Dictated, not read

There's been a lot of interest on my Plurk List recently about knitting and I've had several people ask how to get started. So here's a quick and dirty get started guide that's focused mostly on what you need to buy to get started and why.

( So you want to learn how to knit... )
( Needles )

My suggestion is to get a pair of ~13" (~33cm) long size 8 (5mm) needles in either metal or bamboo. (Example bamboo and metal needles I'm quite fond of)

( Yarn )

I recommend getting relatively cheap size 4/worsted weight yarn in any color you like. (This Caron Simply Soft is probably one of my favorites overall for feel, color and ease to work with)

( Other Stuff )

If anyone has questions, or if I missed something, please let me know.
I am happy to help out with advice and WTFs, both here on my journal and on Plurk. Otherwise, any beginner pattern suggestions? I'll add some in when I can!

I just disappeared off the face of the internet for a while. Part of it is, as Tot put it, I accidentally a boyfriend. Long story short, my grandmother set me up with a guy and he's very sweet and way too tall for his own good. There are still some things to work out but it's been going really well so far. [knock on wood]

I've also been consumed by the yarn gods... I've been knitting hardcore. Like, I have 4 big bags of yarn with projects in mind and about 5 different projects started on needles in a different bag. On top of that, I'm also trying to learn to crochet, but that hasn't been going as well. I've made some cute hats so far, socks are next on my list of things to try. But I really want to get the crocheting working first, it's just kind of counter-intuitive to what I'm used to knitting and WAY harder to count. But I seem to know way more people who know how to do that than knit, so I guess I'm in good shape as far as help.

And finally killing my time, my temp agency set me up with an actual full time job. It's not too bad, I'm sort of getting used to it, but it does eat most of a day pretty well. But I'm finally getting used to everything and I might actually be able to juggle everything in my life again.

Now: Pictures!

I'm just linking them since the photos are giant and I'm not in the mood to shrink them down for a post.

My first finished hat... and my mother.

The little ear hat in process.

The ear hat finished!

I got the pattern for the little ear hat here. I moved the ears a little, because I messed some stuff up at the very beginning.