I have something to confess: I have an addiction to Lily’s Sugar ‘n Cream cotton yarn. Every time I’m in a JoAnn Fabrics, Michael’s, or other craft store — I can scarcely help myself from picking up a skein or two. If there’s a color I haven’t knit before, I buy it. If it’s on sale, I buy lots. I can’t help myself! (Hence the 50 dish cloths project.)

A lot of knitters are similarly addicted to sock yarn, it seems. I fell prey to sock yarn when I was browsing Etsy one day. Sock yarn comes in the most jaw-dropping colorways. Hand-painted, self-striping, soft, and yummy. It’s easy to see why it becomes an addiction.

Up till now, I’ve been able to avoid the full-blown addiction because I don’t know how to knit socks. The more I read about it, the more I read knitters singing the praises and wonders of hand-knit footwear, the more I realize I need to learn. Like, NOW.

I bought myself a copy of Getting Started Knitting Socks. I spent last night reading the introductory chapters. It definitely made the idea of knitting socks a bit less terrifying.

So I dug out one of the two beautiful skeins of sock yarn that I’ve been hording. I chose to start with the Coral Pink colorway from Fearless Fibers. I cast on thirty stitches, intending to start my very first gauge swatch for a sock. Then I quickly realized that I was far too tired to be working on size 1 DPNs using such teeny-tiny yarn.

(Damn… I’m only 25 and I’m already going blind?)

Anyway, I was forced back to finishing a couple other projects I had going. Not really a bad thing, I guess.

Tonight, though, I will attempt to begin conquering my fear of knitting socks! Then the sock yarn obsession can begin.

(Secretly, I admit I also have a hope that I can sway my hubby-to-be, Nick, into appreciating my knitting a bit more if I can woo him using knit socks, as Stephanie Pearl-McPhee describes in her books… but that’s a whole other issue… he he.)

Incidentally, anticipating this upcoming sock-yarn obsession, and recalling a not-so-fond memory of winding the sock yarn I bought in the past, I decided to order an umbrella swift off eBay today too. Let’s just say: untangling 200+ yards of sock yarn is not something I want to have to do twice in my lifetime.