Knitting In Public

Well, I guess they have the “madness” part correct….!

I signed up for Sock Madness 3 - I’ve been a lousy not very successful participant for both Sock Madness and Sock Madness 2. On the original Sock Madness, they received more applicants than they had space, so the first round was to the top number of participants in each group - and I squeaked into the finishers for that round. The 2nd and subsequent rounds, participants were paired off and competed against each other as opposed to the group. I was paired with the #1 finisher for the entire competition. Need I say more?

For Sock Madness 2, I was going to try knitting with 2 circs instead of my usual 5 wooden dpns in the hopes I could keep up a little better. However, my surgery occurred and the competition started just a few days after I came home from the hospital. Again, I managed to finish the first round, but round 2 was a sock that I could not find a rhythm and had to watch the chart all the time. Need I say more?

This year, they’ve made some changes in how prizes are awarded (random drawings from all finishers, instead of just the #1), and I believe they’ve made some changes so we aren’t competing directly against only one person (I could be wrong — we’ll see!)

The first pattern for SM3 was released on Thursday, March 19. I was amazed to find that the competitors this year are fairly slow and I happened to have been placed in one of the slower-knitting groups! I finally finished my pair with about 15 minutes to go before the cutoff yesterday:

Pattern: Tropical Mer-tini by Ronni Smith

Yarn: KnitPicks Essential, Gulfstream (discontinued colorway), 2 skeins

Needles: 2.25mm circulars

I actually knit about 2.5 socks as I knit most of one then switched, and discovered that the first one was a little tight, so I ripped back to the ribbing and re-knit. I added 2 extra rows of ribbing, and 8 extra pattern rows before the toe shaping. This pattern also called for an afterthought heel - something I’ve never done before. It fits “ok” but is not my favorite, and certainly does not fit as well as my standard heel-flap-and-gusset type sock. I can wear them around the house, but they’ll probably be more comfortable inside a shoe where they can’t slop around.

Round 2 starts tomorrow - I hope I can actually make it to round 3 (it would be a first for me). I’ve been struggling with illness for almost 2 weeks now, so I hope I have the stamina to hang in there.

I did manage to have a few minutes to work on mittens last night, since my socks were finally done. Not enough to post a photo, though…. and no more afghan squares yet. If I ever feel better, I hope to get a little more knitting done! Right now I’m spending most of my “free” time sleeping.

Hope you all stay healthy - and keep on knitting!

The first round of Sock Madness 2 was to end at midnight on Tuesday, March 25. The website didn’t say what time zone, so I’m hoping I was able to squeak into the winner’s circle as I finished my Zombies at about 11 p.m. CDT, and then couldn’t remember how to load the photos on Flickr, so it took a little extra time. I finally uploaded a photo and sent the required email at about 11:15 p.m. CDT. I think the folks who run the Sock Madness are on the East coast, so they may have intended it to be EDT - which means that they may not allow my entry. The Sock Madness website and group totals do not reflect that I have finished, but I’m hoping that they just went to bed early….

Here’s my finished Zombie socks:

Not the best photo, but I was trying to hurry to get the post done to make it before the deadline.

I have to say I’m not a fan of color pooling. While I love the look of varigated yarns while in the hank or skein, I’m not too wild with how they look knitted up.  I’m also more a fan of the symmetrical pair of socks or mittens, etc., so when the colors pool differently so I can’t make the pair look very similar I get irritated. These did not match, although as a pair I think they’re kind of funky!

For those of my fellow Sock Madness folks who stopped by to encourage me and cheer me on, I give you a heartfelt “thanks.” It sure made me feel like continuing to knit on these, even though they went sooooo slooow. Thanks for being my ‘cheerleader!’