If you are going to be submitting a design…

… please let us know.  Tomorrow is the due date for the Statements of Intent to Design.  Yikes!  Every time I write that I am startled by the formality. Formal or not it’s working very well.  So far we have received 6 statements that have just the right degree of detail.  We’ve eagerly read each of them and I can tell you that I’m excited.  They are from a fairly diverse group of people and the designs sound great. 

If you haven’t submitted your statement yet – there is still time.  Please let us know if you have any questions.  The categories are flexible and the description of each is meant as a guide – not a hard and fast rule.  What we are most interested in is variety and progressive difficulty.  It’s our hope that this competition will expose you all to new designers and, maybe, new techniques.

Statement of Intent to Design

The first deadline on our list is one week from today.  That’s when the designers will submit their “Statement of Intent to Design.”  It may sound overly formal and, perhaps unnecessary, but the statement is an important planning tool for us.  If you are designing for this competition then please read this carefully.

This competition will have seven rounds and each one will feature a design that is a little more complex or challenging than the last.  This will create interest and variety while also allowing the newer sock knitters to gain experience gradually.  As cohosts, Felicia and I need to be certain that we will have the right mix of designs to cover all of the rounds.  We’ll be using the Statements to accomplish this.

The design guide is posted in full at: http://sockmadness.wordpress.com/rules-and-admin-stuff/design-guide/.  You can also reach it through the navigation in the sidebar or the tabs at the top of the page under Rules and Admin.  There are a few elements that are essential when submitting your Statement of Intent to Design.

A)    Send an email to Sockmadness at gmail dot com with “Statement of Intent to Design” in the subject.

B)     Tell us the degree of difficulty as defined below and how it fits that category. Each sock design must be classified as: easy, advanced beginner, intermediate, advanced intermediate, challenging, or expert  

1. Easy socks are doable by someone with no sock experience
2. Advanced beginner socks are doable by someone with experience with increases/decreases, K2Tog/P2Tog, yo
3. Intermediate socks may contain drop stitches or twisted stitches
4. Advanced intermediate may contain cables
5. Challenging may contain fair isle, entrelac, or intarsia
6. Expert—anything else that you feel only the most super sock knitters can complete

C)  Tell us who you are: name, email and blog if you have one.

D)   Give us any other details that you care to share. 

Example:

To: Sockmadness

From: Designer Q

Subject: Statement of Intent to Design 

My Name is Designer Q of  www.DesignerQ.blog.com.  I plan to submit a design for Sock Madness in the Challenging category.  It’s going to be a 57 color intarsia design featuring shapes reminiscent of the cutouts of Henri Matisse and the text of the Gettsyburg Address.  If you have any questions please email me at DesignerQisNuts@wacko.net . 

See – it’s that easy!  There are a few things to remember:

• If you know someone who you think should be designing for this – tell them. 
• We need simple designs as well as the more challenging ones.
• These designs need to be do-able within 2 weeks – be realistic.
• Your designs are what will make this great!
• If you have a question or a comment – let us know!

Communication

We have been getting a lot of email since we launched Sock Madness and we expect that, as the start of competition gets closer, things will heat up and we’ll get a lot more. There have been many great suggestions and comments and we are trying to respond as quickly as possible. We also need to be able to keep track of the emails and your help is crucial for this.

In order to help us categorize and sort emails (i.e. from participants, designers, comments, questions) please follow our directions carefully. Each time we request information from you, we will tell you what to put in the subject line. For example, designers who intend to submit a sock design need to send us an email with “Statement of Intent to Design” in the subject line. Using the correct subject will really help us separate the questions and comments from the deadline submissions.

 

Please remember that most of the rules and guidelines are posted on the site and we are updating them based on suggestions and questions all the time.

 

Next week is the first deadline – the Statement of Intent to Design is due.  We’ll post more about that tomorrow including a clear description of what we are looking for. We’re very excited that the first phase of Sock Madness is really getting underway.

Thanks!

128

There has been a whole lot of talk about this number – 128.  Many people have expressed fear that they won’t get to play and a few have suggested (strongly) that we ought to have more competitors. Let me start by saying that Felicia and I are thrilled and flattered by it.  When we started putting this together I worried a lot about the possibility that we’d “throw a party and nobody would come.”  I should have known better but, what can I say, I worry a lot.

