Sock Madness - a FO Report

As you may or may not know, I've joined a little thing called Sock Madness. Basically it's a knitter against knitter knitting elimination tournament, a bit like the March Madness basketball stuff (I guess, I've never watched basketball, and thankfully neither does The Greatest). Sure, it'd be nice to win and be crowned the fastest sock knitter of the tournament. But if we're being honest, I'm a pattern whore. I'm in it for the exclusive-available-only-to-participants patterns.

Pattern: Sock Madness Mad-Cow Socks

Yarn: 1 skein Regia Bamboo, 1 skein Mandarin Petit (100% cotton)

Needles: Size 2 dpns

Modifications: I knit these socks on dpns instead of 2 circular needles. All other modifications are strictly against the tournament rules and regulations.

Review: Before I begin, here is my disclaimer. My displeasure in the pattern is no reflection upon the design itself, or the organizers of Sock Madness. They are all wonderful and doing a superb job. Any flaws in the socks are mine alone.

I don't like my socks.

I love the bamboo yarn. It is so thin and elegant and drapey. I love the cotton yarn. It is so soft and squishy. Hear that? I paired a drapey yarn with a squishy yarn. Mistake number one.

What is mistake number two? My yarn looked beautiful sitting side by side. The blue cotton picked up the blue tones in the brown yarn. It was a perfect combination. To me it looked like my new home, the brown mountains and the blue sky ever present out my windows. I was in love. Chocolate browns and blues, heaven. Knitted up, not so much loving as overwhelmed. Too much blue. It overpowers the brown, and the blue in the bamboo yarn gets completely lost. I think it might have looked better if I had reversed the sock. Brown toe, heel, and ribbing. But I didn't want to break the rules, and the rules called for a solid toe, so solid I went. With my stoic adherence to the rules the blue cotton saw it's chance to stage a hostile take-over. Letting the blue stage a coup d'etat? Mistake number two.

Then I did things like not reading the pattern all the way through and realizing there was a top down version (mistake number 3), knitting a toe-up sock, hating it, realizing I had a top down version, and frogging first sock (costly time mistake number 4) and in the interest of time not learning to knit a jog-less stripe (mistake number 5).

Yes, this sock is fatally flawed. All the flaws are mine alone. I'm looking forward to round number two later today. I'm hoping to knit fast, but create a sock with a little more quality to it. After all, even if I don't advance to the next round I still get the patterns right? And that's the important part.

Although the list of supplies was posted ages ago, in the interest of monetary conservation I did not purchase supplies in advance. My purpose was two-fold. I was hoping to use stash yarn, and I didn't want to buy a bunch of yarn in case I was eliminated in the first round. So much for either thought. I had to make a special trip to my LYS for round one yarn (I own NO solid sock yarn). And Tuesday I realized I didn't have any appropriate yarn for round two. When The Greatest came home from work I told him I would have to go the LYS, only to discover the LYS isn't open past 5:30. The is another store an hour away that is open until 9:00 on Tuesdays. Guess who took me to the other store? Not only did he buy me blue heathered Australian Wool for round two...

But somehow 1 skein of lace weight merino, 2 skeins of Plymouth Encore and a skein of pink Malabrigo also came home with me. He is truly The Greatest! Don't worry, this wasn't a case of meaningless SEX (Stash Enhancing Expedition people, quit being so dirty). The lace weight is for a commissioned shawl, the Encore is for some test knitting I'm doing, and the Malabrigo, well the Malabrigo is just because I love it and need it for my pink girl hat after Meaty selfishly took my blue for his blue boy hat. What are the Vegas odds that Bird gets a new pink girl hat with this?