The Marathon Sock KAL 2020… is complete!

The Marathon Sock KAL 2020…

…is complete!

Since May 1st 2020, we have turned 42,424 m of yarn into socks! Thank you to everyone who took part and made it such a fun knitalong.

If you still have socks on the needles, I have opened a warm-down thread* for you to post your post-KAL finished socks in. The rules are fairly relaxed: so long as you cast on your socks before 17:00 BST, Saturday 3rd October 2020, you can enter them (yes, you can enter socks you cast on ages ago!). The warm-down thread will stay open until 11.59pm GMT, October 31st 2020, when I will draw one winner. You can have one entry per 100 m of yarn you convert into socks.

I’ll also draw the winners from Instagram (use the hashtag #marathonsockkal2020) and the chatter thread on Ravelry* at the end of October, so keep on chatting!

I’ve really enjoyed this year’s Marathon, and am delighted that we finished it over the weekend of this year’s Virtual London Marathon – it was the London Marathon a few years ago that inspired my Marathon Sock KAL. It’s been lovely to see so many old faces, and to have been joined by some new faces.

Does anyone fancy doing it all again next year?!

*Ravelry link: may cause issues for people with photosensitivity. If you have finished socks you would like to enter but cannot use Ravelry, please contact me.

Marathon Sock KAL 2020 - cast on now!

It's here!

The Marathon Sock KAL - a KAL that involves a collective effort to knit a marathon's worth of yarn* - starts today!

The Marathon Sock KAL starts today and runs through the summer (prime sock-knitting season) or until we have knitted the full 26 miles of yarn.

Do I have to knit the full 26 miles by myself? No, of course not! All you have to do is knit a pair of adult-sized socks, and add a photo of them to the finished-object thread (opening soon) when they're done, noting the amount of yarn used. I'll add up all the yarn lengths from each post, and we should quite quickly have knitted a marathon's worth of yarn.

The chatter thread is open now in my Ravelry group, so you can chat while you cast on and knit your socks.

Happy knitting!

********

Aim

Knit a Marathon's worth of socks: 26.219 miles of sock yarn converted into socks.

Rules

• Socks must be cast-on on or after May 1st 2020
• Socks can be knitted or crocheted in any yarn weight
• All socks must have a proper heel (no yoga or tube socks)
• The KAL will close once the full 26 miles of yarn have been knitted
• You must post a photo of your socks to the KAL FO thread, including the exact number of metres of yarn you used (to the nearest metre) for your metres to count in the total
• New for this year: SECOND SOCKS COUNT! You don't have to knit a full pair of socks, a single sock will count. If you are using a single sock as an entry, please include only the number of metres used to knit that sock
• I'll keep a running total for the group
• To be eligible for a prize on Ravelry, you must be a member of the Ravelry group
• If you're on Instagram, use the hashtag #marathonsockkal2020; to be eligible for a prize on Instagram, you must follow @vikkibirddesigns on Instagram
• Only hand-knitting/crochet will count, not machine knitting. If you have machine-knitted a sock tube and are adding heels/toes/cuffs by hand, the metres you used for the
  heels/toes/cuffs can be counted towards the total

Prizes

• One prize drawn from #marathonsockkal2020 on Instagram
• One prize drawn from the chatter thread
• One prize drawn from the FO thread (one entry per 100 m of yarn used)
• One prize drawn from entries in the FO thread that are knitted using a pattern by Vikki Bird Designs (one entry per 100 m of yarn used)

*26.219 miles = 42 195 m; each of my pairs of socks uses approximately 300 m of yarn (assuming sock weight yarn at 400 m per 100 g)