Sock Madness

Hey there!  It’s nice to see the Mad Cows keep popping up in the Flickr group. 

Here are a few more that caught my eye.  This is a pair that Lady Knitterly finished.  I really love the rich colors in these.  They remind me of cranberry sauce. 

Here’s a very springy pair of Mad Cows that Mary posted.  The yellow background with the rainbow stripes make them so bright and cheerful.  Let’s hope that the the weather takes a cue from these socks and we can put all the snow and the ice behind us soon.

Victoria (Yarnatic) liked the pattern so much that she used her “down time” to knit a second pair but this time she went toe-up.  Aren’t they wild?

I see that you are all busy choosing the yarn for your next pair of socks.  If you are going with Claudia’s like Felicia did, then you should note that the yardage listed in the previous post about the specs is probably pretty accuarate.  Since the yardage on Claudia’s is 235 yds ( is that right?) Felicia had to order a second skein to complete the pair of socks.  She says that she has about 90% of that second skein left though.

I hope that helps!

I’ve been reading the discussion on the Flickr site and I know many of you are eagerly awaiting the release of the first pattern.  Please remember that the pattern will be sent to the email account that you registered with….it will NOT be posted on the blog and there will be no link to it on the blog.  So check your email in the morning!

Now a little about me….

I’m Felicia and I’m a project manager for an IT company in Northern VA.  I’m bloggless and I’m okay with that. Hillary sucked me into the world of knitting a little under a year ago.  Would you believe that I went with her to MDSW last year and didn’t buy ANYTHING!!!  At that time, I really didn’t understand why we were spending the day looking at yarn.  But I like hanging out with her and I had fun.  Now, I’m the one counting down the days until May.

I actually learned to knit when I was a kid, but it never really interested me.  The turning point for me was when I saw this and for some reason I had to have it in two tone pink.  I purchased the pattern and the yarn and dropped it off as a present for Hillary.  I think my words were something to the effect of “please return in useable condition”.  Being the wonderful friend she is, she quickly knitted this up for me.  Then my younger sister decided she wanted one.  And so, I picked up the needles and began to knit.

Since then Hillary has turned me on to sock knitting.  It’s such a small project to tote around and goes just about anywhere with you.  I’ve also knit gloves, scarfs, and more purses.  I haven’t yet tackled a sweater or any other large project that really has to fit.  I think that’s one of the things I love about socks.  They’re quick to knit, fairly forgiving with regard to size, gain weight/lose weight, they still fit, and best of all—sock yarn is yummy.

Hillary and I are so excited to kick this off tomorrow.  We hope you really enjoy the patterns.  I will tell you that some of the patterns are just amazing and the talent it takes to design them is incredible.  The designers who contributed to this event really deserve a lot of the credit.  Without them, Hillary and I could not have made this happen. 

This is the last post before the competition begins so let’s just take a deep breath and find out who we are. (I actually started writing this post last night and now I see that there is a “Where are we?” thread in the Flickr group - very clever!)

I’m Hillary, a law librarian and mother of 2 gorgeous girls in northern Virginia.  I’ve only been blogging at www.knitting4shirley.blogspot.com for a little over a year but my knitting history goes way back to the 80’s when I asked my mom for a pair of legwarmers and she responded by trying to teach me to knit them.  I never had legwarmers.  I suppose that, as with so many things, timing is the key and that just wasn’t the right time for me to learn to knit. 

It wasn’t until 2002 that I learned to knit using the needles, notions and books that I inherited from my grandmother, Shirley.  Since then I’ve knit hats, scarves, sweaters, and gloves while collecting a sizeable stash of yarn and books.  Last year, shortly after I started my blog, I knit my first sock, a Jaywalker, and I was instantly hooked.  Since then I’ve knit 16 pairs of socks.

My co-host, Felicia, is… snowed under with work right now but I’m sure that she’ll add her 2 cents when she comes up for air. For what it’s worth, I’ll say that Felicia and I met through Girl Scouts (hello to everyone who’ll be knitting their socks at booth sales this weekend).  She’s been helping/leading my daughter’s troop for 5 years.  We met around the same time I started knitting and, for a while she just watched me knit till I sucked her in and now we knit together.  We also go to lots of fiber festivals together where I spend too much and she laughs at me. 

So who are you?  You are an international group representing many countries that I’d love to visit.  You are novice sock knitters and experts. Many of you have mad skills that extend way beyond knitting. Have you seen Beth’s online store? What about Sarah’s pottery? (one lucky winner will get one of her yarn pots)  You must have seen Aija’s new design on Knitty ! (she’s donating a gift certificate to her Etsy store for one of you to win too)  

Best of all - you are knitters! You are passionate about the art of knitting socks!  Take a moment and introduce yourselves.

The start of SockMadness is growing closer. We are working on the final divisions and will post them very soon. It’s getting a little hetic around here as we finalize all the details and try to make sure we haven’t missed anything.

Many of you are asking about the specific time that the patterns will be released and if you can have advance notice of the required yarn and needle size.

