Sock Madness

The Mad Cow Socks look awesome. It’s great to look at all the different color combinations. Here are the latest standings:

Cat-12 finished

Nancy-14 finished

Stephanie-14 finished

Wendy-10 finished

Remember only the top 16 in each division move on.

For those of you who have not yet finished, please remember that to be considered complete you must:

1. Post your finished socks to the Flickr group
2. Send us an email titled “Finished”
3. Include a link to your socks on the flickr group in your email and what division you are in.

Good luck and keep on knitting

***4pm Update***

Here are the latest standings.  I’m logging off for the evening so this may be the last update of the night.  We will continue to update in the morning.  Many of you may be asking yourselves—how will I know if I made it.  Well–at this point, the answer is you won’t until the morning.  We will check the gmail account in the morning and starting with the earliest received email, we will post the results.

If a division should close this evening and you have sent us an email and you did Not make the next round, we will respond to your email and let you know that.

Lastly–many of you have been asking about the next pattern release and required materials.  Remember, no round will go longer than 2 weeks, but at this time, we do not have an anticipated release date.  Just like we did with round 1, we will release the materials list a few days before the pattern release.

Good Luck to everyone

Cat-9 finished

Nancy-11 finished

Stephanie-12 finished

Wendy-6 finished

Remember—for the most recent updates, check the specific bracket pages.

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***3pm Update***

Cat-9 finished

Nancy-10 finished

Stephanie-12 finished

Wendy-6 finished

Remember—for the most recent updates, check the specific bracket pages.

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Wow–you all are bunch of fast knitters. The pictures on Flickr are just amazing. I know many of you were concerned about your yarn choices, but so far, all the Mad Cow socks I’ve seen use fabulous colors. Hillary and I hope you are happy with them!

It is 12:20pm EDT. I have updated the brackets. Check the bracket page to see your standings. Remember, in order to be complete, you must send us an email at sockmadnessATgmailDotCom with the title finished and a link to your posting on Flickr. It would also be very helpful if you indicated what division you are in.

As of now, the standings are as follows:

Cat-8 finished

Nancy-10 finished

Stephanie-10 finished

Wendy-6 finished

Remember, since this was a time trial round, the top 16 players in each division move onto the next round. We will continue to update the brackets as the information comes in. Please check the bracket pages for the most up to date information

Congratulations to all who have finished and good luck to those of you still working on your socks.

In the sidebar today you’ll see Nancy’s Traditional Sock Division listed.  Go on - take a look.

Ok, so this division, the second to be unveiled, is no surprise.  We all know that Nancy Bush is the matriarch of modern sock knitting.  How many sock knitters have Knitting On The Road, Knitting Vintage Socks, or Folks Socks in their knitting library?  They are full of great patterns and useful discussion of the different heels, toes, design etc.  Truly she is an amazing sock knitter.

Speaking of heels and toes – there have been a few questions about what changes are acceptable to the patterns used in the competition.  The short answer is - not many. Allow us to expand briefly.

Most of the sock patterns we’ve tested tell you to cast on but don’t specify a particular cast on.  It’s up to you.  In those rare instances where a particular cast on is specified, there is usually a reason for it that will affect the design in some way.  Cast on the right number of stitches in whatever way makes you happy and go from there.

Heels and toes really are a design element.  Part of the idea behind this competition is exposure to different ideas and design elements.  If it were strictly about speed then you’d be knitting the same ribbed sock over and over again rather than 7 totally different socks.  Some will certainly suit you better than others but, for the sake of fairness and variety we ask that you knit the elements as given.

Size is also a big concern for you.  We totally get that but, a person with a size 5 foot who is competing against someone with a size 9 clearly has an unfair advantage if we allow you to omit repeats etc.  We would suggest that those of you with small or narrow feet adjust the gauge down as needed to get a tighter sock.  Knit on a 1 instead of a 2 – this is totally ok.

