The Sock Madness has started!
With the introduction of the new look of Ravelry last year, many people have had side effects from using the site. It only induced a headache for me, but for others the effect could be quite severe. As a result, the Mods for Sock Madness have tried their best to make sure everyone who wanted to participate in the Sock Madness would be capable of doing so. They asked participants to fill out a a few questions during the sign-up period in February, collected the e-mail addresses of everyone who said they had problems with the new site design, wrote a PDF to help people set up Ravelry in a migraine-friendly way just to make sure we could all participate in the Sock Madness if we wanted to.
This process took a bit longer than usual, so the Qualification Round took a little time to get started. People were already chomping at the bit for the Madness to start on March 1st, but the Mods were still checking the e-mail lists diligently. It always surprises me how people can skip over reading the rules; they clearly state "You have to be a member of the Sock Madness Forever group to participate" and the first days of March they were still calling people by nickname to actually become a member of the group.
I applaud their diligence and patience, but I would not be able to deal with the stupid.
The long-awaited specifications for the Qualification Round were published on March 4th, signalling "It starts within 48 hours." And then it took 47 hours until the pattern was sent to everyone's inbox. I will not elaborate on the absolute panic that this all caused on the Ravelry forums -- I don't read the chatter thread in the Sock Madness forever forums, but I do try to keep up with the Dutch shadowthread in the Sokkenbreien groep forums. People were just not being patient, frantically refreshing and frankly, driving me insane with the incessant nagging about the pattern not dropping in their inbox yet.
It's not there yet. CHILL. It will come when it comes.
The pattern, "Senbonzakura" is quite beautiful. Although I don't enjoy knitting twisted stitches, this is basically a ribbed sock with some smocking and light beads (and the stitches are not twisted, but most of the knits are knit through the back loop). It looks like a perfect qualifier sock -- except that the pattern was written in a pretty archaic way.
Immediately after the novel crochet cast-on, I ran into problems:
Proceed to Cuff chart and work it as follows:
{sts @1-17 [@1-21, @1-21], sts @1-17 [@1-17, @1-21]} 2 times.
(I had to replace hashtags with @ because otherwise my LJ tags get funky)
I just couldn't see what the text was saying. Between hashtags (@), square hooks ([) and whatchamacallits, rounded hooks or summat? ({) this was completely illegible.
I asked on the Dutch thread for help, a mod patiently replied but I couldn't unravel how to get to what she was saying from the text above. I needed to understand how to read it! It wasn't until Daphiedaph posted a picture with highlighted colours for each size that I could finally understand how to even read the text. I complained to Kat: "How hard would it be just to write as follows:
Size S: knit sts 1-17 four times
Size M: knit sts 1-21, 1-17, 1-21, 1-17
Size L: knit sts 1-21 four times.
It would have been a lot more legible!"
It sounded to me like the person who wrote the pattern was either a computer programmer or a very experienced knitter who has knit a lot of older, more archaic patterns in the past. And I can't really understand how the mods could gloss over this writing style. The Sock Madness is known for it's wonderful, fool-proof patterns.
This was NOT fool-proof.
In any case, I'm well underway now and the questions keep piling up on the forums. The previous 14 years of Sock Madness should probably have prepared them for the fact that a lot of people find comprehensive reading a hard thing to do. I try to ignore them as much as I can, mostly for my own peace of mind. I'm still not back to 'normal' and things cost more energy than they should. I try to stay away from the stupid and the whinging.
I had to swap out my initial 8/0 beads because they didn't fit over the full thread that this Wollmeise has, and picked the larger 6/0 beads from my stash instead.
By now, I'm halfway down the gusset (which happens before the heel turn) and I just realised I put beads in next to the gusset, where the Mods say they can be omitted for more comfortable wearing. I'm kind of pondering if I should frog back and remove them, or just accept these will be house socks and not worn in shoes. I think it might actually be better to frog and remove the beads next to the gusset, because then I can wear these once we get to go larping again.
Finally, there is also a LOT of confusion about the minimum length to be knitted. I'm knitting size M because at the gauge of 9 sts per inch I need at least 72 stitches to get a sock that will fit me. And if I want them to be long enough for my little hooves, I'll definitely make the minimum requirements. So that, at least, is a comfort.
I really hope the patterns for the next rounds of the Madness will be a little easier to read. Secretly, I am contemplating if they are weeding out the opportunists this year, by deliberately making the patterns harder to read. They have changed the rules about "cheerleader" status, to weed out the opportunists who do the bare minimum just to get the free patterns. You can only send in a "reasonable effort" e-mail in the final 48 hours of the round to become a cheerleader. And there will be no more "honest mistake" rulings.
