Super Socks book update

Sometimes, it’s quite hard to believe that the Sockalong and the Super Socks book has only been around for just over a year – it feels as if it’s something that has always been part of my life!

Super Socks book

I have loved every minute of helping people discover that sock knitting is something that they can do and I am constantly amazed by how people find the Sockalong from even remote parts of the world – the wonders of the internet, I guess!

It was back in July last year that Super Socks was first published and in that year, more people than I ever imagined have wanted to learn to knit socks, and more pairs than I ever thought have been knitted – at our first birthday celebrations in May, I was able to reveal that over 3,500 pairs of socks had been knitted in that first year. Wow! That’s an awful lot of socks, and I was beaming for days thinking about all those toasty toes, not to mention all those people who had discovered that knitting small round tubes could help with their well-being and allow them to do something productive in all those small pockets of time that we have during the day.

What I also discovered, much to my surprise, was that I also learnt more about knitting socks myself in that first year than I ever expected. There’s nothing like people asking questions about what you’ve written to make you look at it again to see if you’ve explained it in the easiest or most straightforward way! The Facebook group in particular has been invaluable for being able to help people instantly to understand something and also to make me think about whether the Sockalong tutorials are the best that I can possibly make them.

West Yorkshire Spinners Rum Paradise yarn

And a year later, I am still very proud of the Sockalong tutorials and how they are written. I am happy that I have done my best to explain how to knit socks, and certainly from the number that have been knitted then I know I have been doing something right. However, I have listened very carefully to the questions that were asked and I know that there’s always room for something to be better, so I have made a few changes to the tutorials. I’ve waited until now so that I can be sure that I’ve covered everything that people asked about and I’ve worked hard to make sure that the updates are relevant and the tutorials are even better.

There’s nothing massively different; the structure and text are the same apart from some re-wording here and there to make some things simpler to understand, but I have added in some new photos (thankfully I was able to buy another ball of yarn to re-knit my samples for the photographs!) which will hopefully make it easier to see some of the explanations. The main changes are to the explanation of the sock stitch calculation and the gusset and picking up stitcheswith the short circular needle.

I don’t want any who has already bought a copy of Super Socks to feel that they are missing out on the updates as that doesn’t seem fair. You were the Sockalong pioneers, and you now have a limited edition copy of the book which might even be worth what you paid for it one day ( 🙂 ), you have helped to make big daughter’s wonderful Peru experience possible and you have also contributed to making the book better for future Sockalong beginners by asking your questions! Thank you. Thank you everyone for being part of this.

I have put the main updates together in a PDF file which you can print out and put with your existing copy of Super Socks if you want to so that you have the new photos and re-worded text. You will be able to tell if you have the updated version of the book or the original by looking at the front pages – you can see here that the most recent version says “Updated August 2016”.

If you bought the Kindle version of the book, Amazon won’t update it automatically in case you have made notes on your copy but you should be able to get an updated version through your account without charge, although you may prefer just to print out the pages instead.

It was always my aim that the Winwick Mum Sockalong and Super Socks would be a springboard, a starting point for people to discover that knitting socks really isn’t as hard as they think, and it will always be my aim to make sure that they remain so.   After all, if we sock knitters are planning to take over the world one sock at a time, it needs to be as easy as possible for people to join us! 🙂

You can download the PDF with the changes to Super Socks HERE. (link currently disabled – contact me if you have an old copy and need the updates 🙂

 

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4 Responses

  1. Jo says:

    Your sock book has been a huge success, you must be proud that you've got so many people knitting socks.

    • Winwick Mum says:

      It's fabulous, Jo! I love that people are discovering what great projects socks are and that the ripples of that are reaching out to touch independent dyers, designers, even farmers, and it's all helping our yarn industry. It's like magic! 🙂 xx

  2. Susan Rayner says:

    I have bought many sock knitting books over the years and have to say that I love yours and it now lives permanently in my project bag – 80% of what I knit is socks anyway nowadays – small, portable, popular and useful. I have found your book invaluable and have been converted to mini circulars after years of DPNs. So much more user friendly as I am no longer in danger of stabbing the dog! It is fabulous to read how many new sock converts you have made via the book, the blog and the FB groups – many thanks for everything! Susan

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