Quote Originally Posted by Blinki View Post
Im in awe of your talent one and all. Im thinking I might have to learn to knit now.
Blinki I am not expert but there is only one stitch in knitting especially if you knit in the round. (knitting a sock in the round, one knitting needle with a point at each end and a cable in the middle, you make a tube.) This is the knit stitch. You could knit kilt hose using only the knit stitch if you knit from the top down, did a tube sock (no heel) and knit in the round. The hard part would be the decrease in the size of the leg as you go down toward the ankle. To do this you would k2tog (knit 2 together) or put your knitting needle through 2 stitches at one time rather that just one.

If you take your sock tube and turned it inside out you would see that the inside is made up of purl stitches. A purl stitch is the knit stitch done backwards. Once you have mastered the knit and purl stitch you have basic knitting down, because, just about everything else is just a variation on these two stitches.

Stop by your local craft store and pick up one of the I taught myself to knit books. Knit a scarf then a watch cap then kilt hose.

Now I don't want to over simplify the process. Broken down into its parts just about everything is simple. It is when we can only see the forest that we forget that we came to cut down one small tree. The mastery shown by String, Thistlelass and others is how they take all the various variation on the knit/purl stitch and put them together.

There is alot of information on the web to help get you started as well as friendly folk here.


Take a look at Silver's Sock Class for some simple instructions on how to knit a sock.