MY FIRST SOCK

        Well since this blog is about crafting maybe I should get to it and start writing about something I am currently working on. As I mentioned in my first post, I learned to knit socks this holiday season and was actually arrogant enough to promise 3 pairs as a present in a gift exchange.. But not just any socks, dress socks, which is basically, just like any other sock pattern but just with really tiny needles and very thin wool. So armed with size 2 US needles ( that's 2.75mm) and fingerling wool ( think thinner than the white cord that you cut off a roast) I enthusiastically start my project while everyone else is drinking in the New Year. I had the flu, so I got rowdy with an afghan, a rocking chair and my knitting. 

        As you can tell from my progress pictures, the beginning was easy, annoying but easy. Ribbing (repeating a pattern of knitting and purling to create a stretchy fabric, think the cuff of a sweater) on dpns (double pointed needles, so you can use either end, best to use when making socks and mitts) is sometimes, I find, a frustrating task. (Please let me know if my craft definitions are helpful or if I should knock it off okay?) But after 21 rows, I am ready to make the body of the sock, 60 knitted rows later things are still going well, I just stop working half the stitches as I start the heel and then I am stuck.

        Like seriously stuck, Do not pass go, Do not collect 200 dollars stuck. But I am stubborn, I keep trying, reading and rereading the pattern over and over again, knowing I will eventually get it if I just keep at it. I knew the internet could help, you tube has taught me alot, but I wanted to figure this one out on my own, for that sense of accomplishment but mostly because my mother-in-law is helping me with my knitting development, she's a master knitter, and my husband's family joked that on my next visit I would have a bunch of half finished socks that she would have to help me complete. So there I am sitting on the couch in my living room with my husband, watching Die Hard, arguably one of the greatest Christmas movies of all time and I can't pay attention to Bruce Willis because my heel wouldn't co-operate. It took an hour, the visual knitting book my in-laws bought me for Christmas and a few rewinds of Die Hard, because there are moments you just can't miss no matter how many times you have seen it, but finally I turn the heel.(Created the part that your heel sits in.)

        It was simple, so simple, once I figured out what the pattern wanted ,but bloody hell I was lost for a bit. It took me the 3 other Die Hard movies to complete the sock but what can I say beside, Yippie-ki-yay, motherfucker. 

 A finished sock!!