Socks! Woohoo!

(please disregard my goose bumps, it was quite chilly this morning)

I feel as if I have finally made great progress on my knitting journey, I finished my first pair of socks! Now, I was impressed with myself when I whipped up Jay's hat for Christmas, but I am really a bit too excited about this whole sock thing. It is strangely satisfying even though people keep asking me "why don't you just go buy a pair of socks?". At least if modern industry completely melts down I know for sure that my family will continue to have warm feet. These socks were just a basic pattern provided by my local yarn shop at sock knitting lessons and they are knit with Sheep Shop Yarn Company yarn in sheep number three color G152. They actually have quite a few free patterns on their site I just discovered, you have to click on the different yarns (the different sheep) and then they have a button for free patterns using that yarn. Oh, and last night I came across Knitting Pattern Central which lists tons of free patterns from all over the web and I also found an awesome Sock-u-lator that if you put in your measurements it gives you a basic pattern for whatever size you need (you can customize how long you want your sock and other stuff). I was looking for child size sock patterns because of course the girls want socks and I have a lot of leftover yarn from these ones. She also has all kinds of other calculators here.

So, lots of beginning knitters say they will never knit socks, I have to admit I kind of scoffed at the idea at one time, but they really are fun. Also, you look really cool using four needles at once. I also just bought a book about how to do two socks at one time on circular needles and am very interested in giving that a try, I think finishing two socks at once would be downright joyous! Socks are also a very portable project. I knit these:

-while watching movies

-at sock guild

-at the bus stop

-on the chaise bird watching with the cats

-while the girls took very long baths

-at Melissa's dinner party (I was cramming for sock lessons the next day)

-at quilt guild

-while driving Jay to work when the squirrels ate his car (well, he drove, I knit)

-in the drivethru line at the bank

and who knows how many other random places.

One row takes me two and a half minutes, so really they are easy to pull out and get a bit done just about anywhere.