Shit got real, yo.
Right, I will start frogging that gusset now to remove some beads. Time to get on with the round!
This process took a bit longer than usual, so the Qualification Round took a little time to get started. People were already chomping at the bit for the Madness to start on March 1st, but the Mods were still checking the e-mail lists diligently. It always surprises me how people can skip over reading the rules; they clearly state "You have to be a member of the Sock Madness Forever group to participate" and the first days of March they were still calling people by nickname to actually become a member of the group.
I applaud their diligence and patience, but I would not be able to deal with the stupid.
The long-awaited specifications for the Qualification Round were published on March 4th, signalling "It starts within 48 hours." And then it took 47 hours until the pattern was sent to everyone's inbox. I will not elaborate on the absolute panic that this all caused on the Ravelry forums -- I don't read the chatter thread in the Sock Madness forever forums, but I do try to keep up with the Dutch shadowthread in the Sokkenbreien groep forums. People were just not being patient, frantically refreshing and frankly, driving me insane with the incessant nagging about the pattern not dropping in their inbox yet.
It's not there yet. CHILL. It will come when it comes.
The pattern, "Senbonzakura" is quite beautiful. Although I don't enjoy knitting twisted stitches, this is basically a ribbed sock with some smocking and light beads (and the stitches are not twisted, but most of the knits are knit through the back loop). It looks like a perfect qualifier sock -- except that the pattern was written in a pretty archaic way.
Immediately after the novel crochet cast-on, I ran into problems:
Proceed to Cuff chart and work it as follows:
{sts @1-17 [@1-21, @1-21], sts @1-17 [@1-17, @1-21]} 2 times.
(I had to replace hashtags with @ because otherwise my LJ tags get funky)
I just couldn't see what the text was saying. Between hashtags (@), square hooks ([) and whatchamacallits, rounded hooks or summat? ({) this was completely illegible.
I asked on the Dutch thread for help, a mod patiently replied but I couldn't unravel how to get to what she was saying from the text above. I needed to understand how to read it! It wasn't until Daphiedaph posted a picture with highlighted colours for each size that I could finally understand how to even read the text. I complained to Kat: "How hard would it be just to write as follows:
Size S: knit sts 1-17 four times
Size M: knit sts 1-21, 1-17, 1-21, 1-17
Size L: knit sts 1-21 four times.
It would have been a lot more legible!"
It sounded to me like the person who wrote the pattern was either a computer programmer or a very experienced knitter who has knit a lot of older, more archaic patterns in the past. And I can't really understand how the mods could gloss over this writing style. The Sock Madness is known for it's wonderful, fool-proof patterns.
This was NOT fool-proof.
In any case, I'm well underway now and the questions keep piling up on the forums. The previous 14 years of Sock Madness should probably have prepared them for the fact that a lot of people find comprehensive reading a hard thing to do. I try to ignore them as much as I can, mostly for my own peace of mind. I'm still not back to 'normal' and things cost more energy than they should. I try to stay away from the stupid and the whinging.
I had to swap out my initial 8/0 beads because they didn't fit over the full thread that this Wollmeise has, and picked the larger 6/0 beads from my stash instead.
By now, I'm halfway down the gusset (which happens before the heel turn) and I just realised I put beads in next to the gusset, where the Mods say they can be omitted for more comfortable wearing. I'm kind of pondering if I should frog back and remove them, or just accept these will be house socks and not worn in shoes. I think it might actually be better to frog and remove the beads next to the gusset, because then I can wear these once we get to go larping again.
Finally, there is also a LOT of confusion about the minimum length to be knitted. I'm knitting size M because at the gauge of 9 sts per inch I need at least 72 stitches to get a sock that will fit me. And if I want them to be long enough for my little hooves, I'll definitely make the minimum requirements. So that, at least, is a comfort.
I really hope the patterns for the next rounds of the Madness will be a little easier to read. Secretly, I am contemplating if they are weeding out the opportunists this year, by deliberately making the patterns harder to read. They have changed the rules about "cheerleader" status, to weed out the opportunists who do the bare minimum just to get the free patterns. You can only send in a "reasonable effort" e-mail in the final 48 hours of the round to become a cheerleader. And there will be no more "honest mistake" rulings.
Shit got real, yo.
Right, I will start frogging that gusset now to remove some beads. Time to get on with the round!