Sock Madness

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 official.  The last spot in Wendy’s Division has been decided.  Look at Tezzcan’s socks!  Aren’t those colors fabulous?

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!

People are still hard at work on Mad Cow socks and it’s great to see that players are still posting them to share with us even if their divisions are full.  I know that many of us are getting a real kick out of seeing the differences in the color combinations.  Pictures of finished socks are also great blog fodder for your hosts so keep them coming.

Looking at the discussions on Flickr I also see people talking about what they’ve earned so far.  Check it out!  There were apparently more than a few among you who felt the awakening of a competitive beast inside you  - not that it’s a bad thing.  Many of you surprised yourselves with how quick you finished your socks.  Of course some of the lessons learned are more basic like the first time you did a short row heel or making jogless jogs.  All good things!

Felicia and I have been learning too.  Your answers to our little survey helped a lot.  You were pretty evenly split (49%-47%) among those who only want 1-3 days between rounds and those who need a little longer.  It’s understandable since we’re all really anxious to move along while, at the same time, we all have things to do besides knit. 

There was a much greater divide on the question of when to start the rounds.  The clear winner with 60% is the weekend but there were a few who made good arguments for why the weekdays are better (for them) and quite a few (30%) don’t care.

We have thought it all over and here is the deal.  We’ll post the specs - yarn requirement, needles and gauge if available - within 48 hours of the close of the last division.  For example, we would bet that we’ll have a 16th finisher in Wendy’s division (go Newbies!) by this evening.  If that’s the case then we’ll post the specs no later than Sunday night. 

Are we all clear so far?  Good, then let’s move on.

To try and keep things moving while still allowing for people to rest their hands, do the laundry, eat, sleep - we’re going to plan on starting the new round within 3-5 days of when we post the specs.  We’ll determine the start date of the next round with an eye towards keeping it close to the weekends - but it won’t always fall on a Saturday or Sunday.  We’ll post the start date for the next round with the specs so there will be time to prepare yourself.  Following the example above, if the specs are posted on Sunday then it’s likely that the next pattern will be sent to you on Thursday or Friday.

We will try to avoid releasing patterns on Easter and Passover.  I’m not sure how we’ll work around it but we’ll figure it out.

There is no one perfect solution that will work for everyone but we hope that this will work for most of you. 

Three cheers to Felicia for holding down the fort all alone this weekend! 

As some of you are aware, I was away this weekend attending a family wedding in Canada.  I didn’t say much here because I wasn’t sure what kind of internet access I’d have and I didn’t want to do anything to take away from the start of Sock Madness.  My access was just as spotty as I thought it would be but what I did see was great. 

Someone said, in one of the Flickr discussions, that  the competition’s “personality” has been more chatty than competitive.  I think that’s true and it just shows the true spirit of the knitting community.  We had hoped that the flickr group would add to the experience and that you’d use it liberally to support one another and discuss things - and you are!  Someone even mentioned that they thought they’d like to keep working on the socks after competition ends and wondered if it would be ok to keep using the flickr group. What a great idea!

Another thing that was fabulous was seeing so many of you stepping outside your comfort zone to try toe-up or doing a short row heel for the first time.  It’s great that so many noted how their short row heels improved from the first sock to the second and that it was advice from the other players that helped. 

Of course the socks are really the point here and seeing the huge differences between the color choices has been terrific.  Look at them all!

They are so inspiring. I really wish that we could post them all here but there are just too many.

There have been a lot of issues and questions raised and we’ll get to them all.  Good thing there’s a little down time to work out the kinks before the next round. Meanwhile, knitters continue to finish Mad Cows so watch for them.