Knitting

Welcome to the community! We would be only too happy to enable you 😄

My usual advice for newbies is to have a goal, which you already have: to knit socks one day.

So that gives you a "curriculum" of sorts to shoot for. I'd definitely recommend having the following skills down first:

• Casting on with a stretchy method (I like long tail cast on, personally)
• Knit and purl
• Knitting in the round
• Basic increases and decreases
• Slip stitches

To complete a typical top-down sock pattern with a heel flap and gusset, which tend to be the most common sort, you'll also need to pick up stitches and learn how to graft toes together. However, those two skills can just be looked up and learned when you get to that part, you don't really need to practise them beforehand.

So really the most useful resource is going to depend on which of these things you already feel comfortable with and which you don't.

We had this thread a few weeks ago from a fellow want-to-knit-socks-one-day newbie, so that has a lot of good advice too. And OP totally achieved socks!

@quinacridone You would absolutely love Tin Can Knits. They have tons of written guides for beginners with pictures, and videos aren't mandatory in any way.

I put together a Ravelry search for you to start from. Knit, difficulty level 1, website patterns, cowls - looks like you have to be logged in to see the search page.

The thing to search for (in addition to gaiter) is a cowl. They're a tube-thing that works like a scarf. Some are smaller tubes that fit like a gaiter (if I'm thinking of the right thing), and some are scarves with the ends stitched together - you can decide if you want to make in the round or long, using some fancy stitches or doing nothing but stockinette stitch.

Some of the websites will have written step-by-step instructions that work for you, some will be a little confusing, and some will only have videos. It's going to be harder for me to pick anyone specifically, because what I find useful might not be as helpful to you.

Don't be afraid to start over, either. If you're not happy with the pattern, find something else that you want to try with that yarn and start again. You will probably be happier in the long run if you don't force it - and you get to practice the cast-on! (Seriously, long-tail is a really useful cast-on to know!)

Hope that some of this was useful for you! Good luck!

So to echo some other comments, add a left leaning increase and decrease (make 1 left / slip-slip-knit), and a right leaning increase and decrease (make 1 left / knit two together) and you'll have nearly everything you need to make socks. Add in basic Kitchener grafting for cuff down, or Judy's magic cast-on and Jeny's super stretchy bind-off for toe--up and you're good to go!