Winwick Mum Sockalong 7th birthday giveaway results

Hello, hello, how are you doing?

It’s Sunday and I am having the BEST weekend – I’ve just read through all of your comments from the Winwick Mum Sockalong 7th birthday giveaway and I have to tell you, it has been an incredible hour or so – yes, there really were that many!

Thank you so much not only for entering the giveaway and telling me how many pair of socks you’ve knitted this year, but thank you also for taking the time to tell me about your socks, how you came to start knitting them, who you knit them for, how they’re helping through lunch breaks, house moves and hospital visits … it’s these stories that make the Winwick Mum Sockalong so much more for me than just a series of blog tutorials.  These glimpses into your lives that you so generously show me are exactly why I wanted to write them; so that you could fulfil ambitions to knit socks, certainly, but also so that you could have what I have – a woolly project that I can carry about when I’m travelling or waiting, something that starts conversations, that keeps that busy (and sometimes critical) voice in my head distracted so that I can be calm, the ability to create the most special and thoughtful of gifts for friends and family – the more I knit socks and the more I read about why other people want to knit them, the more I am convinced that there’s a magic in those little rounds that doesn’t exist in the same way anywhere else.  Call me fanciful if you like, but I’m sticking to it! 🙂

It’s been lovely to read how many people have started knitting socks since the Covid lockdowns and are still knitting them (yep, now we’ve got you, we’re not letting go! 🤣 ) and also how many have been sharing their own sock knowledge with other people and teaching them how to knit for themselves – yes, I do joke about taking over the world one sock at a time and this is all part of the master plan, but it’s more than that, isn’t it?  If you’re a sock knitter, you know what it brings to your life and I absolutely love that we are able to share that with other people who need to learn this particular skill.

If you’ve been having a tough time this year with physical or mental health or other life crises, I am sending you a huge hug and I am so glad that needles in your hands are helping.

If you’re about to cast on, then what are you waiting for?  Don’t let the fear of something new stop you from casting on – the worst that happens is that you’ll unravel and start again, and you’ll always learn something from the experience.  Everyone was a beginner once, remember!  Oh, and most importantly, don’t let needing to be perfect get in the way of being good enough; these are socks, you’re not sending a rocket into space 🙂  I wrote a Monthly Musing on this once – you can find it here if you’d like to read it!

And of course, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to everyone who shares a birthday with the Sockalong – 3 May is obviously the best kind of day, and I hope you had a wonderful day of celebration xx

Right, enough of my blethering on for now – you want to know if you’ve won a prize! 🙂

Let me remind you of this year’s prizes:

There’s a signed copy of Super Socks, a ball of Winwick Mum yarn – I’ve chosen Wildflower from the first Winwick Mum collection and Summer Sunset from the Seasons colours as I thought they were appropriate for the time of year 🙂 , a sheep knitting gauge, an Emma Ball tin for keeping stitch markers or other knitting notions safe, a small sachet of Eucalan for hand-washing your socks, a bar of Terry’s Chocolate Orange chocolate and a Winwick Mum Sockalong badge.

I’ve put the number of comments into the Random.org generator which has given me two numbers, one for each of the prizes but I’m going to make you wait just a little bit longer whilst I tell you how many pairs of socks I’ve counted up this year 😀

This is never going to be an accurate figure because I try to give my pattern away to anyone who will stay still for long enough to take it, so it’s only for fun because it’s the one time of the year that I can ask you – but it’s a bit of fun that I do enjoy very much!

In 2016 there were 3,500 pairs, in 2017 there were 4,500 pairs, in 2018 there were 3,360 pairs, in 2019 there were 1,040 pairs, in 2020 there were 1,385 pairs, last year there were 1,270 and this year you’ve told me about another

2,180 pairs

giving a new 2022 total of

17,235 pairs of socks!

FLIPPING HECK!! That’s a lot of pairs of socks, isn’t it?  I noticed that quite a few of you wrote that you had “only” knitted a certain number of socks, but look how they’ve added up!  There’s no “only” about it at all!   In fact, if you want to count it as individual socks, that’s over 34,000 individual socks and they’re just the ones I know about through the blog!  Phew, it’s a good job I’m sitting down! 🙂

I am thrilled that there are so many pairs of hand knitted socks on feet, in sock drawers, wrapped up in gift paper or wherever they might be, and don’t forget that these are just pairs of the Basic 4ply Socks pattern – how many more pairs in other patterns are out in the world?!  Oh, and if you’ve knitted all your socks for yourself, don’t worry about that at all!  Sometimes we need to keep the best secrets to ourselves 😉

Actually, I must say that one of the things that has pleased me most about reading your comments is how surprised you’ve been at how many pairs you’ve knitted when you come to count them up … it’s a really good thing to stop every once in a while to appreciate our achievements during the year because we don’t do that as often as we probably should, and if you’ve taken a few minutes to do this for the Sockalong birthday, why not take another few minutes to see what else you’ve achieved, on your needles or off, in the first few months of this year?  I hope you’ll find that the good outweighs any disappointments and that you are super-proud of what you’ve done without even thinking or stopping to congratulate yourself.

Anyway, here I am blethering on again and you need to know the important bits!

First out of the random generator is Lyndle, and the Wildflower yarn and the rest of the treats will be winging it’s way to you!

Next up is Lisa and you’ve won the Summer Sunset yarn!

Congratulations Lyndle and Lisa – please can you email me so that I can arrange to send your prizes out to you?  You’ll find the contact form in the left hand side bar and I’ll look forward to hearing from you!

I’m sorry that I couldn’t send everyone a prize, but thank you so much for entering the giveaway and leaving me your comments and thank you again to everyone who has knitted socks using the Sockalong pattern and tutorials whether you commented or not – I’m just so pleased that I’ve been able to celebrate this socky birthday with you!

Same again next year?! 🙂