Sockblank

What is a sockblank and why would anybody bother?
A sockblank is a rectangular piece of knitting, made with two strands of sockweight yarn held together. You knit one (or buy one) so you can dye it, unravel it and then knit again, this time in the shape of a sock (or a shawl, or a pullover, ....)

Here, the knitted blank, after I soaked it for a couple of hours in water (not a good idea to dye a dry piece of fabric). I spread it out on cling film so the dye won't do funny things to my table.

Using various Kool-Aid packaged I painted the blank in various pattern. The color combination here is a bit wild, I admit, but as those were the only colors/flavors I had left, I didn't have much choice.

Next, I covered the blank with a second layer of cling film, rolled it up like a long sausage and placed in a glass dish. I put it in the microwave for 3 x 2min on full power, letting it set for a few minutes in between. Unlike my first experiment with Kool-Aid, I had no indicator if the colors have really set, but i think it might have been enough.

 Then I unraveled the blank and wound the two threads into skeins. This step is not really nesseccary, as you could knit directly of the blank if you want (doing two socks at the same time), but I wanted to see how the yarn looks, and, damn, it's pretty!

The first sock knitted from it. The pattern is froop loop, an older pattern from knitty. When I saw the skein, it sort of wanted to be that one, so who am I to protest.

As you can see, I started from the left of the blank (the orange section on the cuff) and ended about 2/3 through (before the next section of blue). Next time when I'm dying a blank, I will make less vertical stripes, as they lead to large stretches of just one color.
But over all I love the result. This is a lot of fun to do and I certainly will try again.