After knitting for a year I got bored with dish cloths and scarves and half mittens. I wanted a new challenge. Since I had taught myself off the internets, my stitches were top notch (or as good as they were going to get) but my pattern reading skills were the pits. So I picked an intermediate pattern from Red Heart (J27.0001-5K), bought some yarn and got cracking. Yay Socks!
Now, being two pages long and made for three different sizes, this pattern scared me for two reasons. One - I had to follow a pattern and wouldn't be able to fly by the seat of my pants into the sock knitting night; Two - The pattern was two pages long and, after reading it through, I had no idea what I was in for. I started anyway, taking it one pattern section at a time. It turned out to, luckily, be a good strategy. The rib pattern was super easy and made up most of the sock. The tricky part ended up being understanding what the pattern wanted with regards to what needle was 'No 1' and what a psso was. (The internet helped me out with that one.) I got down to the heel where the pattern splits off onto only two needles. It recommends to place the unworked on stitches onto a stitch holder... which at the time I thought was a ploy to sell stitch holders... but seriously, buy one, so much less stress. Next, it was working in knit for the heel, which - after I figured out what a psso was - was rather easy. Picking up the stitches after the heel was done was awkward but manageable. Then it was rib pattern and knit from there on out, all the way to the toe knit.
Over all, I'd give sock making a 3 out of 5. It takes forever because you get bored of the rib pattern, but, at the end, I got a real sense of accomplishment. I made feet covers! Rainbow feet covers.
-Andrea
The Half-Assed Hobbyist