I’m learning to knit socks

For Christmas I asked for balls of sock yarn, never mind the fact that I didn’t actually know how to knit socks. I had a book on the subject and figured that if I could teach myself to quilt on the Internet, then I probably could teach myself to knit socks with a book.

Well I got the cast on for toe-up socks down thanks to the video below. I think it’s the best video on YouTube demonstrating Judy’s Magic Cast On. But I was stuck after that. I couldn’t figure out how to increase stitches. It was time for some real life instruction.

Thankfully a new yarn shop in the Quad-Cities opened up and was offering a class in knitting not one, but two toe up socks at the same time. While this isn’t the easiest of methods, it does result in two socks that are exactly the same size and length and eliminates something knitters call “Second Sock Syndrome.” Apparently it is quite common to knit one sock and then lose all motivation to knit the second.

So I took the class last Saturday and so far have come up with these beauties. I swear they have come from the same skein of yarn but since the variegation didn’t start at the same spot they look like to completely different socks right now. I think that will start to change as the socks get further along.

Right now these puppies fit over the balls of my feet, which is another advantage of toe up socks, you can try them on as you go to make sure they fit right. And it has taken me about 7 hours to get this far. My dad said it would probably be easier to just buy a pair at the store. I told him it was like my quilting. It would be a lot easier to go buy a comforter, but I enjoy the process, so I’ll keep knitting away … when I’m not quilting that is.

And just in case we have any closet knitters reading this blog, yes I know I accidentally knit two rows wrong around the toe. But I can live with the mistake, so I left it. These are my first pair after all. They’re not going to be perfect, and I’m OK with that.