Twisted Madness

Well, that one took a while.  And, I wasn’t fast enough to get to the finals, so this is the end of my Madness this year.  But I couldn’t be happier to go out on such a gorgeous sock, and one that I learned such an important set of skills from.  Shall I tell you the tale?

My trusty supplies, ready to go. 

The pattern finally appeared on a Sunday morning, and it was a doozy.  Coffee Cantata, by Caoua Coffee.  So good it came with a health warning to take breaks and stretch your hands.  But I set forth, ever the brave soul, and quickly discovered that this would entail cabling without a cable needle and twisted stitch knitting.

So, for the whole first cuff and at least 20 rows of the incredibly long leg chart, I barely felt like I was knitting at all.  I was mostly reading the instructions, checking the chart every stitch and nervously poking at things.  It was slow going to say the least.

I think this took 8 hours.

At that point, I mentioned something on the Sock Madness forum about how I thought these might be easier if I was familiar with cabling without a cable needle, and then I had the ultimate Sock Madness experience, as the moderator used her magic wand, said exactly the right thing to me at the right time and made it all click.  If she thought I could do it, then of course I could.  And it did get easier from there, if not a lot faster.

The sock doesn’t get less complicated from that point in the cuff, and I had some real life/non-sock things to concern myself with last week so I couldn’t be a full blown knitting zombie.  By Friday our team had a new Champion, and I had about a sock and quarter maybe?  But I was committed to getting these done in a timely fashion, and here we are today, well under two weeks and with a pretty sweet pair of socks.

I actually can’t believe I knit these. They’re made of OnLive SuperSocke 100 Cotton Stretch in the Miami colourway – I was worried it would stripe too much, but it turned out amazing!

I’m delighted to now know how to cable without a cable needle, I know that’s going to be a great investment in my future knitting…and after that many crosses and twists, and I’m feeling pretty confident with it now!  This sock was a huge challenge for me, and I’m so glad I did it, just like the rest of the Madness!