Sock Madness

Even though we told you we would be releasing the round two pattern tomorrow, well, we just couldn’t resist a good April Fool’s Day joke. And so, without further ado or panic from those of you who have been panicking and you know who you are, here is the pattern for round two.

It’s called Reversai and it’s completely reversible. Cool, eh?

Carole’s Reversai

The designer’s Reversai.

Speaking of the designer, she is Janine Le Cras. Her bio states that she lives, works, knits and windsurfs on the tiny island of Guernsey situated between England and France in the middle of the English Channel. If she is not knitting she is dreaming about knitting, spinning, or flying across the waves at her favourite beach. She has been designing for several years and has designed for Magknits, Hipknits, Yarn Forward Magazine as well as Wooly Wonkas Fibres and The Unique Sheep. She has also designed socks for the Six Sock Kal Group on Yahoo. Pop in and see her on Ravlery : Guernseygal or at her blog http://guernseygal.typepad.com/knitting_on_an_island/

There were so many really great socks in this round. Gorgeous colors, creative solutions when yarn (like the infamous Jitterbug) ran out, and yarn choices and stitch mods that really made the pattern pop.  There were also many creative displays of finished socks and socks in process.  All of these things are represented here.  I know it’ll be hard but try to choose your favorite and vote below.

I’m not sure what the prize (or prizes) will be but I’m sure that it will be a good one.  Believe it or not, the list of prizes continues to grow.  The most recent additions are yarn boxes for traveling with projects. We have 4 of these, 2 large and 2 small to pass along to you from Sue C who is a player.  Tricia, one of our designers, has also offered a lovely prize - 3 skeins of Reynolds Sea Sock Wool and the Steppin Out Too booklet of sock patterns that goes with the yarn. 

We’re thrilled that you are all having so much fun.  The discussion is lively and covers so many topics.  The socks look great.  I know that there are many of you would be happy even without the prizes but, now that we have all this stuff, we’ve got to give it away and there is plenty to go around.  Just remember this as the rounds proceed because we’d hate to see anyone discouraged.

On to the voting.  It starts right now and continues till Sunday night at 8pm EST. There is a link to go vote right after the pictures. Don’t vote in the comments - it won’t be counted.  We ought to be posting the results on Monday so be sure to watch for them.  * grin*

1. The perfect gift for the Zombie Knitter
2. Attack of the Zombies
3. Mouldy Zombies - with embellishment
4.Neon Zombies
5. After the Zombie - Check out those bloody toes
6.Movies, Madness & Motrin - what it takes to get through the round
7. Zombie with Skull
8.Momma & Baby Zombies
9. Sock Madness for your toes - the obligatory kitty picture
10. The ultimate knitters tool - the coffee hat!

surveys - Take Our Poll

Hillary and I have really been enjoying all your speculation about which teaser shot is the one for the next round.  Time to confess, though - we haven’t posted a teaser of this sock!  Until now, that is.

This do anything for you?  Mwah!

Carole

Ok, round one is in the books now and it was fun but long.  In the end, there were 139 finishers so the first order of business is evening things out a little bit.  If you are in the Maryland group you will be staying put.  If you are in the UConn or Baylor groups then check back later.  I’ll be moving a few random finishers to the Tennessee group to even things out a little for the next round.

The next round will be Sock C which requires 350 yards of fingering weight yarn and US Size 1 needles. The gauge is 8.5 st/inch and the test sock was knit with Socks That Rock lightweight.

Specs are nice but the real question is when the next pattern itself will appear in your mailbox.  Well, we were initially thinking of a weekend start but one of you has a Big Day on Saturday. While the idea of  a ceremony getting held up while you finish “just one more row” gives me a chuckle and a great mental image, someone mentioned in a thread that next Tuesday is April Fools Day and that’s got great potential too.  How could we be expected to resist that kind of temptation?

Meanwhile, we’ve got other business to tend to – the creative awards.  The delayed release of pattern 2 will allow us to do this up right.  All of you creative types have until 6pm tomorrow, March 27^th (US Eastern Seabord time) to post your most interesting shots.  My goal is to have the poll up on Friday and then you can all get busy campaigning and voting for your favorites. Some socks will be posted because the sock itself is especially interesting or creative or in a color that catches our fancy.  Others will be more about presentation.  Remember, socks finished today or tomorrow before the cut off will be considered too.  Good luck!

It is 8:58 am right now and the divisions stand like this:

Maryland Merino Madness - 32

Tennessee Twisted Knitters - 26

Baylor Ball Bands - 27

UConn Cast Ons - 36

Most of you already know the answer to the question in the title.  Yes, you are faster indeed.  For the rest of you there is a new goal - Midnight on Tuesday, March 25th.  At that time this round will end whether we have 40 finishers in each division or not. The following day we’ll start choosing our favorite sock interpretations from among the many posted on Flickr and we’ll post the specs for the next sock. 

While we’re not giving any hints about the next sock, there are a lot of threads out there dedicated to discussion of the materials list so, while we have your attention, we’ll address them a little.  We’d hate for anyone to reach full-on panic mode. (You know who you are.)

