Knitting Socks, Self Patterning Yarns, Blog Searches

I am excited about learning how to knit socks on circular needles. Tomorrow is my first class at the Tangle yarn store in Grand Junction, CO.

Take a look at the well organized Tangle website. Lots of classes are available for beginning knitters. Note the beautiful yarns, also. I had little trouble in finding a couple of skeins that just begged to be in lap and under my eyeballs for a few days while knitting socks.

Here is a picture of the colorful SELF PATTERNING yarn that I purchased for this sock class project:

What exactly is self patterning yarn? A bit of information from The Boston Globe explains it thusly:

self-patterning yarn is (sic) dyed at intervals so that different colors and shapes emerge automatically, without your having to change yarn or, really, do anything but sit there and mindlessly, happily knit.

Along with the advent of the self-patterning yarn, which arrived in American stores about four years ago, have come new techniques in sock knitting, using circular rather than the traditional double-pointed needles. The two developments have given new meaning to the phrase "foot fetish," sparking interest in both beginning and experienced knitters.

Stripes, zigzags, dots, Fair Isle patterns, or random smudges of color emerge effortlessly from under the knitter's fingers in a hypnotic progression, and the choices are nearly infinite.

A detailed blog site from a woman in France who wrote about her socks on April 3, The French Knitter, is fun to browse. Also, the Loopy Ewe has a complete site and shows fun socks on her April 2 posting. She even mentions Colorado. That is my residential state, and it was fun to read about her adventures in the car while traveling. And I found many more knitting blog sites by performing a simple Google blog search.

A quick lesson on performing a Google blog search for yourself:

1) open up the Google toolbar
2) look to the upper left; click on the MORE tab
3) scroll down to BLOGS and hit ENTER
4) type in your blog topic in the open window bar (example: “socks”)
5) All blogs recently written with that term (socks) in their headlines will be displayed.

If you are an experienced knitter and do not need instructions on making gussets, you might want to try making some socks without a teacher at hand. This link will take you to a free socks pattern: Socks

You can bet I will show you a picture of my finished socks in the near future, dropped stitches, warts and all.