Sock yarn.... some questions

[TEMA]

I've been looking online to find some sock yarn. I see everyone raving about it so I thought I'd see what the furor was all about...
Being new to the sock addition, I haven't been using 'sock yarn' perse... just some acrylic worsted weight yarn... which is not bad to learn on.
I've been using Silver's pattern from Silver's Sock Class and it's an really easy pattern so I've been lucky. But now I'm wanting to branch out.
I see that a lot of the sock yarn is fingering weight. Can I still use this with Silver's pattern? Or will I have to hold a few strands together to get the right weight?
Or is there another easy pattern I could be using if I knit with this finer yarn?
Everyone's socks look so professional with all sorts of designs and colour combinations... that's what I want to do too...! But I seem kind of stuck with my stash... bot before I really got serious about knitting..... rats!
TEMA

[crocee]

If you look at the Silvers page the instructions for sock yarn are in purple. Its also the first set of numbers. You may have to change your needle size though. I love the Silver site and use it for making many socks.

[tokmom]

What crocee said. I use Silvers for my basic sock pattern because it is designed for 3 different weights.

When I wanted to branch out I tried Sweet socks to change it up a bit and try cables.

[Plantgoddess+]

When you're ready to take on fancier patterns, there are tons of free sock patterns online and most of them are for fingering weight yarn. Here's a link to a lot of different sock patterns.
http://www.knittychick.com/#SockPatterns