• The next sock is not the lace weight one.  This means that you still have a bit of time to choose/obtain the lace weight. It is coming very soon though so it would be a good idea to make some decisions on this. 
• The odds and ends sock is also not the next one.  We ought to have more specific information to define the odds and ends needed soon.  In all seriousness, with the amount of sock knitting going on, I really don’t expect that this should pose a problem by the time this pattern is released.  By coincidence, I sent off my odds and ends to someone who needed them right before this pattern landed in my inbox and I had no trouble improvising.  I’m sure that you will all find a solution when the time comes.

Are we all good now?  Great. 

As of 9:20 this morning the divisions are up to date and the numbers look like this:
Baylor Ball Bands: 14

UConn Cast Ons: 24

Maryland Merino Madness: 20

Tennessee Twisted Knitters: 16

Looks like this round is going to go on for a bit longer so those of you struggling to finish still have a really good chance!

On an administrative note, we cannot stress enough how important it is for you to send in the correct information when you finish your socks.  You need 3 things:

1. a link to your finished photo over at flickr

2. your name/nickname exactly as it’s listed in your division

3. your division

Simple, right?  So, please please please for our sanity, be sure and include the correct stuff in your email.  Thanks!

Carole and Hillary

It’s been 2 days since pattern 1  - Zombie Socks was released and there are 15 finished pairs.  15 out of 160.  There is a long way to go in this round so keep knitting and having fun. 

There was a great suggestion about knitting the stitches surrounding the dropped stitches through the back loop (like the Clapotis) to make the ovals crisper.  It’s just one more example of knitters helping knitters - even in the heat of competition.  It makes me smile. You can read the suggestion on ravelry or here, in the flickr discussion.

The name of this pattern coupled with the number of you who appear to have stayed up way past your bedtime working on it makes that an apt title - don’t you think so?
Among the night owls was Cornflake who finished her Zombies in the  weee hours of last night. We received the email at about 2:44 AM. Congrats for being the first finisher in the first round of SM2.

To all of you still busy working on your socks, I should note that this is still the only finished pair.  As Bethtoons has said - “You don’t have to beat the fastest, you have to beat the 41st fastest. “  Very wise.  This round will continue until there are 40 finishers in each of the 4 divisions so it is far from over.

I just sent the pattern to everyone so check your email! Before you start knitting and before you look at these photos I want to remind everyone that you will need to email us when you’re done. We need you to include your name/nickname, your division and a link to your finished photo on the flickr page. Without these things we won’t be able to verify that you have finished so it’s very important to get this right.

Now, on to the post!

In keeping with last year, on the day the patterns are released we will be posting photos (yes, real photos of the entire sock!) here, along with some thoughts from the designer of the sock pattern.

Here they are ~ Zombie Socks ~ in their full glory.

Zombie Socks, knit by the designer Sheryl Ball

Zombie Socks, knit by Carole

Would you like to read about Sheryl and her inspiration for these socks?

I do not think of myself as a creative or artsy person. For example, I did not go to design school – I do not think I could have managed to survive design school. More importantly, I do not think design school could have survived me. I create sock patterns out of another part of my brain. You see I’m a math geek. I am one of those weirdos who always knows whether you increase or decrease your needle size when you are not getting gauge, how to calculate the number of stitches you need so your sweater will fit, and how many stitches you should have on your needle if you cast on 32 and increase every other stitch every other row for 5 rows.

My sock knitting habit began 18 months ago when three women who worked for me announced that they wanted hand knit socks for Xmas that year. At the time my knitting ability consisted of knitting garter stitch scarves. By the time I was done with 4 pairs – one to learn on and one for each of them – I was totally addicted.

Episode 50 of the Lime N Violet podcast, inspired this pattern. A friend of Miss Lime’s has a 9-year old son. When mom told him that Jesus rose from the dead, the boy concluded that Jesus must be a zombie. The drop stitch pattern in this sock reminds me of a dark misty night where there just might be zombies things lurking about. Or one of Miss Lime’s house ghosts. In fact, you can almost see them through the holes in the pattern produced by the drop stitches.

Now, what are you doing here reading? Get knitting! Oh, and good luck.

Carole

Well, tomorrow is the first pattern release so here are a few last minute comments and details.  It’s mostly random stuff so I’ll give it to you in bullet points.

• You are all wonderful and I’m sure that this is totally unnecessary to say but, we ask that you please remember that the designers worked really hard on these patterns and the only reward that most of them will get is the satisfaction of knowing that you enjoy them.  They are out there in Ravelry and Flickr listening to what you all have to say.  If you love the pattern - let them know.  If you have a problem - ask.  All we ask is that you maintain the positive and collegial tone that Sock Madness is known for.
• You should have received a “Test” message this morning.  We just wanted to check and make sure that all of the emails are working so that you all receive the pattern tomorrow without difficulty.  Very few messages bounced back.  If you didn’t get a test message from us this morning - please let us know right away.
• The Maryland and Tennessee colors are ready and they are great.  You can find announcements on Ravelry and Flickr with links.  If you want to find the yarn, you can find the link to the Knit Front & Back etsy site here, on the prize page, and the supplier page. 
• The Creative Awards - we’ll wait about about 10-14 days after the pattern is released to select the socks for your votes.  I think that it will depend upon how quickly you are all finishing.  We’ll probably give you a day or so of notice that all socks posted by X (insert time & date here) will be considered for the Round X creative award.  We will choose our favorite 10 versions of the sock and present them in a poll for the general public to vote on.

Please remember to post to flickr as well as Ravelry so that everyone can benefit from the discussion.  Have a great time.