Hello, Geek-A-Long 2020

My name is Jacquline Rivera, also known as Jac, jac_attacking, or doctorcappuccino, and I have spent the last four months rolling nothing but natural 20s.

Today, Megan-Anne was going to write a post about how we’d be spending the first half of the year featuring past squares or the completed blankets of Geek-A-Long participants. We have a lot of content out there that people don’t know about. Heck, sometimes we forget that we’ve already covered a certain fandom. And then, during the second part of the year, she was going to host a different sort of knit along: Geek-A-Long the Sweater.

It took me a while to convince her that Child’s Play Charity would be just as happy to receive an aggressively nerdy sweater as they would a blanket. Heck, the people who attend the annual charity auction would probably get into a bidding war over it since it would be something new and different. She’s functionally been working on the same project for over six years and has knitted over 250 squares. She deserves the break.

Look at poor, innocent Megan-Anne stress eating chocolate pudding out of a bowl, six years ago as we assembled the first Geek-A-Long blanket.

She’s a rugged veteran now. Chews nails. Spits bullets. You know the sort.

And now, to reveal my deception…

We will not be spending the first 24 Sundays of 2020 doing a retrospective. I have secretly been designing and knitting a Geek-A-Long throw blanket for Megan-Anne, so she can finally have one of these for herself, and all of you D&D nerds out there get to profit from it.

You have no idea how hard its been for me to hide this from her. I mean, just the logistics alone of pulling the yarn from stock… So, if you’ve been wondering why my Nightmare Mode blanket has been on hiatus forever, this is why. (You can follow my short journey here, here, here, and then here.) Around the same time that I got a better hold on my depression and my cat got better, Megan-Anne and I were already discussing what to do for 2020. That was when I decided to enact my plan, and I started working on her blanket in secret.

Roll for Initiative

The theme of the 2020 Geek-A-Long is Dungeons & Dragons! I can’t wait for all of you to see it, and I can’t tell you how awesome it felt to give her this this blanket as an early Christmas present. She cried, ya’ll.

Without further ado, here are the down and dirty details you need to know about the 2020 Geek-A-Long:

• Starting on January the 5th of 2020, we will release one new D&D themed square every Sunday for 24 weeks.
• There will be 24 squares knit with Geek-A-Long Yarn.
• The 24th square will release on Sunday, June 14th of 2020.
• The assembly will be featured on June 21st of 2020 with the final photos on the following Sunday.
• The difficulty level of these squares will not all be expert level like they were for the 2019 blanket.

Keen observes will notice that this means the traditional Geek-A-Long will end halfway through the year. While I am thrilled to be able to keep presenting you with new squares to knit, we still want to diversify what the GAL stands for and flex our designing muscles for charity.

KNIT A NERDY SWEATER

Much like the traditional GAL, Geek-A-Long the Sweater will feature several different fandoms centered around one theme. Here is what I am allowed to tell you now:

• On Sunday, July the fifth of 2020, Megan-Anne will debut the theme along with the pattern details that you will need in order to cast on and Geek-A-Long with us.
• Throughout the month of July, we will feature tutorials to help people make the jump from double knitting to fair isles, as well as a few giveaways.
• The pattern will be divided up into 16 parts and spread over sixteen weeks, making it easy for you to knit a nerdy sweater along with us this year.
• The kick-off party begins Sunday, August the second, when the first piece of the pattern will be released.
• In addition to being available here on our website, Geek-A-Long the Sweater will also be available for you to download for free on Raverly and will update every Sunday with a new piece of the pattern until its completion.
• The last portion of the pattern will be released on November the 15th and the final photos of the project will debut the following Sunday.

And that’s what we have going on in 2020! Stay tuned next week for more pictures of our completed 2019 Blanket.

~Jac

Let it be shown that bards don’t simply throw artistic tantrums, we also use our finesse for good.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider making a donation to Child’s Play Charity. Here is a direct link to our official 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? Lattes & Llamas will donate $1 for every skein of Geek-A-Long Yarn purchased.