You can use any width of blank you like as you are not creating any specific pattern. A double stranded blank is recommended if you want both socks to be identical.
Prepare the blank and the dyes ready for painting. Using a paint brush, applicator bottle, turkey baster or sponge applicator to paint random sections of the blank in your chosen colours.
For fun you can create blanks with hidden messages such as “I love you” or paint them with a picture but bear in mind that this detail is lost when the blank is knitted.
Top Tips
• Limit the number of colours you use to 3 or 4, too many colours can end up lost in the finished sock.
• Choose colours that go with all the other colours. Even though they may be not be together in the blank they may end up next to each other in the knitted sock. So if you really don’t want pink and orange patches in the sock don’t use both of those colours in the blank.
The example shown below is a child’s sock knitted from a random dyed blank. I knitted a blank on my knitting machine using some pink merino 4ply yarn. I painted a random pattern of hearts, spots and lines in red, blue and purple dye using a turkey baster then I rolled the blank in cling film and set the dye in the microwave. When it was washed and dry I knitted a child’s sock from the blank and this is how it turned out. The pattern I painted on the blank has been completely lost and the colours appear as random patches on the sock.
This method can be exciting to do as you don’t know what the sock will look like until you’ve finished it but the results can vary.
Random painted blank and child’s sock
