Lynne Vogel, "The Twisted Sisters Sock Workbook: Dyeing, Painting, Spinning, Designing, Knitting"

With simple directions and tips on how to dye, paint, spin, and knit yarn to create authentic socks, this book offers all the information necessary to fashion socks with personality. Included are innovative patterns and tips for knitting socks with customized fit—even for all ten toes. Safe and easy directions are given on dyeing yarn from pour-dyeing methods to dyeing with Kool-Aid. With photos and illustrations of finished examples, sock patterns such as newborn socks and magic genie toe socks, and advice on how to create one-of-a-kind projects, it will appeal to all levels of knitters and spinners.

From the Back Cover
Sisterhood, sharing, crafting, giving, laughing—that's what this book is about. It's also about spinning yarn and knitting socks. Not just any old yarn or any old socks, but glorious, zany, wildly colorful yarn for perfect-fitting socks of character and personality.

Dip-dyeing, pour-dyeing, and hand-painting yarns or wool rovings is as easy as making homemade soup, whether you use commercial dyes or Kool-Aid. If you like starting from scratch, spinning one-of-a-kind yarns is easier than you think. But you don't need to dye or spin to make your own well-crafted, perfectly-fitting socks—you can simply knit your own pair of life's true luxuries.

The Twisted Sisters Sock Workbook has it all—techniques, patterns, invaluable tips for creating authentic, perfect, made-to-order footwear. Even socks for new babies or socks with ten toes.

And who are the Twisted Sisters? A hospice nurse, post-doc scholar, organic farmer, assistant attorney general for the state of Oregon, high school teacher, finance and operations manager, touch therapist, mom, and more.

From Library Journal
The Twisted Sisters are a group of women in Oregon who delight in making one-of-a-kind hand-spun, dyed, and knitted socks from scratch. This book about how they do it is chock-full of color photos of gorgeous socks you'll never see for sale at your local Wal-Mart.

The author, an accomplished hand spinner and knitter, assumes that the reader already knows how to knit and spin and wants to go to the next level of sock-making creativity by dyeing or hand painting hand-spun yarn to make signature socks. Included are guidelines for dyeing yarn or roving using hot and cold pour dyeing, spot dyeing, and dyeing with Kool-Aid, as well as suggestions for spinning the yarn to maximize the effects of dyeing and, finally, methods of designing and knitting perfectly-fitting socks.

For its selected audience, this is the best nontechnical resource to take you through the processes of dyeing, spinning, and designing socks. Highly recommended for public libraries where demand warrants.

Contents

Preface: Who are the Twisted Sisters?

1 Color and Dyeing
 Working in an Intuitive Manner A Personal Approach to Color
 Preparing Dye Stock Solutions
 Mixing Colors
 Dyeing a Color Wheel
 Developing a Thematic Color Scheme
 General Guidelines on Dyeing
 Hot Pour Dyeing
 Cold Pour Dyeing
 Spot Dyeing
 Dyeing with Kool-Aid®

2 From Fiber to Yarn
 What Happens to Color When You Spin?
 Fiber Preparation
 The Spindle and the Sock Addict's Survival Kit
 Designing Two-Ply Yarns
 Working with Singles
 Making Navajo Three-Ply Yarns

3 Knitting Socks
 Basic Sock Pattern
 How to Fit Your Feet
 Sampling, Yarn, and Gauge
 The Sock as a Tube
 Some Other Ways to Knit a Sock
 Methods of Casting On
 Methods of Binding Off
 Ribbing and Cuffs
 Heels, the Turning Point
 Afterthought Heels
 Basic Sock Toes
 Fancy Toes
 Gallery
 Washing Handknit Socks

Suppliers
Suggested Reading
Index

Tags: qCrafts, qKnitting

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