We will release the patterns via email at 11:00am Eastern Time. The first pattern will be released on Saturday March 10, 2007.

As far as advance notice for the yarn and needle size for the first pattern only—we will post this information to the blog on March 7, 2007. We don’t know specifically what time we will do this, only that it will occur sometime on March 7th.

We completely understand about the need to have yarn in your stash ready to go. We even understand about the need to mail order yarn. The complete list of required yarns and needles can be found on the Supply List post.

One more thing….in order to participate in SockMadness, you must join the Flickr group. The group is my invitation only. Go to the Flickr site and request to join; we will then approve you into the group.

We continue to receive many wonderful questions. And we will continue to try and answer them to the best of our ability.

1) Gauge–we posted gauge as the designers gave it to us. Some designers provided gauge, others did not. Some gave gauge in terms of sts per inch and some gave it in terms of sts per row. Some gave both. I can tell you, that we have not had any problems getting the socks to fit our very average leg and foot.

2) Swatching–that’s up to you. Some people are comfortable knitting socks without a swatch others are not. Neither Hillary or I swatch for our socks and we haven’t any issues.

3) Needle Sizes—this seems to be challenging. Who knew US sizes didn’t translate the same way into metric size? I knit with Crystal Palace dpns. They have all the sizes you’re going need–1’s, 1.5’s, and 2’s. I picked them up at the LYS. Crystal Palace gives the following conversions:

US 1 = 2.25mm

US 1.5 = 2.5mm

US 2.0 = 2.75

I will also say that I’ve knit with the Brittany’s. I love them both. But, I have the 5″ Brittany’s which would be way too short for many of these sock patterns. My CP’s are 8″ and work much better for these patterns. Obviously, if you are using 2 circulars or the magic loop, the length of my dpn’s won’t matter to you.

4) Colors–there is no requirement to use variegated or solid yarns, only that you use the weight specified in the pattern. That being said, some patterns look better in variegated and others in solids. We followed the designers recommendations and were very happy with the outcome.

5) 2 skeins of variegated yarn (280-ish yards per skein), gauge is 7 stitches per inch—this requirement gave many pause. In fact, when I first read the pattern, I had to contact the designer because it seemed like a lot of yarn for 1 sock and not enough to make a pair. So….the designer actually used 2 hanks of this yarn with plenty left over. When I tested the pattern, I used a yarn with 215 yds per skein and I had yarn left over. Of course, this pattern required 2 skeins of my test yarn to make both socks.

6) Contrasting vs Coordinating colors—again this is up to you. But for the socks that require 2 colors of yarn, one of them will be greatly enhanced if the yarns you choose have a high degree of contrast.

I’m still working through the list of players, making sure that there are no duplicate entries and sorting things out.  I never learned to type (although I’ve been told that I’m pretty quick with one hand) so the process is taking a little longer than normal.  Please bear with me.  As soon as I get it all sorted out I’ll start sending out emails to you all. 

Be assured that you will hear from us within a few days because the start of play is approaching fast.  When exactly? 

March 10th! 

Early that morning, we’ll send out the first pattern by email.  We plan to send the emails to each division at the same time so that those players matched against one another will get the pattern simultaneously.

There were lots of good questions asked today.  Hopefully we can supply equally good answers.

1. Needles - needle sizes are apparently a little funky.  Depending on where you look, both 1’s and 1 and a half US can translate to 2.5 mm.  Go figure!

• US 1 = 2.5 mm
• US 1 1/2 = 2.5 mm
• US 2 = 3.0 mm

2. Yarn questions are also a little sticky.  Here are a few extra details about the yarns needed for the first 3 pairs of socks - in no particular order. 

• 2 skeins of variegated yarn (280-ish yards per skein), gauge is 7 stitches per inch
• 1 50g skein of variegated, 1 50g skein of solid, no gauge given
• 330 yards (301 meters), about 5 oz (140g)  of variegated sport weight yarn, gauge is 5-7 stitches per inch

 Sorry that the information varies from sock to sock.  There is variation in the way that different designers specify things.  I can say that Felicia uses Lorna’s Laces a lot.  In fact, she rarely uses anything else so you can bet that a few of these socks were tested with LL.  They worked just fine and, although only one sock from each pair has been knit, it appears that 2 skeins of LL would suffice for the patterns she has tested.

I’ve used a variety of yarns - Socks That Rock, Cherry Tree Hill, and Louet Gems.  So far I haven’t had any problems either.

Where you get the yarn/needles from is up to you.  Lately Felicia and I have both ordered from The Loopy Ewe and we were really happy with the service.  Of course Knit Picks is a good source for inexpensive yarns and one of the designers used KP Gloss for their sock.  I’m sure that there are lots of other great sources out there and you’re welcome to leave them in the comments.  I’ll try to compile it into an entry or a resource page.

I’m working feverishly to compile a master list of players and update other information like the prize list (which is growing a little) and the start date.  I expect to post more information tomorrow (and probably pretty regularly thereafter).

Keep asking great questions and we’ll do our best to answer them.

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!

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.

Thanks!

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?