Knitting and Crochet Blog Week 2011: You Got Skills!

All this week my postings are a part of the 2nd Annual Knitting & Crochet Blog Week. To learn more about it, just click here.

My Very First Two Needle Sock

Looking back on where I was this time last year, I am just amazed at just how much I’ve grown in regards to my knitting.

If you had told me last year that by this time I would have a pattern available on Ravelry, I would have laughed in your face. What started off as just me taking on another knitting challenge to conquer by knitting my first pair of socks, has now turned into a passion of wanting to make and promote two needle sock knitting. 

I can still remember being frustrated at how I was all thumbs trying to knit a sock on double-pointed needles. And how jealous I was watching Cookie A working on her latest sock at the local knitting group. She could make almost any sock yarn her bitch and I wanted to be able to do that.

I watched every YouTube video I could find on how to knit socks using various methods. I tried toe up and top down, sideways, knitting loom and even crochet. It was some random obscure pattern that I ran across online that finally made it all come together for me. Child socks knitted on two needles with a seam down the back and on the sides. Pure magic! 

After knitting my first sock with this pattern everything just started to make sense for me. I studied other sock patterns, learning about sock history and sock construction. Soon I was able to read a top down sock pattern and be able to convert it into a two needle pattern. Now, I have sketch books  full of ideas and thoughts of publishing my own book of two needle sock designs!

A Recent Sock Design

I have learned and grown a lot. But I am nowhere near considering myself an expert by any means.  I am not ashamed to confess that there are still things I have yet to learn in knitting. My lace knitting is a true testament to resisting the urge to frog. I still have never done a cable pattern. My  I-cords look more like I-won’ts. And no matter how hard I try, I suck at Faire Isle.

The wonderful thing about the needle arts is that you are encouraged to always keep growing and learning and just when you think you’ve learned it all, there is always something new just waiting around the bin.

So, what new skills / techniques have you learned this past year?

First Sock Design Rejection

Well, last week I got my first sock pattern rejected by the online knitting and crochet magazine, Tangled.   It was the Sunset In Sedona sock that I posted on the site Sunday.

I figured that as I make and submit socks for consideration in magazines, any that get rejected will be posted on Ravelry for all of you to enjoy.

It’s odd, but I don’t feel at all bad about being rejected. I was able to create a pair of wonderful socks in a yarn that I love  and I finally sat down a wrote out a sock pattern- which wasn’t too painful. The best part is that I got to share it with all of you. So that makes me happy.

One of my friends jokingly congratulated me on my rejection. “Your first rejection? That’s great! Now you’re just two more rejections away from being offered a book deal.”

Well, it would be nice if that happened. But until then, I’ll just keep knitting more socks and seeing where this yarn covered road takes me.