Sock Madness

Nancy’s  group is full now too but there are still knitters yet to finish in Cat’s and Wendy’s groups.

We need your input again.  We hope that this first round has been as fun for you as it has been informative for us.  We’re trying to tweak a bunch of stuff so that round 2 goes a little more smoothly but first we need to determine when to start round 2.  I originally thought that 2 weeks per round sounded good and planned to start each round early on a Saturday (EST).  While we’re ironing out the kinks we thought that we’d consult you - the knitting public - and see what you’re opinion on this is. Take a second to answer the following 2 questions.
Take Our Poll from PollDaddy.com
Take Our Poll from PollDaddy.com
Thanks!

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.

Anybody out there get the reference?  Any hockey fans? The National Hockey League used to be divided into conferences (Wales & Campbell)  and divisions (above) that showed a little more character than other professional sports.  In 1993 they succumbed to the boring convention of dividing the teams into groups named geographically.  So sad.

We’d love for Sock Madness to reflect the knitting citizens of blogland.  None of this US v. The World or North v. South.  Knitters are inventive and inspired!  The way that we divide ourself should reflect that.  Names of famous knitters maybe?  Knitting style?  Something completely different!   We’ve got a few ideas about how to designate the diffiernt groups but, we have noted that you are a very opinionated (and creative) bunch so we’re opening up this subject to suggestions. 

As you are coming up with ideas, please note that there will likely be 4 “divisions” in 2 “conferences”.  If you need clarification of the bracket (or draw) system then you can check this or this. 

It would be really cool if the titles of the groups had good acronyms too.  Wouldn’t it be horrible to have to read about what happened this week in the ARSE division?

Keep it clean and have fun!