2016 Geek-A-Long: Mortal Kombat

By the time you are reading this, Jac and I will be hard at work packing the car for Stitches Midwest. One day we’ll have a van or a truck like a normal company and packing won’t be such an adventure. For now, we spend two days leading up to a big show just figuring out how to perfectly Tetris all of our yarn, us, at least one change of clothes, and a bottle of Febreeze so no one will ever know that we totally wore that shirt yesterday into a sedan. ;) It’s worth it though, and we road trip like champs. Except that I always want to stay at Supernatural-style weird roadside motels, and Jac is all:

No, lets stay at this other hotel with no bugs or ghosts.

Lame.

Ahem. Anyways we’ll post all about Stitches Midwest (booth 824) later this week, but what’s relevant here is we’ve decided to take the GAL on the road! Rather than knitting all the squares in advance this year we left several “holes” on the blanket that were filled in with your picks at the beginning of the year. As time goes by, I’ve been knitting them when I felt like it, and I made duck hunt on the way to a different show. That was really fun, because people asked a ton at that show what I was working on, and I got to be a GAL-evangelist.

Excuse me. Excuse me, Sir? Can I tell you about my knitting?

We’re leaving on Tuesday, which just so happens to be my birthday, and I’m bringing the next square with me to knit on the road. We’re going to photograph it across the country, and we’ll share on the Instant Grahams. It’ll be like our very own game of Where in the World are Megan-Anne and Jac? We hope you’ll join us and take your squares out in the world too. Post pics of it on instagram next week using the hashtag #geekalonginpublic and we’ll repost our faves.

Ha! I guess we probably ought to talk about Mortal Kombat too. I was never really into it, so I’m going to let Mr. Llama take it from here. See you soon!

There was something thrilling and about being the only kid in Elementary School who knew the Blood Code in Mortal Kombat. It felt like knowing something dangerous and illicit. The arcade version of the original game was an absurdly bloody game and the home copy had blood turned off because of the moral panic surrounding the game. Each battle ended with fatalities that would kill the loser in crazy ways. I will never forget the time I was at the mall and saw a kid beat his enemy by having his character literally rip out his opponent’s spine. It seems tame compared to the blood and gore of games now. People freaked out about how bloody the game was. There was full on fear mongering that a game this violent would lead to waves of murders imitating the game.

Mortal Kombat is one of the largest game series in the world. It is the Pepsi of fighting games. It has led to countless imitators of games that seek to shock with gore. Nothing seemed cooler in 1992 than a game that parents found dangerous. It was so extreme that it spelled combat with a K. People who spell combat with a K probably jump out of airplanes, and get tattoos, and stays up until 11. The characters were based on realistic fighting styles and were made to look realistic, or at least realistic for 1992. I remember playing it once and this one character that was basically a Bruce Lee rip off did a split and punched his opponents in the crotch. I’m not really surprised that Megan didn’t have a wealth of experience with the game. She wasn’t the target demo. That game was a hell of a lot of fun though.

Whether you’re knitting, crocheting, or cross stitching this square, you can download the Mortal Kombat pattern here. Instructions for both knit and crochet are listed in the pattern. When you’re finished making it, don’t forget to tweet or instagram your squares at me @Doctor_Llama and Jac @jac_attacking or with the hashtag #geekalong!

If you’re having trouble with double-sided knitting, we have a how-to video here and a tutorial on crochet here. Want to hang out with other people making the blanket? You can find moral support in the Geek-A-Long group on Ravelry here.

~ Megan-Anne
Sometimes I think about putting on a fancy hat and going door to door to ask folks if they can spare five min to talk about yarn. 

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If you enjoyed this post, please consider making a donation to Child’s Play Charity. Here is a direct link to our donation page benefiting the charity. Please help us raise $1,000 this year! No contribution is too small. Wanna make your donation go even further? Louet Yarn is donating 50 cents for every skein of Louet Gems Worsted purchased this year to make a Geek-A-Long blanket. You can get Gems at your Local Yarn Store or through Louet’s website. Just remember to mention the GAL at check out.