Geek-A-Long

2021 Geek-A-Long Sweater: Clue 20

31
Oct

Happy Halloween ghosts and ghouls! We are in the final throws of this sweater, and what better way to celebrate Samhain than by starting the Ouija Board section of our sweater?!

This is hands down, my favorite part of the entire sweater. There’s a lot to love on this year’s geek-a-long, but for me you just can’t compete with the Ouija Board charts. I realize that this probably isn’t one you expected to see right next to dominos or chess, or monopoly…but guys, the Ouija Board is made by Hasboro and sold right next to Clue, so I’ll defend my choice to put it here. It’s got such an interesting history too. Here’s a really neat article that will tell you all about the strange and mysterious American fascination with Spiritualism, and the culture that gave rise to the Ouija Board. Did you know that in order to get a patent for it, the original developer of the game had to “prove” it’s ability to contact the dead at the US patent office? Can we normalize that level of intensity for all trademarking processes? Imagine if before publishing the Queen Bee sweater I’d have had to prove it would actually imbue the wearer with Royal status? XD There would be a lot fewer trademarks, but working at the patent office would be the most exciting job on earth!

This week you’re going to be setting up the markers and charts to begin the raglan decreases. Those won’t start in these 8 rows, they begin next week and continue through to the end of the sweater. I know you may be accustomed to working raglan decreases earlier than this in a sweater, but just trust me on this one. Since this is double knitting your decreases will essentially get worked twice as often as with single sided knitting. The result is that if they start too close to the arm join the yoke gets stunted and the fit wouldn’t be good.

It’s super important to take your time and get those markers placed correctly on the first row. You’ll depend on those through the next 2 weeks of clues and they will be essential to proper decrease placement. This clue also includes Extreme Double Knitting Charts. That’s because this part is text heavy and I didn’t want to do all that duplicate so it was the one place that extreme knitting was worth it for me. Using those charts is completely optional. This is covered in the download, but to use the extreme charts, just replace the green bordered sections of the charts with the corresponding extreme chart. If you are not working this section in extreme knitting, you can ignore the green borders.

If you’ve never worked extreme double knitting but want to give it a try, it’s a little harder than regular, but not much. Honestly making the charts is what is a pain, and I’ve already done that. The only difference between an extreme chart and a regular one is that every stitch is shown. So, when working a regular chart you work each stitch/square on the chart twice: once as shown on the right side and then you work it again in the opposite color on the wrong side (that the K + P of double knitting). In extreme charts you work each square/stitch shown only once, and every stitch is charted. So if you see 2 black squares in a row that means that the K and the P of that next double stitch are both going to be worked in black. If you see 5 black squares in a row that means you’ll work KPKPK all in the same color (don’t forget to bring the other color along for the ride though, bringing it to the front to purl and the the back to knit). It’s up to you if you want to give that a go this week, but it might be a fun challenge to give it a go. The charts are intimidating when you first look at them because they look like knitting gibberish, but it’s pretty cool to see it knitting up from that chaos chart into perfect letters.

Before I let you go, I want to share Mabel’s Halloween costume: Lois Lane, Investigative Reporter. She has requested that this be “shown to the kniternet”. It occurs to me that she may not realize that there is a whole internet that’s not about knitting, and I hope she can stay in that happy ignorance for years to come. We’ve been watching Lois and Clark on HBO, because I was OBSESSED with the show when it aired. Dean Cain is the worst, but the show really holds up.

Released so far:

View On Board: Clue 20 by clicking this link or download it by clicking the button below. When you download the pattern from our website instead of through Ravelry, you will NOT receive automatic updates. You will have to come here and download the next clue every time. Please download it via Raverly if you are able, so you have immediate access to the clues as they are released and any errata that may appear.

Clue-20Download
On-Board-Clues-1-19Download

~Megan-Anne

The only thing thinner than the veil today is my patience. Happy Samhain Yarn Witches!

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