Learning to Knit Again

I've longed to knit socks for about a decade. A horrible "slip-and-fall" accident in January '08 kiboshed my right shoulder and arm and I had to have a complete replacement inserted. It took a long while to learn to write legibly again, type with any kind of speed, drive a car, etc. But I decided to force myself to spin fibre, knit and crochet, and dye rovings and handspun yarns because in spite of residual pain I used to LOVE doing all of those things before my accident.

I discovered this fabulous book on Tuesday:

It's available on Amazon. It includes 15 patterns of gorgeous socks for the entire family. However, being a knitting neophyte I had a hard time figuring out her "magic loops" technique for casting them on two at a time. Enter the joys of Youtube!

Here's a link to five videos where a woman shows you exactly how to cast on, increase in the round, and start the foot of your socks:  Toe-Up-Two-At-A-Time-Socks .

And this is what the first four rows look like when you've cast them on:

And in the meantime, I'm spinning up some luscious sock yarn on my "nearly-antique" Lendrum single treadle spinning wheel as well.

What is your favourite technique for knitting socks? Please share! I love to see what other people are doing. Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you enjoy the links.