Resolutions and Knitting Socks

Our Weight Watchers talk tonight was about New Year's resolutions.

Y'all already know that I already made one resolution, to make the best quality videos ever, and then tonight I went to WW class in the miserable cold rain and got all inspired by a 70-year-old lady attending class. She said she went white water rafting last year, and her goal this year is to ride a zipline in Hawaii! She got me to thinking...I am mulling exciting things that I could do that I have never done before. Gosh, I'd love to ride on a zipline. White water rafting was incredibly fun. I went with friends, and if my friends hadn't wanted to go, I wouldn't have tried it.

What would you resolve to do that is totally out of your box?

Knittingwise, I hope I put some things on the blog that inspire you to do something entirely different.

For instance, some time back I was talking with my girlfriend, who said that she didn't buy an expensive knitting machine and spend months learning to work it just to knit socks! Socks are much too ordinary. She had more glamorous projects in mind.

As a matter of fact, I felt exactly the same way myself. I didn't learn to knit to knit socks, for Pete's sake. However, somewhere along the way I knitted some socks and now I'm hooked. My handmade socks are warm, soft, beautifully fitted so they stay up without all that nasty elastic in commercial socks, and they breathe because they are natural wool. Even worse, I shared some with relatives and friends who are also hooked now. I crank out many pairs of socks each year, normally on my amazing antique circular sock machine. I buy fun, crazy colors. I've experimented with lots of different sock yarns, but my preference is superwash wool with a little nylon for wear.

Socks make wonderful gifts, and they're a great little project for evenings when I've come home tired and just want to knit a little while.

You don't have to have a circular sock machine to make good socks. You can make 'em on the standard machine with ribber, as well.

A sock is a complicated shaped piece of knitting. Expect this to be a little more tricky and to require some practice.

Now I need to go to the knitting machine and get the video made showing how to do a sock on the flatbed standard machine with ribber!