For my reference, another two link collections.
Sock patterns and guides
Basic sock patterns and construction information
Three kinds of toes
Step-by-step tutorial on toe-up socks with gusset heels
Another pattern for gusset heels
A pattern with short-row heels and toes
Cuff-down sock tutorial
See also the links on sock_knitters' userinfo page.
Patterns
Sockbug blog has a lot of socks in the sidebar. I like these patterns because they're well-photographed.
Knitty has several sock patterns.
Beak Knits also has a couple of patterns.
The elfine socks are nice.
Socks from some sock design challenge. The photography leaves something to be desired.
The Townsend socks Yahoo! group. Again with the minimal photography-most of them just show a little bit of the cuff.
The Six Sox knitalong Yahoo! group.
Lord of the Rings knitting
The Tree of Gondor
There are three representations of the Tree of Gondor in the movies: Arwen's coronation banner, Faramir's ranger's vest, and Gondorian battle armor and banners. All are attractive; the first two have been worked up in knitting.
There are three approaches to this: cabling, embroidery, and intarsia.
Embroidery has mostly been done by djinnj. She's made two posts with embroidered scarves.
This is probably the best way to get a small tree of Gondor.
Cabling has mostly been done by dragoncrafter. The first cabled tree of Gondor was inspired by Arwen's banner. It has a chart.
The second tree was inspired by Faramir's jacket. No pattern exists; if you want one, go to Alleycatscratch.com, download the design, and use the technique described here to chart it out yourself.
I don't think anyone's actually tried intarsia. djinnj made a huge chart for doing this in a big afghan. bubbledragon made a much smaller chart for using on gloves, but I don't know if she ever got around to using them.
Writing
J.R.R Tolkein was a very clever linguist, and he invented languages for his world. He also invented three alphabets: the Cirth (also known as Angerthas), Sarati, and the Tengwar.
The Cirth look a lot like traditional Anglo-Saxon or Viking runes; however, Tolkein used a completely different set of meanings for the characters. For example, there is a rune which looks a lot like an uppercase R. The Vikings and the Angles both used it to mean the sound "R". Tolkein, however, used it to mean the sound "b".
(To make this even more confusing, he did this between writing The Hobbit and writing The Lord of the Rings, so all the runes in The Hobbit are Anglo-Saxon runes and not Cirth.)
Tolkein's runes are discussed here. You can look up how the Elves or Dwarves would spell things.
There are two ways to get runes: Fair Isle and cables. A clever lady by the name of Meghan worked out Fair Isle runes and used them in a cute little sweater.
Elsebeth Lavold also has a lot of cabled runes in her book Viking Patterns for Knitting, and the rest of Tolkein's runes are reasonably easy to figure out. Here's an example. For reference: she has charts for Cirth # 19, 48, 57, 2, 18, 32, 39, 31, 40, 12, 6, 8, 17, and three that Tolkein did not use (as labeled in Appendix E).
In Tolkein's world, nobody uses Sarati much anymore because Tengwar is better. The Dwarves still use Cirth, because it's a easy to carve it into rock. Everyone else (Elves, Men, Hobbits, Sauron, etc.) use Tengwar to write with. Knitters generally follow the Dwarves, because runes are easier to knit.
I have made some forays into working up Tengwar as a cable pattern. This has to be knit sideways, from left to right, and is going to be fairly heavily slanted. Attaching it to a sweater will require one of two things: either making a dolman, such as Sonnet, or making a separate cabled band and attaching it later, as with Kepler/Samus.
Other ideas and links
Alleycatscratch.com. This website has no knitting information at all, but it has endless pictures of people's costumes, hangings, and banners, all of which can act as inspiration.
The One Ring...in yarn
Hobbit feet!
Gandalf's armwarmers
Pippin's scarf
In Barbara Walker's Charted Knitting Designs, there's a nice spider pattern that would work for Shelob or Ungoliant. Here's an example of it knitted up.
Also, lots of the patterns on the buildings and tents in Rohan, which are shown in the second and third movies, would make lovely cables. Someone linked to an example, but unfortunately the link is gone.
