Sock Madness 20 begins

I always seem to post about qualifying for Sock Madness (look for it on Ravelry - Ravelry is the name of the website for knitters). This year is the same.

Here are the Qualifying round socks, called Newspaper socks.

Nice pattern with a few interesting touches. Textured heels and the vertical strip is duplicate stitch.

I used Nundle sock yarn, which is lovely to knit with, in colours I bought last year.

 Unfortunately, after submitting and being approved on Thursday morning, I tripped and fell hurting my wrist. Drove to Benalla and then on to lunch at Jones Winery in Rutherglen (excellent), I spent the rest of the day in Wodonga hospital Emergency department. There they x-rayed me, confirming I had a broken wrist, put my arm in plaster and followed up with an x-ray in the morning. I went to the concert we were staying in Albury for, Red Hot Summer 2026, headliner Paul Kelly (Great concert at Gateway Lakeside in Wodonga), and travelled home on Sunday.

There's more in store: x-rays and visits to Monash /Orthopaedic clinic for the next 6 weeks, if all goes well!

To continue in Sock Madness I'm going to have to figure out how to make a makeshift knitting belt. I think I need something that will hold both needles as it is my left hand out of action and I'm a continental knitter.

The first round sock has released the specs and it's the bead sock. The beads don't worry me, i can thread them one-handed, but can I knit??

First cap off the rank - or should I say 'First finished object' for the year

 I finally finished my husband's jumper that I had been promising for quite a while, he kept slipping down the list as I knit jumpers for my sons and now for my grandson. Finally, he made it to the top of the list. Not that he doesn't have any handknit jumpers by me, I have done a number over the years.

I finally found a jumper I was happy with and he seemed to like. He did ask for a jumper with a zip, but I managed to dissuade him of that. From one of my books 'Vogue Men's Knits' by Christina Probert. They are re-imaginings of earlier Vogue Knitting patterns, published in 1985. 

The pattern I selected was from 1934, the Knitted Shirt-style sweater. Unfortunately, it had a picture of the current version, but not the 1934 original, which many of the other sweaters did have.

I selected Bendigo Woollen Mills 5ply Classic in the colour Broadleaf. This did mean that I needed to swatch and recalculate the pattern. The switch from 30sts to 10cm to 26sts to 10cm didn't prove too problematic and I managed to get the fit fairly correct and the finish to his specifications.

The pattern itself showed a slightly fancy rib, but I found the inside much more interesting. I kept going and finally got to the collar, which I decided to knit directly onto the sewn up jumper. Somewhere in that process I had a brain fade and decided that the inside was the right side and pulled the jumper apart and re-sewed it up again, only to get to the collar again to discover that the old right side was the correct right side!

I did like the new reversed jumper and decided to do the collar correctly to give a nice contrast. Found some wooden buttons in my stash, and, voila....it's finished.

 still have to steam the jumper, but as it's 37℃ top today, I'll leave it for another day.