I don't know what got into me, but a couple of days ago I found myself signing up for Tour-de-Sock 2016. That means knitting 6 pairs of socks in a speed-knitting contest. For someone who doesn't like to knit socks that sounds like a pretty crazy idea, but there I was, anxiously waiting for the publishing of the first pattern on Wednesday. Once I got the pattern, I was knitting like the wind for an hour or so, until I remembered that it was Young Warrior's pre-school graduation night and had to put down my knitting. When I told Business woman about the contest, she was worried that I would mess up my sleep pattern for the whole summer if I stayed up all night knitting socks. I tried to explain to her that there's also a possibility to participate in a relaxed mode - and she looked at me like I was out of my mind and asked: "What's the point of participating if you're not going to be competitive?". Well, I did attend the pre-school graduation, and I didn't even stay up all night after that. At about 1 AM I realised that I wouldn't finish the socks that night anyway, so I gave up and continued the next day. I thought that I was now in the relaxed mode, but to my surprise there were only 22 knitters who had finished before me. Does that make me competitive after all? Looking forward to seeing how many of the 1179 participants finish the first round. I might take the next 5 slightly easier.

This was the first time that I was participating in TDS. The socks were also the first ones that I've knitted two at a time, the first ones knitted magic looping, the first ones in (light) fingering weight yarn, and the first lace socks that I've knitted. Needless to say, the heel and toes were also new to me. I haven't used kitchener stitch in years, and never for finishing socks. That caused an extra half an hour in the finishing, as I was too tired to google for instructions and decided to go with the trial and error method instead. All in all, quite a few first ones in one project. You might be able to tell that I'm not usually a sock knitter...