One of the most satisfying things I ever knit was my first pair of socks. Then the second pair of socks, and the first sock to my third pair. They can be customized so many ways, with so many different parts, it’s a great way to learn new techniques. Once you’ve made one sock the “parts” of a sock rarely change. How you decide to knit them will. There’s a cuff, a leg, a heel, sometimes a gusset, a foot, and a toe. You can knit them cuff down, toe up, two at a time, add beads, zippers, lace.. the sky really is the limit to these versatile items.
That’s how I found myself looking into the ‘Sock Madness Forever‘ group on Ravelry. Their group details read:
Sock Madness is an international sock knitting competition based loosely on the basketball competition known as March Madness. There are 7 rounds of patterns. The first pattern is reasonably straightforward and as the rounds progress the socks become increasingly more complex in design.
Every registered competitor who completes a pair of socks in round 1 will be placed on a team with approximately 40 players per team. It is announced ahead of each round how many will proceed to the next pattern/round. By the 7th pattern there will be one member from each team left to battle it out.
I decided to sign up – and I’m incredibly excited. I know I’m still a new knitter, and I may not be as fast as others on the team, but I’ve put those details into my registration email and hopefully I get sorted appropriately. There are so many members that it can be hard to catch a lot of the chatter, but I am not going to let that deter me. I believe this is the 10th year that the competition has taken place, and that is pretty amazing. There’s already a ‘warm up sock’ pattern posted, a sock called ‘Mad Mix‘ and it’s supposed to look like a hot mess, using up bits and pieces of other sock yarns. I haven’t decided if I’ll warm up using this sock pattern yet, as I do have a few other WIP I’d like to complete, but we’ll see. The group also has quite a few rules, but they really help out when it comes to the competition.
This week I’ve also started my first adventures into spinning yarn from fiber, but that’s a post for another day!