Learn to Knit Socks Online

Embarking on something new is never without its challenges. There is the uncertainty, the endless ‘what if’s’…..I felt all of these things way back in April, when I first began to put into action my plans for an online knitting class.

Teaching classes over the past year has been a fulfilling, rewarding and challenging experience. Each person who comes is unique, with their own take on making and things they particularly struggle with. They are also all incredibly similar - new to the technique, or sometimes to the whole craft of knitting itself - they arrive excited and a little nervous, and leave with a great big smile.

Throughout any given workshop I can guarantee that everyone there will hit a part where their frustration levels build as they struggle to grasp something. This is always, always followed on by the moment when their eyes light up, when everything clicks and they finally grasp what they came to learn. Then the fun really begins.

Teaching locally has its restrictions, however. There’s only so far its feasible for anyone to travel, and again and again I was asked if I would be teaching online courses. At the start of this year I finally began to think that maybe it was something I could do, and as my ideas began to grow I finally put a plan into action.

My first online course was the Sock Knitting Club - named such because I wanted it to be more than just another online course. I wanted it to capture some of the atmosphere and shared learning experience that people enjoy at my local workshops. In the end I think I managed to do that.

Before that, however, came over a month of hitting many, many hurdles as I tried various platforms and ways of delivering the course. Technological teething issues are my least favourite kind, and boy did we have some! There was even a time when I decided the whole thing wasn’t worth the effort, and if I hadn’t already publicly announced my plans by then there is a high chance I would have given up.

But finally, everything was ready and even the tiniest wrinkle had been ironed out. We’d created a beautiful course that was easy to access and use for everyone. It was time to open enrolments and teach more knitters how to knit socks.

The response was wonderful - from the enrolments to the excited messages and emails from people who had been wishing to knit socks for ages, or who had tried and failed in the past.

Fast forward to now and the first Sock Knitting Club members are in their final week, and enrolments for the second round have just opened. There are pairs of socks completed and second ones in the making. Everyone has been on a huge learning curve as there are a lot of techniques packed into a single sock.

It’s been an absolute joy and delight watching everyone’s journey to becoming a sock knitter, hearing about their progress and seeing people encourage each other throughout the 6-week course.

It turns out that deciding to teach knitting classes online is something I am glad I did. I’m excited to welcome the next round of students to the Sock Knitting Club. Having more sock knitters in the world can only be a good thing, right?

If you’d like to learn to knit socks, or know someone who does, check out the Sock Knitting Club for all of the information & an introduction video.

Enrolments for this round close on 7th of August.

I’ll be adding more courses to the online database over time, both related and unrelated to making socks.