On Sock Madness

Each year I participate in a little knitting competition called Sock Madness. It had brackets. It has speed. It has Norwegians. Everything a good sport should have. The premise is fairly simple. Qualify (by knitting an assigned pattern in two weeks) and then knit your way through each assigned pattern as quickly as you can to beat out the other people on your team. The first year I participated there were four teams. This year there are ten or eleven. My team is somewhere in the middle. We are all "average speed" knitters. I'm supposedly matched with other knitters who knit about the same speed as I do. The nice thing about this competition is that it is one of the friendliest games I've ever been in. People cheer you on and encourage you when you get down.

The current sock was supposed to be knit on size US 0 (2.0 mm needles). I made it half way through the first sock before I had to quit and frog it (I had a missed cable and the small diameter needle along with the very rigid fabric made my hands ache so badly). I have since recast on (recasted on? recast onned?) the sock on larger needles with larger yarn. It is going a bit more smoothly this time. I'm hoping to make it to round five this time. (I have never made it past round four.)

I used to knit with size 0 needles all the time, but in the past few years I have found that they don't play nicely with my hands. I also have problems knitting with needles that are too large (size 13's, 15's, 35's). I guess my hands prefer my 6's, 7's, and 8's. I guess I should be knitting more sweaters and fewer socks. Every year when sock madness comes around, though, I can't not knit with them. I have to know what is in store for this year's patterns. We've had zippers, buttons, funky vikkel braiding cast ons, socks knit side to side, tape (!), and the dreaded nupps (two row bobbles for the non-knitters).  Each year when you think that you have knit all there is to knit someone comes up with a new technique that, well, knocks your socks off. It's fun and I love the people I have met in this madness.

It's too late to sign up this year, but head over to Ravelry and check the group out or go to the patterns and search for Sock Madness patterns. They are fresh, unique and down right fun.

We're all a little mad

I joined the infamous Sock Madness on Ravelry. What is Sock Madness? It's a race to finish a set of assigned sock patterns with no alterations as fast as you can. Eight pair of socks in something like six weeks. I'm half way finished with my first sock and thought I was really whizzing through until I logged on this morning and found someone has already finished the pair! Sweet Nelly, what do the drink in Norway that lets someone knit that fast? I knit fast for an English knitter and I know that Continental is faster, but that much? Or maybe it's a combination of knitting fast and not having anything to do. I mean I did take time to eat and shower and dress. I had to take the kids on a french fry crawl (maybe a topic for a later post) and I did have to stop to go pick up the new spinning wheel, but none of those things took terribly long.

I keep wondering why I joined this challenge and I think it is for the same reason I do NaNoWriMo every year. I want to see if I can do it. I have no grandiose plans of actually winning Sock Madness (unlike NaNoWriMo, there is only one winner), but I do have plans to get through as many rounds as I can. It would be fun to be able to say I made it through five or six rounds. For now, I just need to get through this first round.

Off to knit!