Incentive?

Well, lookee here! There's something stuffed in my mailbox and it's not junk mail.

Ubiquitous white postal service bag with the label "Blue Moon Fiber Arts." I ripped through the reinforced packing as quickly as my little fingers could manage.

Lo and behold, there were four skeins of some of the purrdiest painted yarn I ever clapped eyes on. My Socks That Rock had arrived! Please welcome Carbon, Cobblestone County, Alina and Carbon Dating to the fold.

Despite the urge, I won't succumb to startitis until I can knit socks right and proper. Toward that goal, I've also ordered two Nenah Galati DVDs from Knitting Korner that will walk me through the vagaries of sock knitting: short rows, heel flaps, gussets and sock knitting on circular needles. In the meantime, I've made some minor progress on my training sock with the help of Charlene Schurch's "Sensational Knitted Socks".

Instead of patterns (which was what I expected), Sensational Knitted Socks is set up much like Ann Budd's books, with measurements, sock construction methods and stitch patterns. You pick what you want, cobbling together your own pattern, as it were. The one thing I find lacking is instruction on making toe-up socks instead of top-down. Otherwise, once you get the hang of it, Schurch's book serves as a decent basis for launching into ones own sock knitting journey. Correction: Sensational Knitted Socks does, indeed, briefly cover toe-up socks, calling them "Easy Toe" or "Round Toe".