Friday, Friday, Friday!

Wow, thanks for to all of you who participated in this week's contest!

It seems like there were several themes to our knitting technique fears. Lots of you are intimidated by Fair Isle, entrelac, steeking, and socks!

I'm resolving to get over my entrelac, Fair Isle and steeking fears starting in 2008. I have too much personal and Christmas knitting to finish before then, but here's my plan: I'm going to choose a project for each of these three categories and I'm going to learn them in succession. Trial and error is fine, so is ripping back. I'm going to put the pressure on myself to learn these things by coming up with a goal, but at the same time I'm going to take the pressure off by relaxing, buying cheap yarn for the projects (or better, using stash), and not being worried about the outcome.

Don't we all feel some sort of desire to not only knit and learn new things, but to have everything we produce be fabulous? Maybe it's just me. I want everything that comes off my needles to be as glam and fab as possible, and I think that holds me back when it comes to new techniques. So in my learning processes with these new things, I'm letting go of the results. Beginners mind, right? If I hadn't done the exact same thing when I first started knitting I never would have gotten anywhere!

My question for you guys is this: If I start a KAL based on conquering knitting fears, would any of you be interested? Should I just focus on one technique or should it be a free for all?

I searched the interwebs for good places to start with each of these big fears and I've included some links to good places for information on getting started with each. I hope this helps some of you overcome your trepidations!

Fair Isle:
Knitting Help (video!)
Eunny's Tips & Tricks (awesome tips)
Headbands (cute small pattern, thanks Madge!)


Steeking:
Eunny's Steeking Chronicles (details)
Knitty's Steeking article (more details)
Jared's pictorial (great pictures)

Socks:
Silver's Sock Class (excellent online class)
Socks Compendium (great resource links)
Knitty's Socks 101 (excellent walkthru)

Entrelac:
Forest Path KAL (these ladies culled a lot of resources so I linked them directly)


And now, for the drumroll please.......

This week's winner is Kendyl!

Bet you'd like to see what you won, eh?

Walking With a Ghost!

It's a light silver semisolid, and in this instance it's dyed on a merino/silk/nylon silver yarn. YUM. Kendyl, email me your address and I'll have it out to you tomorrow!

I'll have some up in the Etsy shop today!

Have a great weekend!