2018 Geek-A-Long: Nook Socks

Hello, Geek-A-Long Nation!* This year is flying by. Seriously, can you guys believe that it’s almost the end of May already? I feel like the year just started. It definitely doesn’t feel like we’re already at the end of our fifth 2018 Geek-A-Long Cycle. We’re almost half way done. Nuts. Anyhow, if you’re just joining us, here is a quick refresher on our special GAL five year anniversary schedule:

Week 1: New square.

Week 2: Reimagining of an old square.

Week 3: New square.

Week 4: Premium project inspired by an old square. These are paid patterns on Ravelry, but you can get a coupon code in the post that week (like this post) that will make the pattern free. The coupons are good for a year and a day after the release of the project. $1.00 from every Geek-A-Long premium pattern sale is donated to Child’s Play Charity. You can view the complete schedule in the 2018 section of the Squares page.

So, without further do, I present the fifth pattern in our Geek-A-Long line: The Nook Socks.

You can get your Nook Socks pattern for free by clicking the link below and entering the code ALWAYSALOAN at check out. (This coupon code will expire one year and a day from today, at which point it will be $6.)

Get the Nook socks on Ravelry by clicking here. 

A PDF will be emailed to you by Ravelry. You don’t need to be a Ravelry member to purchase the pattern, but if you are, the PDF will show up in your library.

People get super intense about Animal Crossing. I played it, but I wasn’t in what I feel like we can confidently call The Animal Crossing Cult of 2000-And-Late.

Jac paid some visits to the metaphorical cult compound, but wasn’t a full fledged member. I wasn’t really into it, but I do get it. Animal Crossing is basically

Adulting: The Game

Except, instead of real adulting there are no actual consequences in the game. In Animal Crossing, you are expected to have and repay a mortgage. You are supposed to weed your lawn and socialize appropriately with your neighbors. You work and collect things, and if you do that long enough, you can get a mortgage for an even bigger house to start paying off. If you don’t play for a long time, your house gets roaches. If you don’t pay your mortgage, you can’t get to the next theme. Tom Nook will have beaten you. If you don’t weed your garden, the villagers will be annoyed with you. On the other hand, if you play by the rules, and play regularly, you can be really successful in the game. The consequences are all pretend. Sure, the rewards are too, but frankly, most IRL rewards are pretend. Have you ever gotten a plaque or a trophy as a reward? That’s not money you can put in the bank or yarn you can put in your stash. A trophy may as well be a bigger Animal Crossing house for all its real-world-value.

So there’s a game where the rewards are about as meaningful as most real-life rewards, but unlike the real world, the consequences can be erased by starting over. I myself am crushed under the wieght of my crippling student debt. Wells Fargo does not respond to me missing a mortgage payment with a notice that I won’t be able to move on to the next theme. I can’t pay my car insurance premiums with favors to the other villagers… Well, anyhow, not without my life turning into an episode of Law & Order: SVU.

I know that most non-millennials are not interested in hearing a Millennial whine about her lot in life, but I literally have six figures of student debt, and that’s without medical school. If I had finished my education as planned, I would easily have close to half a million dollars in student loans to repay. It’s easy to say that I didn’t need to take those loans, but I did if I wanted to attend school. That was my only financing option. And I grew up in an era where we had it pounded into our heads that the only way to succeed in life was to get a degree from a name brand school. Failure to do so would mean living in a van down by the river. I bring this up because Animal Crossing has a really specific audience.

Animal Crossing was made with Millenials in mind. We have a wide generational span of folks showing up to the Geek-A-Long. We have high-schoolers and grandparents, all equally participating on the Ravelry forum. So if you are in that older generation of GAL enthusiasts, I realize that Animal Crossing may not make a ton of sense. It’s a game where you do work and chores. Why not just do them in real life? This post was mostly inspired by trying to explain the game to my dad. But for a generation of people who are in their 30’s and staring down the barrel of debt they will literally never pay off, it’s a way to play out the fantasy of buying a house, having a yard and neighbors, and being able to move through the progression of paying something off and then buying something better.

So this week, we are revisiting one of the most popular squares of our most popular blanket. Tom Nook is the greedy, relentless, loan-holding raccoon from Animal Crossing. The socks were inspired more by the square than the character himself. I redid them several times, and each time they got a little simpler. The original version was super busy. Now they are clean, classic argyle socks that are perfect for knitting while contemplating the many economic crises you’ll face in your adult life. I knit them in Vacation Yarn with Palpatine (black) for my main color and Slimer (bright green) as my contrast color. My colors are a nod to old-school green and black video games. They are an easy, relaxing knit for any experience fair-isles knitter.

~Megan-Anne

*I feel like as a people, the geek-a-long knitters/crocheters need a name. I was leaning towards “Geek-A-Long Army,” kinda in the style of Dumbledore’s Army, but it sounds weird when you say it outside. Geek-A-Long Nation isn’t final. I’m still working on it. Name suggestions are appreciated. :)

If you enjoyed this post, please consider making a donation to Child’s Play Charity. Here is a direct link to our official donation widget benefiting the charity. Please help us raise $1,000 this year. No contribution is too small! Wanna make your donation go even further? Lattes & Llamas will donate $1 for every skein of Geek-A-Long Yarn purchased. Ask your local yarn store to carry GAL Yarn or get it through our website.