Many of you have commented recently on how much work must be going on “behind the scenes”.  You have no idea.  Actually, I had no idea either.  As with so many things, Sock Madness started with a little idea – a what if – and it’s grown to something quite involved.  It’s fun to see it taking shape and working out just the way I hoped it would but the amount of work require to put it together has been considerable.  I just want to say that we really appreciate all of the thank you comments.   

Now let’s move on to the business of today.  One by one the player lists are becoming ready to post.  Those of you who are observant will notice that they are not set up tournament style.  This is because we’ve made a small change to the tournament.  As I started putting together the roster of players, we had to put a few folks on the wait list.  Felicia and I are not “no” people.  We hate to deliver bad news so we tried to think of a way to fit those few extra people in.  The result is a change to the first round only.

The first round of the competition will be a strict time trial.  You are being divided into divisions of 32-35 players each and, for the first round it will be you versus the other members of your division.  The first 16 finishers from each division will move on to tournament play.  Make sense?

The natural follow up question is – “So who’s in my division?”  So glad you asked.  The first of the 4 divisions had been posted and you can find it easily in the sidebar on the right under the “Brackets” area.  It’s Cat’s Soaring Sock Division!  We listened to all of the great suggestions for how to name our divisions and decided to go with knitters who we find influential and inspiratonal. 

Cat Bordhi is the author of Socks Soar on Two Circular Needles, the Treasury of Magical Knitting and the Second Treasury of Magical Knitting.  She is inventive and innovative.  I’ll admit that the moebius still scares me but I do most of my socks on 2 circ’s and for that alone I am extrememly grateful to Cat.

Care to guess who the other 3 divisions are named for?

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.

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.

I’m excited and relieved to say that the roster is now full and sign ups are closed.  Watch this space for more information this week.

Never doubt the power of the knit blog community.  We owe a huge thank you to all of the fabulous bloggers out there who are helping to get the word out.  Sign ups started a little slow but after a few bloggers started spreading the word things picked up considerably.  There are still spaces open but they are filling up at a pretty fast pace.  We will post to the blog just as soon as it’s full.  For now though, there’s still room for just a few more players.

Please note, Laura noticed tha in an earlier post I listed our email incorrectly.  I’ve corrected that post and, here again, is the correct email:

 sockmadness at gmail dot com. 

I have to say that most of the applications have been submitted in perfect format and we really appreciate that.  It makes it much easier for us to sort things out.  Thank you!

Yep - still going! 

Sign ups have been steady but there is still room for more. Perhaps all of the lead time and teasing was too much – or not enough.  Some of you still aren’t sure if you’re ready to compete.  For that reason we’ll leave the sign ups open for a bit longer.  It’ll probably go through the weekend but it could close at any time.  It all depends on when we hit the magic number. 

If you are already committed to playing then help get the word out.  If you’re still on the fence, here are a few reminders of why you should play.

1. It’ll be fun!  Yes there is competition involved and a bit of pressure to finish first but, I’d like to think that there is also a certain degree of camaraderie involved too like a traditional KAL.  After all, you’ll all be working on the same thing.
2. There is sock yarn to be had.  We haven’t posted it yet because it’s not quite ready but – rest assured – there will be sock yarn coming your way.
3. The patterns.  They have been submitted by knitters like you from all over.  They range from simple stripes to really intricate patterns that will have you constantly referring to the charts and just for playing, you get them all!  Even knitters who lose in an early round will get them all.
4. How many competitions do you find where even losers win?  In addition to getting all of those patterns, someone will get an autographed copy of their choice of one of Stephanie Pearl-Mcphee’s books. 
5. The more people who play, the more rounds the competition goes, and that means that more of the patterns are used.   

 ETA - Someone just asked a good question and I thought that I’d share the answer.  She noted that we state that you must adhere to the pattern as written and asked if that meant that you need to use the same yarns.  No, you don’t need to use the same brand of yarn but you do need to use the same weight. When we post the materials list we’ll let you know what we used to test and  what the designer used - you may choose what you like.