Since we officially launched this blog a week ago it has gotten 6,875 hits.  Can you imagine that?  Clearly I am no longer worried about being alone at the party.  The worry has been replaced by a feeling of discomfort because, unfortunately, there will be people who don’t get to play this time.

Felicia and I discussed this and, although we’d love to include everyone, Sock Madness needs to stay at 128 this time.  There are a few very good reasons for this:

·          We’ve never done this before.  I have been a part of various knit-alongs, competitions and swaps but I’ve never run one before.  Neither has Felicia.  We really want to do this right and keeping the number of players at 128 means that we can be more responsive to everyone.  We don’t want unanswered e-mails or people who feel lost in the crowd.

·          Keeping track of the players.  We plan to post the players in a way that makes it really clear and easy to check their status, see the socks they completed, and find out more about them.  All of this will take a lot of work and maintenance but we think it will be worth it.  More players would make this nearly impossible.

·          The original designs.  One of the aspects of this project that I love is the original designs that it will generate.  So far there are at least 9 people who have expressed an interest in submitting a design for the competition.  Among them are a few people who haven’t necessarily designed for the masses before.  It would be great if new designers were launched through the competition.  To foster this, we have promised the designers that, at the end of the competition, the designs will be theirs to distribute as they choose – for free or fee.  Since only 128 people (plus Felicia and I) will have the designs all those watching the competition are a potential market for the designers. 

I hope that this is all clear.  You may have noted a few references to “this time”.  They are intentional.  If this is successful and people are still excited about knitting socks then there could be a second round – maybe timed to coincide with the US Open.  I’m much more of a tennis lover anyway.

The Second Clarification

We’ve gotten a lot a messages asking us about the rules of the tournament. We will continue to clarify questions as they come in. So for today’s Q&A, we have:

1. Can I modify the pattern to better suit my tastes?

In order to keep the playing field equal, patterns cannot be modified. The only modification participants can make is in their choice of needles–dpn, circulars, or magic loop. Otherwise, patterns must be knit as specified by the design.

2. Do I have to post pictures of my finished socks?

Yep–otherwise we cannot verify that the socks were completed and declare a winner

On other notes, Hillary and I went to Stitches East this weekend. Hillary is a good blogger and posted lots of pics of her haul. I’m not a good blogger, I don’t have any pictures. Trust me when I say that we both brought home more yarn than necessary.

But through out the day, we kept saying to each other, “no more sock yarn”, “no more sock yarn”. But it wasn’t until the drive home that we realized we should have bought lots of sock yarn. You see now we don’t have any sock yarn to test the design patterns. Dumb us! Well, we’ll just have to find some sock yarn somewhere—there’s a great sale opportunity this weekend at Yarns International. It seems like a very logical and reasonable solution to me, don’t you agree?

Buttons!

Look…

We’ve got buttons now! How exciting is that? These wonderful buttons were created by Carol. I am so thankful that she was able to step in and create them for us. Now I don’t feel such pressure to rush my relationship with Photoshop Elements. We can continue to get acquainted at a nice, leisurely pace.

I have created a special page for the for buttons and a list of the loot that has been donated for prizes.  I’ll start updating it soon.

The First Clarification

The response so far has been great and it looks like this will be a teriffic event.  Many of you have had questions and I appreciate all of them.  This will be the first of many posts that will address the questions.

1. When will you post the dates and design guidelines?  They are posted and you can get to them 2 ways.  They are listed and linked in the sidebar on the right in the Pages section.  They’re right under the Rules and Admin Stuff heading.  There is also a Rules and Admin Stuff tab at the top of this pages and if you open it then you’ll see links at the top of the page.
2. When can we sign up?  We love this question!  Right now we’re focusing on getting the designs lined up.  For those of you who want to play, the date to circle on your calendar is February first.
3. It sounds like fun but I really don’t have a lot of sock knitting experience.  We’ve got you covered.  We are arranging the knitters so that those less experienced won’t meet the experts until the Final Four.  by then everyone will be in their groove and ready to take on the world.
4. How many pattern is each designer responsible for?  Just one. 
5. The holidays are coming and I’m not sure that I can do a design right now.  We understand.  Just remember that the designs aren’t due until January 15th.

One last note about the designs – they’re going to be great!  Believe it or not, we’ve already seen and heard about some designs and we are really excited.  Just remember that this competition needs a range of designs so simple is good too.  The Design Guide has the details on the different types of designs we’d like to see. 

As always, if you have a suggestion of question then please let us know!