Sock Madness 3

Can you feel it? Something big started today.

It's Sock Madness 3 and although it's quite small compared to many knitty events, don't tell that to the players. They've been busy getting ready for the madness for months.

They've reminisced over the past 2 events, convinced their friends to join this year, shuffled their schedules and talked about Sock Madness and awful lot. Truthfully it's the players who are driving this thing. Their excitement it infectious.

I couldn't do this by myself and I'm really happy that Carole is my co-host for the second year in a row. Between the two of us we've had all of the submitted patterns tested, signed up 200 players and generally served as mistresses of the madness. It's a huge job and it's so much more pleasant when you have someone great to share it with.

It's not all work though. I get a huge kick out of following the discussion in the Rav group. They go off on all kinds of tangents. There are many recipes and virtual bottles of Baileys shared. They've composed songs and discussed literature and travel and movies. In short, this is way more than just competitive sock knitting. It's knitty community at it's best.


All of the pictures in this post are teasers that we've released over the ast week to give the players a peek at the patterns in our queue. Some knitters are excited by what they see and others are nervous because some of these patterns will use techniques that are new to them. You can be sure that there will be lot's of tips and tutorials shared in the rav group because even though this is a competition this group is, first and foremost, supportive of each other. It makes a knitter proud.

The first year of SM I worried that nobody would want to play... but they did and I was happy. Last year I stressed it again but then the madness started and agin it was all good. This year was the hardest because I had so many other things on my plate. I just couldn't seem to get focused on SM3. But then I started seeing discussion in the rav group about how happy they all are that it's time for Sock Madness again and how could I not feel happy about that? One of my favorite comments so far is was this one: "then I remember this must mean that Sock Madness is soon! And my personal sunshine comes out." What more can I say!