All Kinds of Updates

Ok, I know that you’re all really busy with the knitting but I have a bunch of stuff to share and some of it is important so listen up.
There have been lots of questions about the lace weight and I promised more info when I had it. Well, I finished the second sock last weekend and I can tell you more about using the Tess. Each skein is about 50g when full. I just weighed the remainder of the 2 skeins and one had about 16g, the other 20g. I hope that helps.

The first ever creative award!
Voting was brisk. Believe it or not, there were 1,487 votes cast and it was wild because as I watched, the leader shifted many times. In the end there was a winner and, with 33% of the votes, The Attack of the Zombies has won.
This is a new feature of Sock Madness and I like it a lot. I hope that in future rounds you are all inspired to let loose a little and get crazy. This time it was the fanciful staging that carried the day but, in the future it could be a drop-dead gorgeous pair of socks. You just never know but, there is a lot of loot to give away so I hope to see great stuff.

Feel free to offer your congrats to Cornflake (first finisher) and Thingwhatsqueaks (creative award). Prizes will go to both of them and I’m sure that they’ll post pictures of the treats they get.

Finally, I have a few thoughts on the current pair of socks. There have been a lot of comments on them and some have mentioned Christmas stockings and elephant feet. It looks like things are calming down a little but it bears addressing. The players of Sock Madness 2 represent a broad spectrum of knitters. The ages range from 15 to 74. You come from countries around the world and all walks of life. Not every sock is going to appeal to or work for everyone.
As the leaders of this group, Carole and I have tried to choose a collection of patterns that is varied and interesting. There will be cables, lace, laceweight, dyeing (if you’re so inclined), cuffs and other craziness. We hope and expect that somewhere along the way there will be something or everyone but most of you will find a sock or two that aren’t quite you. It’s nearly unavoidable.

We look forward to hearing you rave about the socks that you love and, for those you don’t, we are sure that you’ll find a creative outlet for them too. As Carole suggested, you can give them to charity. Maybe your school or other organization has a raffle or auction that you could donate them to. If they are truly horrible you can give them away as a joke gift. I’m sure that you can come up with some very creative solutions.

In the interest of full disclosure I should say that one of the socks I tested this year was made from yarn from a SM1 test sock I frogged. It happens. I can say that I love the new sock passionately.