Mardi Gras socks

I've been knitting plain socks lately and needed a little color explosion. This is some stashed Opal Hundertwasser sock yarn. Each colorway is based on one of the artist's paintings. Imagine dyeing your own sockyarn (we once used Yarns to Dye For) using the colors of your landscape, your garden in Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall, the tree branches against the sky outside your window.

If I were to begin right now it would be with the clover devouring my yard: the toe would be the light yellow clover flowers with a soft green foot in st st for the clover leaves. At the ankle would begin the light grey bark of the crabapple tree in a rib stitch. It would grow up my leg until it hit a soft blue sky and I'd so some simple fair isle pattern to fade the branches into sky blue.

You could custom dye a ball of yarn to knit up this way. Or, you could tie bits of yarn together and wind it into a ball. The best part would be designing a label with directions and the original scene that inspired the yarn. This would make a great Lenten project - using stash and leftovers to create landscape socks, mitts, tea cozies, neck warmers.... waiting for Spring.