Diary of a sock pt1.

I've been meaning to knit socks ever since I started knitting about two years ago. It may even have been the sight of someone knitting a sock in the pub at a blogmeet which triggered the desire to knit. There is something special about knitting a sock; such an ordinary item which we wear almost without thinking, which makes it a desirable thing to make for myself.

I've been working up to it for some time now. I bought myself a Regia sock kit in the sales after last Christmas, and spent some time staring at the coded pattern and eyeing the incy wincy teeny weeny double pointy pointy needles. Terrifying. I managed to lose one of the needles in the kit almost instantly and after a month or so shoved the rest of the kit under the sofa (which is where my knitting yarn stash lives).

A while later I bumped into a fellow knitter at a Londonist meetup, and she suggested I try the magic loop method. I spent hours on Ravelry trying to find out about this (for free: I am an internet cheapskate), and eventually got to grips with it when knitting the hat for my Dad this December. This meant I was Ready For Socks, or so I thought. In the inevitable post-Christmas Amazon splurge (or is that just me?) I ordered two books about knitting socks. One for knitting from the toe up, and one for magic loop knitting two at a time (a boon for impatient folk such as I, surely?) I cannot fail! I thought. I cannot fail to be more confused, it turns out. Back to the incy wincy teeny weeny double pointed needles and the original kit pattern. Back to cursing and swearing at thin yarn slipping through my fingers, dropped stitches and mis-counting. I can't deal with those needles, however easy other people seem to find them.

Luckily the other day I stumbled upon a magic loop tutorial for one sock at a time, and I have now managed to both cast on and knit about an inch of cuff. Inevitably, I have cast on four stitches too many (I was confused, alright?), and as usual it took three goes to do that. I am not at all convinced that I have the stamina to make it through two whole socks with yarn not much thicker than button thread, and I am steadfastly ignoring the bit in the pattern where I have to go around a corner, but at last I am knitting a sock!