Sock Madness

We’ve heard from a few people who plan on designing for SM3 but not nearly enough. All we need now is a show of hands and a general idea about what we should expect. Don’ be shy. Send us an email at sockmadness(at)gmail(dot)com if you think you might have a great idea for next year. Don’t assume that we just know you’re planning to design. We need to hear from you.

This next vote is a little late but it’s a good one. These are all very different and very strong contenders for the creative award this round.  Don’t you agreee?
Which of these Godmother Socks are your favorites?
( polls)
The voting for this round will end at 6pm on Friday, June 13th.
 

1. Handspun Godmother Socks
2. Godmother + Godchild Socks
3. Furry Dogmother Socks
4. Beaded Gypsy Dancing Socks (w/shawl)
5. Noro Godmothers

The voting for the Woven Cabled Eyelet socks is over and it’s another tie (1 vote difference really doesn’t count in my book).  Can you believe that.  Apparently you were equally impressed by those pretty blue socks from Fast & Furious Knitting as you were with the highly modified versions posted by Cornflake.  Congrats to both of you, you’ll be hearing from us really soon since we’re finally just about caught up with giving the prizes away. 

Speaking of the prizes - there are still plenty of them left to give away so don’t go anywhere.  I hope to start the voting for the Godmother Socks on Thursday so if you have a great pair that’s not posted yet then please do so right away.  Anyone with a fabulous idea about how to display theirs should get on that too.  You may consider the nominations on this open. 

Even after we award prizes to the fastest knitters and those who received creative awards we’ll still have pleanty of stuff to spread around so keep watching this blog and your email.  The plan is to get a little random action going on so that we can spread the SM2 love around far and wide.

Tomorrow we’ll release the final pattern for SM2. I’m happy to hear that many of you are preparing for it and so is the designer. We’re all eagerly anticipating the interpretations of the pattern. It’s very different from the other patterns and we hope that it adds yet another dimension to your sock knitting.

Today we’re opening the voting on the socks produced during the optional round. Many of them were highly modified and, as I went through the pictures, I noticed that some people mentioned using skills and techniques from earlier rounds on this sock. It seems like the perfect time to formally launch a discussion of designs for next year.

There have been threads where some of you have let your imaginations run wild thinking up ideas for SM3. It’s time now to start putting some of them down on paper. Although the due date for SM3 designs has not been set yet, it’s fair to say that it’ll be earlier than before. It’s our hope that many of you will start working on your designs while the spark of inspiration is burning bright. There will be three (or 4) of us testing the socks out and setting the roster but at least 2 of us have other major events going on towards the end of this year or early next.

It’s not too soon to let us know that you want to contribute a design. Just send us and email with a brief description of what you’re thinking of. Someone had suggested an ongoing thread on Ravelry (and on flickr too if desired) where the designers can support one another in their creative endeavours. Great idea! For the record, designers have been players in the past and this will still be the policy. For the record, no designer has made it to the finals yet

On to the voting for the optional round. The winner of the creative award for the Hippy Ripply Retro round was UC Bear with her Peace themed display. There were no creative shots this round but there were plenty of very different versions of the pattern. We said that you should feel free to modify at will and you did. Voting for this round will end on Monday, June 2nd at 6pm our time. There is still lots of time to express yourselves with the Godmother’s socks so please do. We’ll try to start that voting in about a week.
Woven Cable Eyelet Socks and Beyond. Which is your favorite?
( polls)

1. Green Woven Cable Eyelet Socks
2. X Marks the Foot
3. Lunar Zazzle Woven Cable Eyelet Socks
4. Woven Cable Eyelet Socks with ribbed foot
5. Bright Woven Cabled Eyelet Socks

The schedule announced in the last post has been revised slightly in order to accomodate the schedules of the 4 finalists. The next and last pattern will be released on May 29th instead of the 22nd. We hope that it will be an exciting round.
In the meantime we will continue wrapping up outstanding business from previous rounds. The poll for the Hippy Ripply Retro Socks will go up over the weekend so there is still time to post and submit great pictures.

We didn’t forget about you all and we were not intentionally keeping you in suspense. The truth is that the awarding of prizes and polling for favorites has fallen woefully behind and we were trying to come up with a catch up plan.

Based upon our need to catch up and other small issues we’ve arrived at a release date for the next pattern of Thursday May 22 – probably in the afternoon. It is a little bit of a delay but we know that there are many of you still working on socks from earlier rounds and this will give you a little extra time to free up some needles.

The specs for this round are:

Needles – US 1.5 (2.5mm) I used dpns for parts of the sock and a circ for another, you may choose dpns and straights. It’s hard to say except that you should have a bunch of needles in the right size on hand.

Yarn - 225 meters of solid fingering weight and odds and ends with none of them being less than 4 yards long. This is also open to interpretation based upon the yarn you have on hand. I couldn’t find my odds and ends so I used a highly variegated in place of the odds and ends and a darker, less variegated yarn for the rest. Play with the combinations and have fun.

