Mystery Medicine*

*Or, The Cure For Second Sock Syndrome

The "knitalong" is a concept that's been around for a long time. The basic concept is that a bunch of people knit the same project at the same time and talk about it, share problems, successes, frustrations, and provide motivation and inspiration to keep going if needed. People have been hosting knitalongs on the internet for quite a while, too, and now that Ravelry is around, it's way easier to find groups of people knitting the same pattern at the same time and sharing their thoughts and ideas about it.

The "mystery project" is another concept that's been hanging around for a bit. The idea here is that somebody designs a pattern for a particular kind of project (a shawl, a scarf, a sock...), and only releases part of the pattern at a time, so that the crafter doesn't know what the finished project is going to look like, and can only go as fast as the designer wishes for them to go.

I've never done an official knitalong OR mystery project before. But 2010 is a new year, and I signed up for both at the same time.

There's a group on Ravelry called "Solid Socks" for people who like knitting socks out of solid or semi-solid colored yarns. They host a mystery sock knitalong every two months. The made-of-awesome part of the current mystery sock knitalong is that the pattern was designed by Lisa, a lady in my sock club here in Cincinnati. How cool is that? I actually saw her knitting the sock last fall when she started coming to sock club, and asked her about it then. And now at least a half dozen women in my sock club are following along with the pattern and doing the same project, along with however many people across the world who are following along in the Ravelry group.

The first clue of the pattern came out on January 1, 2010, and I cast on that day. As of 11:00 tonight, just one short hour before clue 3 is available, I finished clue two for BOTH OF MY SOCKS. That's right people, this mystery thing has inspired me to do both socks at the same time. When I finish, I'm going to have a PAIR of socks done. Behold:



Two cuffs completely completed. I'm either going to have to knit only mystery socks from now on, or cut up my sock patterns and mail them to myself a piece at a time.

Admittedly, I'm also quite motivated by the fact that I will see designer-Lisa at sock club on Saturday and I'm trying to impress her. :)



(The color is better in the other picture, but this one shows off the stitch pattern better, I think.)

Only half an hour till clue 3 comes out!!