Nightmare Mode 1

When I first told Megan-Anne my idea for a Nightmare Mode Geek-A-Long blanket, she straight up laughed in my face. Like, full on belly laugh. She wiped a tear from her eye and said, “Why would anyone do that? That’s ridiculous. It’s insane, Jacquline.” Since I put together the 2018 GAL template, I added the yarn and gauge information in anyway. My reasoning behind it, which I told her at the time, was that people knit scrappy sock blankets all the time. While my vision of the Nightmare Mode GAL blanket is much larger, I would classify projects like the Beekeeper’s Quilt as a lot more annoying and time consuming, but people still adore it.

To be clear, I do love the shabby chic vibe of the Beekeepers Quilt by Tiny Owl Knits, but the idea of stuffing all those lil’ hexipuffs is too much for me. And even though I know it would be a negligible amount, I don’t like the idea of carrying around a bit of fluff in my knitting bag just to finish a hexipuff while I’m riding the train or whatever.

To be honest, I don’t think Megan-Anne ever thought that I would cast on a Nightmare Mode GAL square. She smiled and nodded and gave me that sure-you-will pat on the shoulder, which sounded an awful lot like, “If you want to lie to yourself, I’m not going to be the one to crush your dreams.”

So, here I am one year later descending into the insanity I told her I would totally do “some day.”

Picking out the 156 squares I’m planning to knit was equal parts exhilarating and mind wrecking. At a certain point, it was easier to make my list by starting with which ones I didn’t want to have on my future heirloom blanket. But, I have all 156 squares chosen now, some of which include squares I know won’t be released until 2020 and the exclusive square designs that were given to our GAL Guild members in 2017.

Which reminds me, I’ve already had some people ask, and the answer is yes. We will release those exclusive designs to the general public at some point. I have a couple of them high in my queue, so they’ll be released later this year.

For my first square, I knitted the Water Tribe emblem from Avatar the Last Airbender, which was from week 23 of the 2014 blanket. You can read the original post here. I’ve always loved Avatar the Last Airbender and the sequel, the Legend of Korra. It stands the test of time and is one of my favorite cartoons of all time.

Except the movie. Here at L&L, we do not acknowledge the existence of that abomination.

I know that I probably should’ve started with the iconic Caffeine Molecule square. It was what launched the Geek-A-Long beast and is, let’s face it, our unofficial mascot around here. But man, I’ve been sitting on this tiny ball of leftover St. Thomas since Megan-Anne released the Dancing Robot Socks back in 2015, and it is the PERFECT color for the Water Tribe. I mean, just look at and the way it pops on the black (colorway: Palpatine).

In retrospect, I probably should’ve chosen a symmetrical square first. It probably would’ve made it easier to dust off my double knitting skills, but the challenge was nice. I wasn’t able to take it on the train with me like I had wanted due to the level of concentration I needed, but it was the perfect project to keep me occupied while my husband commandeered the TV to play Red Dead Redemption 2.

Which, by the way, is super good. It turns out that I’m really into wild west stuff and my love for Westworld was not a fluke.

I did make a couple of mistakes on the square, but they weren’t bad enough for me to rip back and fix it. Overall, I’m very happy with how it turned out. One down and 155 to go!

~Jac

Knit in Nightmare Mode, it’ll quench ya! Nothing’s quenchier. It’s the quenchiest! – Sokka, probably

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