Sock Madness 2025 Round 5

 

Ribbed, cabled socks with a touch of embroidery. What is there not to love? This round was another clearly charted pattern and a speed race for the finishing spots. I was approved about spot 3 of my team of the 7 spots available to go into the next round. The pattern was already released when I woke Wednesday morning, so Europe and the like had 8 hours head start! I was able to complete my pair (including an unplanned 4 hour nap) by Thursday afternoon.

Evenstar Socks by KnitJoyz (ravelry name)

Sock Madness 2025 Round 4

 

These socks looked deceptively manageable. Most of the sock is plain knitting, but there are two panels of brioche; the rib knitting, not the bread. They are worked intarsia style. The main color goes all the way around each round, but the contrast works once each round forwards or backwards.

 I did get tired of flipping the sock around for just five stitches at a time, so I started working the stitches in reverse, then placing them onto the working needle. Eventually, I figured out how to throw with my left hand (I’m a “continental’ or “picker” knitter - hold the working yarn in my left hand). This improved my speed and felt more comfortable than switching around and around, potentially dropping stitches.

Finished and approved.

Brintarsia by Renee Strouts

Sock Madness 2025 Round 3

The socks this round seemed straightforward. A well charted pattern that started off tricky, but was quickly rhythmic. After closing up the toes, I noticed that I had dropped a stitch, causing one sock to have 5 stripes of ribbing, whereas the other had six. I had to open the toe and drop a couple stitches back to fix the error.

Finished and approved.

Itamaraty Socks by Anna Zuravleva

Sock Madness 2025, Round 2

 

I found the construction of these socks rather amazing, they are worked flat in this zigzag pattern. Closing the first flat portion gives the leg of the sock. The zigzag is continued flat down the instep (top of the foot), and then the sole of the foot is closed with the contrast color back and forth along the bottom.

Finished and approved.

Chattahoochee by Shuyi Wu

Qualifier for Sock Madness 2025

 After Valentine’s Day passes, the signs ups close and the qualifier is released.

This year, we started with a toe-up sock. Knitting a toe-up starts with casting on the toe and knitting up the foot, increasing for the gusset, turning the heel, knitting the heel flap, then working up the leg!

Sounds good so far?

This qualifier was just getting started! 

After the first cuff, we kept going into a cuff-down sock!

Both my sock blockers are inside the sock snake. The second half gets a new cuff, leg, heel flap, heel turn, foot, and finally a toe!

I had to remove the blockers to close the toe. Once the pair is knit together as a closed tube, we end up with this push me pull you. How do we get a pair of socks?

In the pattern, we were to mark a particular stitch for snipping later. At the time, I ran a lifeline in the last round of the first sock cuff. Now that I snipped the stitch, I concentrated on catching the stitches from the second sock. 

Once sock 2 was safely on the needles, I quickly transferred the stitches from the lifeline. This pair of socks is nearly done! They just need a stretch cast off…

Conjoined Twin Socks pattern by Katherine Richmond 

Qualified for Madness

 

The sock pattern was released on Friday. I knit the whole leg and heel extension by that night, realized that I had a couple major mistakes and pulled it all out and started over. I had only a cuff when I went to bed. Saturday, I started the second cuff, then knit a pattern repeat on each sock, working in tandem to keep the tension even, and to make sure they were each worked the same amount of pattern repeats. Before midnight turned Monday to Tuesday, I had finished, weaved in ends, taken and sent in pics to the mods to qualify, and received an approval!

These sock pattern is called Hydra Scales by Clair Wyvern. I knitted the largest size, 80 stitches around for my husband. We needed a minimum of three pattern repeats on the legs, and another three from the leg extension on. Because there was a starting pattern and ending pattern not included in the repeat, that gives at least 8 helixes on the center front. I worked two extra to fit his feet. I could have stopped at the requirement or plus one and continued quicker in just the stripes, but I wanted to have the pattern go right down to the end of the stripes since it started on the cuff. I also wanted to let the toe be short to reflect the cuff. Just hints of the pastel colors throughout. 

The second sock could be knit exactly the same, or switch the colors (or to other colors), or mirrored, or even switched and mirrored! These ones are just mirrored. I do not have enough of the navy blue to use as a main color, and I wanted the colors on opposite sides on the second sock. 

I was concerned that following the pattern would result in loose socks with pointy heels. However, you can see how well they fit, and he is quite pleased with a new addition of color in his sock drawer.