually completely in love with how the socks are knitting up! Because I had the 2 balls it seemed like a really good opportunity to try knitting this pair of socks 2 at a time using magic loop, and I totally would have (I even read through a tutorial and it seemed manageable!) but I didn't have the right size needles and I was to impatient to cast on so instead I'm knitting 2 socks simultaneously and it's oddly satisfying! I knit 2 lovely little toes, and then a few inches on one, next a few inches on the next. Last night I knit 2 heels. It definitely makes these socks feel like they are flying off the needles!
So, I need to know, how do you all feel about sock blanks? Are you interested in TFA blanks? Do you like double knit for matching socks or single knit because you just don't care about matching and/or you'd want to use the yarn for a shawl or something else?