Did you know there are such things as sock knitting competitions? There are! This year, I joined the Sock Madness 19 group over on Ravelry and registered to participate. This is the 19th year that the moderators have hosted the Sock Madness competition. The idea is that there is a qualifying round followed by seven rounds of competition, with a smaller number of knitters progressing to each subsequent round.
The competition is well known in the sock knitting community for its “madness”: crazy socks, unique constructions, and lots of challenges and new techniques. The idea is to try out something new while learning and knitting along in a friendly competition. The competition is free to participants, and we receive a materials list and some very obscure hints about the socks, but we don’t know what the socks will look like or which techniques will be used until each round begins. There were over 1800 participants in this year’s competition.
After participants let the moderators know that they’ve completed the socks, the moderators check the participant’s project page on Ravelry to “grade” the socks and make sure that the knitter followed the directions closely and met the minimum requirements.
Qualifying Round
The first pattern that we knit for the competition was Conjoined Sock Twins, a pattern by new designer Katherine Richmond. This pattern was unique because we cast-on to start at one toe, knit up through the foot, heel, and leg, then continued knitting the leg of the second sock down through the heel, foot, and toe. We all ended up with some crazy looking sock snakes before we separated the socks out and did a stretch bind-off in a contrasting color.
After separation, these socks were just like any other pair of socks, and they ended up fitting me really well! This was definitely fun, and the bonus was that there was no second sock syndrome for it. This was also the first time that I made a ribbed gusset for socks, and I enjoyed how stretchy it is. The cables in this pattern were really fun to knit.
Qualifier Sock Stats
Pattern: Conjoined Sock Twins by Katherine Richmond.
Yarn: Birch Hollow Fibers Sylvia Sock in Netherwing with Hedgehog Fibres Sock in Hush for the bind-offs.
Cast-On (started): February 16, 2025
Bind-Off (finished): February 23, 2025
Yardage: 360 yards
Size: 64 sts
Needle: 2.5 mm (US 1.5)
After the qualifying round was over, participants were sorted onto teams based on how quickly they completed this pair of socks and their answers to a survey about their normal knitting habits. There were 26 teams, sorted from Team A (on the more relaxed end) to Team Z (on the speedy end). I was sorted into Team Q for this year. This ended up being the perfect spot for me! We started with 52 members on each team.
Round 1
Participants don’t know what day or time the patterns for each round will be released. It’s a surprise! The times are distributed throughout the rounds to make the competition fair – there are participants from all over the world. This pattern was released at 1:13 am in my time zone. The first round pattern was the Day & Night Socks by Alena Malevitch. These socks were really interesting to knit. I made the 70 sts size hoping that the socks would be for me, but alas, they were too tight, so they went to my daughter. She is quite happy with them. This was my first time doing mosaic colorwork and intarsia for socks, and it ended up with a really neat effect. The socks are mirrored, and it took me about half of the first leg to memorize the pattern.
Round 1 Sock Stats
Pattern: Day & Night Socks by Alena Malevitch
Yarn: Emma’s Yarn Beautifully Basic in Poppin and Love Drunk
Cast-On (started): March 4, 2025
Bind-Off (finished): March 10, 2025
Yardage: 289 yards
Size: 70 sts
Needle: 2.25 mm (US 1)
This was an elimination type format, so knitters had two weeks to complete each pair of socks or until the first 45 knitters on their team completed the socks. I’m pretty impressed that I was able to finish each of these pairs of socks in less than a week! Luckily, I finished in time to secure a spot in Round 2. I’ll post all about that next time!
