Last shots fired

Sock Wars ended the Friday after Thanksgiving. A newbie assassin and slow post to Australia kept me alive to the end of the game. The survivors are supposed to be finishing the socks we're working on, so maybe I'll end up with Socks of Doom eventually. Here is the pair I finished for Taffy, my fourth and final victim.


Sock Wars had its moments. If it happens again, I probably won't join, but I'm glad I was part of it this year. If nothing else, I gained an appreciation for K3P3/K1P1 ribbing, and got lots of practice with traditional top-down construction. Now it's back to my toe-up ways.

The Problem with Sock Wars

I got the Socks-of-Doom-in-Progress for my next victim, and have discovered yet another troubling fact of Sock Wars -- it's hard to knit like another person.

I received in the mail one completed sock, and a few inches of its mate. Tension was really loose on the completed sock (looser than the pattern calls for), and I had to go up three needle sizes to try to match. Nevertheless, when I was complete, this was the result:

My sock, the one on the left, is clearly smaller than the original sock.

I'm not sure what to do. This is a sloppy kill, and I think it would be bad form to just send these on and call myself the victor. I think I should try to knit a third sock, maybe unraveling the first sock to create a better fit? [Update from later in the evening: that's what I've done, begun working on a third sock out of this yarn so that my victim will get two socks of the same size.]

The yarn, by the way, is Lion Brand Magic Stripes, superwash wool and nylon, doubled. It horrified me when I first saw it, but it ultimately wasn't too bad. I had to do some fiddling, however, to try and make the self-striping do its work. In this picture you can see several places where I had to adjust one strand to get the color to match up on the other strand.

Halloween Massacre

I just got back from the post office where I sent a pair of these off to Yarn Snob.


It's Bearfoot "Yellowstone," doubled to get the Sock of Doom gauge. I had to switch to black for the toe an inch sooner than I would've liked, but I think it still looks OK. When I got back from Chicago, I had a package of yarn sent by Yarn Snob's original assassin, but it was a self-patterning cotton Sockotta -- not good for the Sock of Doom pattern, so I dipped into my own stash for this, and I'll keep the Sockotta for Mom (she's told me that's her favorite).

Poor Yarn Snob. Here I am, still on vacation, with nothing but time on my hands to churn out a pair of socks. And damn...Bearfoot knits up really fast, especially doubled.

I peaked into the Sock War Spreadsheet, messaged the editor about Yarn Snob's new status, and she told me that this is one of the highest "kill" days so far.

Back into holding mode until I get the yarn for my next target.

Y'know, Nietzsche says, "Outta chaos COMES order."

After the last confusing blog post and a flurry of e-mail, sudden clarity dawns.

My victim has received her victim's work-in-progress. These are to be YarnSnob's Socks of Doom, and Yarn Fairy will put them in the mail to me. My assassin WoolieBagLady, after her Doom Socks arrive, will send my Doom-Socks-in-progress to WestOzCaat to finish.

It's all about the mail.

...

Based on recommendations from students, I've revised my toe-up sock course. I've switched it to Magic Loop instead of two circs. I've recommended yarn and needle size, specified gauge, and given explicit instructions on how many stitches to cast on. The flexible, open-ended instructions were just too confusing. I rewrote the short row instructions so that they're clustered into bulleted steps. If you'd like to comment on the new course handout, I'd love to have your feedback.

Ruined Italian Villa

You know how in The English Patient the characters are riding out the end of the war in a half-ruined Italian villa? That's kind of where I imagine I am in Sock Wars. The war is still going on, but I'm over here waiting to find out what's supposed to happen next. But I think it's about time for me to re-join the fighting.

(Maybe it's less like The English Patient and more like that period of time between Bourne Identity and Bourne Supremacy. I am the Jason Bourne of Sock Wars).

I've killed off Yarn Fairy. Yarn Fairy had already killed off Yarn4Kalei, and I believe had already finished socks for Kalei's victim YarnSnob before her Socks of Doom arrived -- but I don't think she's sent them. On her blog, Yarn Snob thinks she's offed her victim (Zari Zamen?) and her victim's victim (Delice?).

My assassin, WoolieBagLady, is a Dead Woman Walking, with socks from her killer WestOzCaat already on their way. WestOzCaat has noticed the holding pattern I'm in, and I think she wants to skip over it, and has begun contacting those folks downstream.

So while I wait for WoolieBagLady and WestOzCaat to decide who gets to try to kill me, I think it's time I reactivated and sought out exactly who I should be knitting for now. But is it Yarn Snob or is it someone much further down the chain? Ms Tarzan...is it you?

