Education junkie

Some of us just can't get enough book-learnin'. Lately I've been thinking about various things I'd like to learn or re-learn, like programming in Objective-C and speaking Arabic (which I used to be sort of good at). I've picked up my knitting skills from various books and also by just making it up as I go along, which never works terribly well, but there are plenty of techniques out there that I'd like to be able to do properly. Such as:

1. Colorwork. This is the one where I just sort of do what works as opposed to actually having some idea of what I'm doing. If I want to follow Beth in making fancy Norwegian or Estonian mittens, I need to know how to do stranding and carry-along and all that stuff.


2. Short-rowing. In particular, I'd like to know all the various ways of making sock toes and heels. I tried a short-row toe once and sort of got the idea, but I don't really understand it yet.


3. Socks on two circs (and its cousin, Magic Loop). I love my tiny bamboo DPNs but everyone raves about these techniques so I feel like I should at least know what I'm missing.


4. Spinning. I'm working on it. This, I think, mostly takes practice, but I'm also looking forward to stopping by the LYS after we move and asking for some tips. (And picking up some new roving.)

I think that's all for now, though I'm probably forgetting something. My favorite free online references are Knitter's Review and Knitty's article archive, though if anyone has suggestions of favorite books or sites, I'd love to hear them. The only problem I have now is taking the time in between all of my various projects to actually learn this stuff!