Basic sock patterns and construction information
Three kinds of toes
Step-by-step tutorial on toe-up socks with gusset heels
Another pattern for gusset heels
A pattern with short-row heels and toes
Cuff-down sock tutorial
See also the links on sock_knitters' userinfo page.
Patterns
Sockbug blog has a lot of socks in the sidebar. I like these patterns because they're well-photographed.
Knitty has several sock patterns.
Beak Knits also has a couple of patterns.
The elfine socks are nice.
Socks from some sock design challenge. The photography leaves something to be desired.
The Townsend socks Yahoo! group. Again with the minimal photography-most of them just show a little bit of the cuff.
The Six Sox knitalong Yahoo! group.
Lord of the Rings knitting
The Tree of Gondor
There are three representations of the Tree of Gondor in the movies: Arwen's coronation banner, Faramir's ranger's vest, and Gondorian battle armor and banners. All are attractive; the first two have been worked up in knitting.
There are three approaches to this: cabling, embroidery, and intarsia.
Embroidery has mostly been done by djinnj. She's made two posts with embroidered scarves.
This is probably the best way to get a small tree of Gondor.
Cabling has mostly been done by dragoncrafter. The first cabled tree of Gondor was inspired by Arwen's banner. It has a chart.
The second tree was inspired by Faramir's jacket. No pattern exists; if you want one, go to Alleycatscratch.com, download the design, and use the technique described here to chart it out yourself.
I don't think anyone's actually tried intarsia. djinnj made a huge chart for doing this in a big afghan. bubbledragon made a much smaller chart for using on gloves, but I don't know if she ever got around to using them.
Writing
J.R.R Tolkein was a very clever linguist, and he invented languages for his world. He also invented three alphabets: the Cirth (also known as Angerthas), Sarati, and the Tengwar.
The Cirth look a lot like traditional Anglo-Saxon or Viking runes; however, Tolkein used a completely different set of meanings for the characters. For example, there is a rune which looks a lot like an uppercase R. The Vikings and the Angles both used it to mean the sound "R". Tolkein, however, used it to mean the sound "b".
(To make this even more confusing, he did this between writing The Hobbit and writing The Lord of the Rings, so all the runes in The Hobbit are Anglo-Saxon runes and not Cirth.)
Tolkein's runes are discussed here. You can look up how the Elves or Dwarves would spell things.
There are two ways to get runes: Fair Isle and cables. A clever lady by the name of Meghan worked out Fair Isle runes and used them in a cute little sweater.
Elsebeth Lavold also has a lot of cabled runes in her book Viking Patterns for Knitting, and the rest of Tolkein's runes are reasonably easy to figure out. Here's an example. For reference: she has charts for Cirth # 19, 48, 57, 2, 18, 32, 39, 31, 40, 12, 6, 8, 17, and three that Tolkein did not use (as labeled in Appendix E).
In Tolkein's world, nobody uses Sarati much anymore because Tengwar is better. The Dwarves still use Cirth, because it's a easy to carve it into rock. Everyone else (Elves, Men, Hobbits, Sauron, etc.) use Tengwar to write with. Knitters generally follow the Dwarves, because runes are easier to knit.
I have made some forays into working up Tengwar as a cable pattern. This has to be knit sideways, from left to right, and is going to be fairly heavily slanted. Attaching it to a sweater will require one of two things: either making a dolman, such as Sonnet, or making a separate cabled band and attaching it later, as with Kepler/Samus.
Other ideas and links
Alleycatscratch.com. This website has no knitting information at all, but it has endless pictures of people's costumes, hangings, and banners, all of which can act as inspiration.
The One Ring...in yarn
Hobbit feet!
Gandalf's armwarmers
Pippin's scarf
In Barbara Walker's Charted Knitting Designs, there's a nice spider pattern that would work for Shelob or Ungoliant. Here's an example of it knitted up.
Also, lots of the patterns on the buildings and tents in Rohan, which are shown in the second and third movies, would make lovely cables. Someone linked to an example, but unfortunately the link is gone.