Sock War Stand Down

Sock Wars is on the brink of becoming un-fun. I keep trying to figure out what to do next, but I'm suffering a severe lack of information and that's generating stress I don't need. So screw it. I'm just going to wait for someone else to pick up the slack. Either I will receive my death socks in the mail, or someone will send me yarn for my next victim.

Flickr is down this morning, causing my profile photo not to load. It's a crappy picture anyways, so I'm prompted to look for a better one. My current IM buddy icon, which I created at stortroopers.com, has been growing on me. It's low-res and doesn't look good as a Blogger Profile photo, but it's cute enough to post here.

Weapons armed...acquiring target....

Sock Wars got off to a halting start because the remnants of Hurricane Gordon smacked Northern Ireland where Yarn Monkey, the organizer, lives. Because she had trouble sending dossiers out through email, she posted the pattern for the Sock of Doom on her blog. It was Friday afternoon, and I was still at work, but I took a break and cast-on.



About 49 hours later, I was finished.


I still don't have a dossier, but I've corresponded with my target (I needed to find out if "Yarn Fairy" wore a men's size 7 or a women's). I've told her (Yarn Fairy is a "she") that she's safe as long as I don't know where to send the socks. But how safe am I?

Weapons Check

The arsenal for Sock Wars 2006 will be DK yarn and size 5 needles. I'm not the least bit surprised, but it seems to be causing some consternation in comment threads and the Sock Wars forum.

I immediately thought of my stash of Philosopher's Wool that has utterly failed to become a sweater. (It was a valuable moment of self-discovery: I like knitting textures; I don't like knitting colors). I had some work-related podcast listening to do, so I cast-on for a gauge tube. After work, I finished the tube, cut it in half, and measured.

Stitches per inch is good; I'm right abound 22. I'm coming up short for rows per inch though -- Yarn Monkey says 30, I have 34, but I don't expect that to be a problem. (You know, that was my gauge problem with the Wild Things crown. There are tight knitters and loose knitters; I wonder if I'm a "short" knitter?)

Nevertheless, this yarn should do nicely for the Sock of Doom.

You must talk about Sock Wars

Yarn Monkey reports that, as of Tuesday, there are 400 sock warriors registered worldwide.

I am ridiculously excited about this. It appears that I am planning the whole fall season around Sock Wars. Craftsman Hill has asked me to teach my toe-up socks class (or the "Steep Learning Curve" socks, as I call them), and I haven't confirmed because I'm worried about it cutting into my Sock Wars time. I'd like to go to Chicago for the weekend -- see Altar Boyz and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, catch a taping of Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, maybe stalk Franklin and Dolores -- but what about my mission? Sock Wars will end on Thanksgiving, when I'm on vacation in Maine. Will I have enough stash to keep myself alive? Will there be a FedEx station nearby where I can launch my attacks against my targets?

On the Sock Wars Forum, I read a plaintive message from a sock newbie looking for helpful instructional videos because she didn't know anyone in central Ohio who knits. I decided that Cat and I should help her out. In fact...

All central Ohio knitters should form a Sock Warriors' Guild

...a geographical alliance of knitters, a cabal of sock-making ninja, banding together to encourage and support our own in this brutal battle. The experienced and seasoned will train the fresh recruits, help fix their dropped stitches, guide them through the first turning of their heels. But we should all be on guard, for in the end, each of us is in it for himself, and one of the Guild may be the assassin assigned to you.

(I was going to create a Meetup.com site, but it hardly seems worth the money. So if you're interested, leave a comment or send me an email, yarmando at gmail dot com).

Are YOU ready for Sock Wars 2006?

My freshman year in college, guys in my dorm played a game they called "Killer." (Or maybe it was "Assassin?") Participants were given a target they had to get before they themselves were gotten -- shot with a squirt gun, poisoned by sugar or salt in a drink, throats slashed/marked with a marker, etc. Points were awarded for creativity, deducted for getting caught. I was the cause of deducted points -- an innocent bystander hit by the shrapnel of a water balloon grenade.

I wasn't interested in playing, but I am interested in Yarn Monkey's Sock Wars. Sign up before September 8, and on September 22 you'll be mailed a sock pattern and information about your target. You win by completing and mailing socks to your victim, but all the while you are someone else's target. You now take up your victim's mission, with her work in progress as your next weapon. A month later, the last one standing gets swag; everyone else gets the pair of socks that took them out of the game.

I have a knitted gift project that could interfere with my participation, but still, this sounds like a fun distraction. If I'm the one assigned to knit socks for Mel's size 13 feet, then gauge rules be damned: I'm using thick yarn.