Mad Cow Comments

I see many of you are very busy this morning. We hope you are enjoying the variety offered in this pattern. Now that you’ve had a chance to read through it and post some comments, I’ll try to answer them as best I can.

First–there are a few comments that people were “accepted”, but have not received the pattern. Acceptance is defined as having received a Welcome message from Hillary. Acceptance to the Flickr group just means that you can cheer everyone on. If you were accepted to Flickr, but did not received the Welcome message, you will need to contact the designers after SM is over if you wish to acquire the patterns.

Now, from my experience knitting the sock….first, I knit Mad Cow toe up. This was my first toe up sock and the idea of short rows scared the devil out of me. I’ve heard horror stories of gaping holes in the heels. But, for me, it all worked out okay. The wraps were a little bit tricky at first, but it worked out fine. The Harlot did a great post about knitting short rows. For her, it includes a glass of wine.

For me, since it was my first time, I carved out an uninterrupted block of time, turned off the TV, ignored the phone, and concentrated. I even have side notes on the pattern telling me how many wraps I should have at the end of each row. On the other hand, Hillary mostly does toe up socks with short rows and I’ve seen her finish a heel while yelling at the kids, telling her DH what needs to be done, making dinner, listening to the TV, talking to me, and mentally preparing what she’s needs to walk out the door in 10 minutes. Yes–all that while she was knitting the short rows. How she does it is beyond me….

There are a lot of comments about the number of repeats. The leg is a 5 round repeat.

Leg

Working in the round once again, work stripe pattern in reverse.

Rounds 1-4- knit solid yarn (S)

Round 5- knit variegated yarn (V)

Round 6- Knit S

Rounds 7-10- Knit V

Repeat 4 times.

The first 4 lines of this leg excerpt provide the directions. This is the first repeat. The last line states to repeat 4 more times making a total of 5 repeats.

Gauge—gauge was not provided by the designer for this pattern. I did the test knit using Crystal Palace US 1.5 (2.5mm) and my gauge was 8 spi. The label on the Lorna’s is 7 spi. See how much I pay attention to the label! The socks fit fine.

The Heel–there are lots of questions about the heel.

• I used 28 sts for the heel

• Please knit the short row as described by the designer

• Color–Knitters—these are your socks. Do what makes you happy. If you want a varigated heel, use the varigated. If you want a solid, use the solid. I choose to the use the solid on the pink socks.

Toe–the same color rules apply to the toe as to the heel. Do what makes you happy. My toe is solid because I wanted it to match my heel.

Bind Off–if no bind off is specified in the pattern or it just says bind off loosely, then pick your favorite bind off.

I hope this helps answer some of your questions and comments.

 

Pattern One – Mad Cow Socks

Check your email. The first pattern has been released. On the day patterns are released we are offering a little information about the designers and the patterns.

The first pattern is called Mad Cow. It’s a simple striping pattern. I don’t know the specifics about the black and white yarn that Jennifer used, but the test knit in pink was done with Lorna’s Shepherd Sock.

Meet Jennifer Young.

She designed this fabulous easy pattern. The simplicity makes it the perfect pattern for starting off Sock Madness. You can get used to competitive sock knitting while working a sock that’s very forgiving.  She even offers two versions of the pattern - toe-up or toe-down – it’s the knitter’s choice. If you get stuck on a technique, Jennifer has thoughtfully provided you some links to some great instructions at the end of her pattern. If you love this pattern and want to try more of Jennifer’s designs, check this out.

Here are a few words from Jennifer.

The design for the Mad Cow socks originally came to me as an idea about color. I knit a pair of socks that ended up with little splotches of yellow, blue, and green due to the short pattern repeats. When I saw the same yarn in black and white, I thought it would be cool to use that yarn in black and white to have a pair of “cow” socks. Actually, I wanted the socks to have a white background with black splotches, but an extended search for a matching shade of white yarn proved fruitless so I decided that my cows would be black with white spots. 

When I got down to knitting the socks, I thought just X rounds of MC, X rounds of CC would get boring quickly, so I threw in the alternating short repeats. The double repeat of the solid color at the heel is to make the pattern “reversible”, a knitting palindrome, if you will. It also deepens the appearance of the heel, since short row heels in contrasting colors sometimes look oddly shallow.

I have been making my own patterns since the first pair of socks I knit (about a year and a half ago now, I think). Sometimes I follow a published pattern, but even then I usually just take the stitch pattern and adapt it to suit me and the mood I’m in at the time– I knit for relaxation, so I try not to have too many rules to follow.

If you have any difficulty when knitting the socks, please contact me at jenniferteacher@gmail.com.

Good Luck to Everyone!