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Sock Madness 12, Qualifying Round
Mar. 2nd, 2018 10:10 amSock Madness kicked off yesterday with the Qualifying Round. I'm so excited. Although I was a little hesitant to pick up the other socks I'd been working on, having a competition is a good motivator.
As soon as the pattern dropped I dug through my stash and nearly came up short. Although I have many, many solid coloured sock yarns, almost all of them are 50 grams skeins of ~200 meters. For this pattern I needed at least 300 meters of wool in a solid or semi-solid colour, and I could choose from 3 and wound up with a dark fuchsia pink with some lighter flecks.
And then there was the rule to not switch light and dark colours. That meant I couldn't combine the fuchsia with any shade that would look darker, like black or blue. It looked quite alright with a bright turquoise though, so I set to work. It's nice to get out of my comfort zone and do a more Fiberrachel-y neon colour combo for a change.
Being restricted by the rules of the competition and the pattern is quite motivating. Because of having such a large stash, finding a pattern to knit can be hard. If I were free to choose whichever yarn I wanted, I might get stressed from having too much choice, and toss the pattern aside. Because the competition rules state 'this is the pattern you knit', I can't. And because the pattern states you can't switch light and dark around, you're forced to choose much more quickly and there's no reason to second-guess yourself.
Armed with a blanket, tea, a purring Doortje in my lap, a movie and my favourite bamboo needles I used a Twisted German Cast-On and set to work on 2.5 mm needles. I've tried my hand at the TGCO only once before and never used it, so it was nice to see I could still set it up that way. And it does create a rather neat cast-on edge for top-down socks.
To tell you the truth, the frantic scramble to pick the right yarn for the pattern is the best fun I've had in weeks. I'm quite looking forward to this event. (Although my fingers are a bit sore today, so I should take it easy with the knitting for a bit.)
As soon as the pattern dropped I dug through my stash and nearly came up short. Although I have many, many solid coloured sock yarns, almost all of them are 50 grams skeins of ~200 meters. For this pattern I needed at least 300 meters of wool in a solid or semi-solid colour, and I could choose from 3 and wound up with a dark fuchsia pink with some lighter flecks.
And then there was the rule to not switch light and dark colours. That meant I couldn't combine the fuchsia with any shade that would look darker, like black or blue. It looked quite alright with a bright turquoise though, so I set to work. It's nice to get out of my comfort zone and do a more Fiberrachel-y neon colour combo for a change.
Being restricted by the rules of the competition and the pattern is quite motivating. Because of having such a large stash, finding a pattern to knit can be hard. If I were free to choose whichever yarn I wanted, I might get stressed from having too much choice, and toss the pattern aside. Because the competition rules state 'this is the pattern you knit', I can't. And because the pattern states you can't switch light and dark around, you're forced to choose much more quickly and there's no reason to second-guess yourself.
Armed with a blanket, tea, a purring Doortje in my lap, a movie and my favourite bamboo needles I used a Twisted German Cast-On and set to work on 2.5 mm needles. I've tried my hand at the TGCO only once before and never used it, so it was nice to see I could still set it up that way. And it does create a rather neat cast-on edge for top-down socks.
To tell you the truth, the frantic scramble to pick the right yarn for the pattern is the best fun I've had in weeks. I'm quite looking forward to this event. (Although my fingers are a bit sore today, so I should take it easy with the knitting for a bit.)
