Monday, March 12, 2007

Sock Madness, Round One

Sock Madness officially began at 3:45 am on Saturday with the release of the first pattern. It was a fairly simple sock, using both solid and variegated yarns in a striping pattern. I didn't quite achieve color changes without jogs at the joins, but the socks are finished:Pattern: Mad Cow socks, available to Sock Madness participants
Yarns: Dalegarn Baby Ull (solid navy blue)
Perchance to Knit superwash Kona Merino in the Cha Cha colorway (variegated)
Needles: size 1 circulars, using the magic loop method
Notes: I've already heard this mentioned a few times, and I have to agree that if I wanted striped socks, I would just buy self-striping yarn and not go through the hassle and fiddliness of jogs and joins. Though this pattern may be a good way to use up the odd skein or less of sock yarn.

In Sock Madness, to even the playing field, socks must be knit the size of an average woman's foot (7-9) or larger. The rules of the competition state that the socks must be modelled on adult feet and a picture submitted to the Flickr group. Since these socks were for the Count, he gladly modelled them for me. Now, many's the time I've almost choked on my morning tea while doing some blog reading and a man's hairy leg unexpectedly pops out from the text, so I'll spare you that here. But if you are truly interested (and the Count does have nice legs, I'll admit), the Flickr link is here.

To advance beyond round one of the competition, you need to be one of the first 16 people out of your group of 32 to email and post a picture of your completed socks. I'm pretty sure I've made that goal. Now I'm going to rest and recoup so I can be ready for round two, starting in roughly two weeks. For the rest of the tournament, knitters will be pit against each other one on one. I'm not sure how far I'll be able to advance, but I do feel pretty darn good about making it past round one.

Another great thing about these socks? They are exactly the current (Feb/March) Project Spectrum colors of blue, white, and grey.

How cool is that?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Almost 4 o'clock in the morning? They certainly have the "madness" part correct!!!!

Nice going!

Anonymous said...

Good Job! I'm hoping I made the cut, too. I burned the midnight oil last night and night before to get them done, but mine are done too. I'm so exhausted! I feel like this was a foot race. I've never knitted that fast in my life. I'm normally a VERY leisurely knitter. I'm not sure my arthritic neck is going to make it through this. I've had to dip heavily into the Darvocet.

I figured you'd have to knit for The Count or some other person. I know what dainty little pixie feet you have. ;-) It wouldn't make any difference if I knitted for myself OR The Aviator. He wears roughly the same size I do: Ladies 10/men's 8.5.

Now, I plan to recover and catch up my laundry before round TWO!

knittinmom said...

Woo-hoo! I've got my fingers crossed for you.

BTW - that story about Zim-Dee's teeth? Even more cringe-inducing with the pictures! Poor little guy!

msubulldog said...

Your comment about unexpected hairy man legs cracked me up! I get startled, too. ;)

Shelby said...

nice!! I'm only about 1/4 way down the first cuff- it was not a sock knitting weekend in my house! GOOD LUCK!!!

Jennifer said...

Madness indeed! :-) They look great.

YarnThing said...

Great Job!

Marly
www.knitthing.blogspot.com
http://knitthing.mypodcast.com