Gauge – 9 st/inch

As many have surmised, there will be 4 knitters competing in this round to be the ultimate winner. It seemed easier and more representative this way.

While you’re waiting for this round to start, please remember to vote for your favorite from round 4. The voting is still open but it closes in just a few hours.

I’m also looking for nominations for Round 5. Lets see those Hipy Ripply Retro Socks! I’ll get that poll up on Friday and it ought to be open until Monday evening.

By the way, if you receive a prize please show it off to us. You know how we all love Yarn P*rn!

This round there were some beautiful results. Some of you used the special dye technique and created gorgeous socks. Other knitters used colorful yarns to start and that was also cool. What was surprising to me was that even those socks that have not yet been dyed look fabulous. Ther is a grace to this pattern that came through in all of the socks we saw.

As I went through the pictures that were posted, the one thing I noticed is that there were very few creative shots this round.  Were you all just so taken with the socks that you let them speak for themselves? Did dyeing them take up all of your creative energy? Just joking.  The socks are all gorgeous and now it’s time to find out which was your favorite.  Let us know.
Shady, shadier, shadiest… which do you think is the best?
( surveys)
Voting will close May 14th at 6pm.

1.WollMeise Shady
2. Autumn Sock Tree
3.Simply Shady
4.Shades of Blue
5.Pretty Shady
6.Something Yellow
7.Something’s Shady and Colorful
8.Shady Madness
9.Lime Shady
10.Shady with Contrast

Despite all of the pattern 5 controversy, 12 brave knitters perservered and the round is complete. 

The voting for your favorite Slippin’ Stripin’ Socks also ended yeaterday and it’s a TIE!  Check that out.  you all have spoken and Slip of the Cat and Slippery Stripe-y Sock Slide each got 34% of the vote although they were one vote apart.  Thankfully we have enough prizes for both and for MKSmiles who was the first finisher in round 3 as well as round 2.  Whew!

To those of you who are still working on your Something’s Shady or Hippy Ripply Retro Socks, you still have a bit of time to let your creative juices flow.  We’ll try to post the Something’s Shady poll on Monday but we’d love it if you could post them by Thursday night.  It would be such fun if Carole and I could look at them together for a change since she’s going to be visiting this weekend. We’ll be going to Maryland Sheep & Wool this Saturday with Felicia.  If you see us I’ll probably be the one who looks like she’d like to run and hide.

Since we have big plans this weekend and we hope that you do too, we’ll be releasing the optional pattern on Thursday so that we won’t have to be constantly posting updates and those who want to can take a break.  For those of you who are up for it, the optional pattern specs are:

400 yards fingering weight – Cherry Tree Hill Supersock US size 2 (3.0 mm) No gauge info at this moment but I’ll post it as soon as I can.

The deal is this - take your time, knit, don’t knit - whatever you’d like.  Next Thursday we’ll choose 2 or 3 finished pairs of these socks at random and award prizes.  Simple!

Then, next Friday we’ll release pattern 6 and I’m sure that you’ll love it.  Really!  It’s fab!  I’d plan on seeing  the specs for that one on Monday. 

I just love the way that sounds - Slippin’ Stripin’ Fantastic.  It fits too because many of the socks from this round were just wonderful.  I found myself waiting excitedly for the next pair of these sock to pop up on flickr. It was such fun to see how the colors combined.

Here is the link to the voting which will close at 6pm on Monday (my time). One vote per customer please! Which of these Slippin’ Stripin’ socks do you feel are fantastic?
( surveys)

1. Slip of the Cat
2. Sox in the City I may never win prizes for speed, though I knit as fast as I can… …I’ll never be seen on a thrill ride, or get snapped with a famous man…  …I just need to use what I have to create my official entry… …So please look kindly and vote For my “sox and the city!”
3.Slip into a Beer
4. Banana Who?
5. Slippin’ Stripin’ Socks in mountains of Crete
6. Knit Until Done
7. Slippin’ Right Off the Cone!
8. Slippery Stripe-y Sock Slide
9. Socks and Gloves
10. WANTED: The Slippin’ Stripin’ Gang

This is just a quick little post to let you all know the winners from Round 2.  The fastest knitter this time was MKSmiles.  Watch out folks, she’s young but she’s wicked quick.  She also took the chequered flag for Round 3.  Like I said - she’s speedy.

There were no stuffed ballot boxes this round.  Despite my goof, there were 264 votes recorded and the winner, with 26 %, is ChrisH (CMHay on flickr) who expressed her frustration with this pattern in a series of pictures AND VERSE.  Way to go!  Apparently it spoke to a lot of you although there were several great entries to choose from.

There are some gorgeous socks this round and a few very creative shots.  You all have until Friday night at about 6pm to post your best artistic interpretation of Slippin’ Stripin’ and let us know who you’d like to nominate.

One last thing.  Please remember to include your division etc when posting on flickr.  It makes things so much easier for us.

There are way too many great pictures this round so it’s going to take a little longer to put it together.  I ought to have it up later today.

Happy knitting!