knit socks

Things usually come easy to me. Not (hehe knot) knitting. Knitting makes no sense to me visually. I have no concept of how a couple of well placed stiches will turn a heel.

But I’m sticking with it no matter how long it takes. This past weekend I was able to knit on my 4 double pointed needles and make the ankle of a sock AND it actually looks like the ankle of a sock! When I got to the heel I became confused.

I have a knitting date on Feb 21st. Hopefully more progress will be made.

Every place I go does not carry self-striping sock yarn. I could not find any yarn of fingerling weight that wasn’t in baby pastels. So I finally looked up some local yarn specialty stores and drove to San Dimas the other day.

I’m so excited!

She copied a basic sock pattern for me and explained each step of the pattern. She also told me that when I got to the heel of the sock I could come back and see her and she’d walk me through it.

She’s the best. I’m going in baby steps and that is all good because I know that I WILL accomplish this.

I am meeting up with my knitting teacher on Sunday where she plans to walk me through a sock pattern. YAY!

There were a lot of things I wanted to do with my free time a couple weekends ago and one of them was to kick my knitting up a notch. I WANT TO MAKESOCKS DAMMIT!

ahem.

I knew that in order to make it so that I would need personal instruction because that is how I learn the fastest. I checked out the Tall Mouse website and found Peg. Peg said she’d meet me Sunday morning at the Tall Mouse and for $10 she’d show me everything I’d need to know about knitting and whatever we don’t get to…well she thinks it’s silly to charge a whole lesson fee for something that will take her 5 minutes to tell me. She says she only makes people pay for 1 lesson and does the rest for free. I value her time more than she does.

Because I’ve never really followed a pattern I am knitting one more scarf in a basketweave pattern. It looks kind of like this one except that it’s green.

Peg and I hit it off immediately. She’s over 64 from what I got out of the conversation. She rode one of those electric carts that aren’t wheelchairs. I never saw her out of that thing. She’s raised 8 children and has 20 something grandchildren with three sets of twins. She watches 5 of them during the week while their parents work. She was the first woman manager in Anaheim’s Little League and first umpire. This woman has spunk. She calls bullshit on a lot of stuff. We were at the counter paying for my lesson and she asked the girl if I could have my 10% discount in card form rather than just for today at the store. That way I could decide later what I wanted to use it on. I started to say that “That’s ok…I’m fine with just today” and she’s all through the side of her mouth, “shut up!” She makes me laugh.

I was worried though. She didn’t like the idea of making socks. She said she hadn’t made them since she was 18 and they just get holes and get worn and they are too much work for that to happen. After our session I walked over to Henry’s Market and on the way I initially thought it’s too bad that I wouldn’t be utilizing her services any more but then I caught myself. I decided that she was definitely going to teach me how to make socks.

She called me later that evening to tell me that she found some very cool books on sock-making and she can’t wait to share them with me. Am I free next weekend?

Unfortunately I’m not but I will be making socks with Peg soon.

OH and while I was browsing the Tall Mouse I saw a beautiful blanket that I want to make in greens and purples. It looks so rich. It’s this one. Unfortunately it will cost $120 for the yarn alone. But it’s so soft and luxurious!