Usually after we finish a blanket, we celebrate by taking it out on the town, photographing ourselves with it in front of the LOVE statue in downtown Philadelphia, and ending the day at Max Brenners with a whole lotta chocolatey goodness. See also the first blanket way back in 2014.

This year, we thought we had all the time in the world. After I had surprised Megan-Anne with the D&D blanket for Christmas, we thought we’d wait until the weather got better to take it into Center City, but then the pandemic hit. As a result, I don’t have any super cute pics to share with you. I delayed making this post for a couple of weeks hoping that maybe we’d get to do something, but no such luck. I think we’ll end up doing something later in the year to commemorate it, but for now I’ll show you the pics I took when I was spamming my husband at work with them. It was the only way I was able to keep the secret from Megan-Anne.

And now, time to talk assembly!

Assembling Your Geek-A-Long Blanket

STEP ONE

To assemble your Dungeons & Dragons themed Geek-A-Long blanket, or any other GAL blanket for that matter, lay out the squares the way you want the blanket to look when it’s done and take a reference photo like I did above. Even though I’m about to tell you to stack the squares in order of assembly, trust me. TAKE THE PICTURE. You never know when some well meaning soul will move your squares or topple them.

STEP TWO

Stack the squares in order of assembly. For me, I like to join them into strips as I go along, but some people like to edge all of them and then join them into columns or rows. Do what feels good, but do yourself a favor now and stack them in order.

For me, it was the most efficient to assemble my edged squares as I went along. I started with Barbarian on the top right and worked my way across the row, crocheting them together as I finished edging them. Then, when I finished a row, I’d crochet it to the one above it. Because of the way I did it, I avoided cutting my yarn in a few places.

STEP THREE

Pick out a join method. I used my fav single crochet method and finished it off with the Crab Stitch edge like last year. However, there is also the hardcore Lattes & Llamas Join and the Applied I-Cord edge or the Double-Sided Join.

The Lattes & Llamas Join is arguably the most beautiful, but it is the most difficult. After making seven GAL blankets, I’ll be honest with you though. I vastly prefer doing the crochet method. It isn’t as eye-catching or glamours, but boy is it fast and easy.

Comparatively, anyway.

STEP FOUR

Get to work!

I ended up using two partial balls of Captain Planet to do the joins and Space Race for the Crab Stitch edge. I didn’t think to weight them beforehand, so I don’t know exactly how many yards I used. Last year, however, it took me about 1.25 skeins to join and edge that blanket.

⁠In years past, we’ve sent our completed sample blanket off to Child’s Play Charity to be auctioned off, but this year we did things differently, which you already know, but I feel compelled to repeat it just in case. The first half of 2020 was supposed to be a retrospective and the second half was going to be a supremely nerdy (and free!) sweater knit along for CP Charity instead. Me, being the rogue that I am, I knitted an entire D&D themed blanket in secret and gave it to Megan-Anne for Christmas. For the first 24 weeks of 2020, we shared the D&D themed afghan squares I double knitted, and in the second half of the year, we’ll still be doing that nerdy sweater KAL!

Next weekend, Megan-Anne will share details about the sweater KAL, including the theme, yarn requirements, and sizing information. We’ll be releasing it piece by piece as a mystery just like the GAL blanket. I’m really excited about sharing it with you! Honestly, it’s been killing Megan-Anne to keep it a secret.

~ Jac

Until next time!

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.