Round Two of Sock Madness was the first competition round. So, after completing the Qualifying Round, and giving some background to the organizers, participants are sorted into "teams" of about 50 people. In theory, all the members of your team should knit at roughly the same speed, factoring in life situations as well as actual knitting time.
After completing the Slip Stripe Spiral Socks for Sock Madness, I had just enough time to finish up a shawl I had started - Emiliana! The moment I saw this pattern, I knew I had to have it, and I bought yarn for it at Stitches West 2016.
Once again, I spent a wonderful weekend in February at STITCHES West - the local festival for all things fiber related. While I was there, I took a class on custom fitting a sweater, which I really loved. I also hit up the market pretty hard core.
This year, I participated in something called "Sock Madness." This is a competitive knitting event, very loosely based off of March Madness - there are seven elimination rounds, and participants are sorted into teams or leagues. All of the patterns for the socks are sent to the participants by email, and as soon as the pattern "drops," it is a flurry of knitting to be earn a spot to advance.
The first round is a qualifying round - you simply have to knit a pair of socks in two weeks. The socks were called "Slip Stripe Spiral," and relied predominately on slip-stitches and two contrasting skeins of yarn. I completed them using Black Cascade Heritage yarn, as well as my Black Squirrel Yarn, from the Kickstarter for the Black Squirrel Fabric and Yarn Shop.
I recently fell for a KnitPicks sale. You know how it is - they send you the pattern for free, and before you know it, you're buying the kit. Well, I bought the kit. It's for the Woodland Winter Mittens, a set of six patterns of colorwork mitts, one for each month October through March.
Jumping right in, I made the October mittens in the large size, and once blocked, discovered they were far too big. No trouble! My mom would love them - and so to her for her birthday they went, and as predicted, she fell absolutely in love.
Shortly after Christmas, one of the knitting forums I'm a part of on Ravelry was doing a shawl knit-a-long, and one of the patterns that was suggested was "Reyna" by Noora Laivola. Now, they didn't actually end up using that pattern as a main pattern, but I still participated (just not for prizes), because it was a pattern made for self-striping yarn, and boy did I have a lot of that.
I used a Socks that Rock Lightweight skein that I had inherited from a lovely friend that was moving and didn't want to move all her yarn, and I love they way it turned out. However, as you may know, Socks that Rock Lightweight is still an extremely heavy fingering blend, and despite the fact that it's a 115g skein, it doesn't have nearly the yardage usual sock yarn skeins do. I had to leave off the last 4 rows of eyelets on the bottom of the pattern, and the shawl ended up being more of a neckerchief. However, with a shawl pin, I can still make it work.
This project also marks my first ever serious knitting injury. I spent over 12 hours knitting this straight one Saturday, a feat which is not unknown to me, but I've never done it before with bigger needles and heavier project, and I strained my left wrist to the point of needing to stop knitting for over a week, and then monitor the progress due to pain.
I sure learned my lesson.
While we're on the topic of the bathroom, I thought I'd show you another quick project set I whipped up. Right next to my bathroom sink is a little ledge, and this is where I usually set my makeup brushes to dry after I've washed them. I had some fuzzy yarn to use up, so I crocheted up a quick liner for that area to help the brushes dry.
