I didn’t call my first blog yarnstorm by accident. Ever since I was taught as a child how to do basic knit-a-row, purl-a-row knitting, I have been entranced by the rhythms, textures and patterns of knitting. So it was inevitable that the impetus to set up a blog would come from knitting.
Sock-knitting has become something of a passion over the last couple of years. Although I’d been knitting since I was at university, I’d never knitted a sock. I remember once seeing a friend knit some beautiful, fine gloves on double pointed needles (dpns) and it simply scared me. I couldn’t understand how she could manage such tiny rounds (she was knitting for her own slim and delicate hands) with such thin yarn; it was like something out of a fairy tale illustration.
But I was converted by a friend who introduced me to self-striping yarns and a very simple sock pattern. So once a sock has been cast onto four dpns I can relax into the mindlessness of going round and round like a hamster in a wheel. The yarns I use are cleverly and mathematically calculated to form even circles of colour without any effort on my part, and much of the fun comes from seeing new stripe after new stripe emerge until the sock becomes a stack of brightly coloured hula hoops.
I have to admit that I still am clueless about most of the technical aspects of sock-knitting, but this has not prevented me from knitting warm, cosy, colourful and gaily patterned socks which have been worn by all members of the family.
