Geek-A-Long
2018 Geek-A-Long: Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy
May
Looking back at the 2014 Geek-A-Long is a mixed bag for me. That first year I did some of my best and some of my weakest work. It’s a real mixed bag of feelings to look back at all of our old squares this year. Jac and I try to split the work here, and that means different things during different years. This year, for example, Jac is designing 100% of the squares. Some years we split them. During our first year of the Geek-A-Long, I designed all of them, and it definitely took a few months to get my GAL sea-legs. On the other hand, there isn’t a single thing I would change on some of them.
It’s easy to re-imagine a square that wasn’t so great. But the thing is, just like with our children, deep down we all have a favorite. ;) It’s much harder to redo something that you already love. So we’ve been putting this one off. The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy has been at the top of the leaderboard for a few months now. MarileeRD nominated it to the leaderboard saying:
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series!
- It’s been around so long now and is so ubiquitous to geekdom
- Even non-geeks know something about it
- It spans 5 books in the increasingly misnamed trilogy, a radio show, a misbegotten TV show, and a semi-misbegotten movie
- Lots of symbols that would make for great graphic representation – 42, the Hitchhiker thumb, Don’t Panic, a towel, dolphins – just to name a few
- Douglas Adams was hilarious
Man, I love the Hitchhiker’s Guide movie, but I realize not everyone would agree with me. I like it more than the book. In 2014, I mentioned that has only happened one other time. It’s now happened a third time with The Magicians. The SyFy show is SO much better than the books. But I digress.
It took us three months to decide what we wanted to do for a revamp of Hitchhiker. We like for squares of a fandom we’ve already done to go well with the previous squares, and I think we really achieved that here. The instructions for working extreme double knitting are in the pattern download, along with the regular chart if you don’t want to do the extreme version.
On a side note, I love what Marilee said about the “increasingly misnamed trilogy.” I wish other authors that have trapped themselves preemptively in a Trilogy box would take a lesson from this. Just because you said it was a trilogy when you started is no reason not to write more books if that’s what it takes to get the story told. I’m looking at you Patrick Rothfuss. It’s OK if it won’t all fit in book three. We’ll all buy book four.
Whether you’re knitting, crocheting, or cross stitching this square, you can download the Hitchhiker’s Guide – Frankie and Benjy pattern here. Instructions and charts for both knit and crochet are listed in the pattern. When you’re finished making it, don’t forget to Instagram your squares at us @lattesandllamasyarn 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
Happy Mother’s Day to all the Moms, future Moms, and Mom-adjacent ladies out there!
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Loved your original square and love this new one! And the movie was actually pretty good ;)
Awesome square! I couldn’t see how you’d make a new Hitchhiker’s square that was as good as the original, but I love this one!
Thank you so much. I’ve a little trouble with the double sided chart. I’ve tilted it 90º to the right, but I can only see the first seventeen rows.
I have the books, as well as the audio books. It seems the publishers have heard you! The audio book set is called “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Trilogy of Five”