Scared and Alone...

I'm teaching myself to knit with only the warmth of the Internet to guide me. I have no one to sit by my side and help me figure out what I'm doing wrong. And the nearest Stitch n' Bitch session is about 40 miles away.

That's probably why the heel turned out in garter on the right side and stocking on the wrong side.

I'm terrified to move any further on my Real Sock, so I attempted a baby Pretend Sock to practice the technique. Good thing. After turning a blue skein of yarn into a tiny green sock (and THAT freaked me out), I started on the heel and somehow knit the heel backwards...

In a sixth-grade English class, we had to write instructions on how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but we had to write it as if the person reading them would have no idea how to do ANYTHING. It was meant to teach us attention to detail. So we couldn't just say "take jelly out of refrigerator." We had to describe what jelly looks like and where to find the refrigerator, and how to open the refrigerator door - my instructions on that simple process ended up being four pages long.

That's what I need from a sock pattern. Clearly, when starting the heel, I need my pattern to tell me EXACTLY which stitches to put on which needle, where to knit, how to knit, when to breathe....

Sigh. I want to be good at socks. And I want to be good at them because I really actually ENJOY making them so far. Double-pointed needles are kinda fun. Slow....but fun.

So fine then...I will go back to knitting back and forth on this wrap until I locate an acceptably thorough instruction process on socks. (And I have the ten-page Knitty.com Knitting-Socks-If-You're-Retarded instructions...still not enough...maybe I need pictures...)

I wish I was in the Matrix and they could just jack that plug thing into the back of my head and pump me full of knitting knowledge. I enjoy knitting way too much to not actually be any good at it.