Socks and more socks - some dying, too

At long last, a photo of my finished socks (I know you've all been on the edge of your seats).

The sock I had to dye more wool for is the one on top in the photo, and you can see that the stripes are thinner. I think I know why this is, and could probably closer replicate the first yarn now. The socks had been worn, washed and dried by the time I took the photo...the colour did not fade one bit, but they don't smell QUITE so candy-like any more.

(*note* they are actually the same length, not different lengths as they look in the photo. Really.)

My boys think this whole process is pretty neat, and asked if I could make some socks for them. Oldest requested blue and red wool, and his are coming along quite nicely. I used Strawberry KoolAid for his red, not Fruit Punch as I used in mine, and found that his took longer to rinse out after dying. I'm hoping that this red is as colourfast as the one I used on my own.

Also, I pre-weighed the wool and needles before I started his sock, and at various points throughout weighed the work in progress. I'm pretty sure I have a 25 gram sock. I have 25 grams of wool remaining. Cross your fingers for me that I'll have another 25 gram sock! Oldest's feet are only 2.5 cm shorter than my own right now. Soon his socks will be as big as mine!

Youngest wanted to try something with three colours, so we have dyed his wool blue (using Ice Blue flavour), green (with that oh-so lovely Lime), and purple (two packets of Grape).

The dye baths for this batch exhausted really quickly! Does anyone who does dying out there know if it's because of the lower amount of water-to-dye ratio? I used two packets of each colour, but only in about 300ml water (otherwise it wouldn't have fit in the microwave). The green exhausted in the first 3 minutes, the blue not long after (that white stuff in the blue bath does not attach itself to the fibres, but remains in the glass...and people drink this stuff???). The purple never really did completely exhaust, but I didn't really expect it to as seems to be the case with my limited experience of KoolAid red dyes.

Here's Youngest's after rinsing in the sink. I've since dried and rolled it, and that purple has kept it's dark plummy colour.

There. More than you ever wanted to know about our socks!

:)
Lisa