Hello Fiber Fam, it’s been a while. I’ve been super quiet this year, and it’s not you. It’s me. Honestly, I haven’t been doing great. Have any of us been doing great? I’m pretty jealous of the non-USA members of the Geek-A-Long family these days. For those of you not here, living in Gilead sucks. It sucks big hairy werewolf balls. And with each passing month in 2023, it’s been harder and harder for me to fake being OK on social media, in my knitting, and just pretty much across the board. So I’m not really apologizing for having gone mostly internet silent, more just to say that I’m OK, for a 2023 USA value of “OK”.

I’m really angry all of the time and wasn’t sure how to express it. But over the last few months I’ve been trying to find better ways to channel it, and I think I’m in a better place than I was a few months ago. I haven’t done a ton of knitting this year, way less than I normally do, and that wasn’t helping my mental health. Depression is sneaky that way. You don’t have the energy to do the things you love, but those are also the things that give you energy. I’m back to my needles, and that’s helped a lot, but it’s also been what I’m knitting that’s helped. Which brings me to the second GAL theme announcement of 2023!

When Jac and I were planning this year’s GAL, we had a hard time agreeing on a theme. We see the Geek-A-Long as a celebration. It’s meant to make the folks in it feel good about the things they love. Last year we focused on video games and this year Jac is bringing you cozy video game socks. The thing is, I don’t feel cozy. And I don’t want to feel cozy right now. I want coziness for you, but not for me. This year I want to place my anger on a pedestal and celebrate it because right now it’s my fandom.

I want to wrap myself in a cape woven from thread spun from the tears of my enemies; its staple drawn long and smooth and sharp in an inferno of my burning rage.

And you know what makes this whole ridiculous experiment that is the Geek-A-Long amazing? This doesn’t have to be either-or. This year we choose both-and with a dual theme: Cozy Video Games and Justified Female Rage. We’ll be trading off projects, starting off cozy and just a little violent with Jac’s Untitled Goose Game socks, and for our second project of the year you’re getting my first 2023 GAL project just in time for Pride: The Burn It Down Socks.

Burn It Down Socks

Burn It Down Socks are inspired by the Read Banned Books Cowl I released in 2022

You’re going to get that same overall “Burn it to the fucking ground” aesthetic, but now in a convenient toe warming, anti-TERF* project that fits in your favorite purse and goes well with protesting the Supreme Court, moving to a cottage in the woods to shun society and live peacefully with your forest friends, and relaxing at home with a good audiobook and some justified rage.

I’m also shaking up the schedule a bit from what we’ve done before to celebrate every week in Pride month. I want to kick off the month with a celebration of some of LGBTQ+ knitters, dyers, and designers, so you’ll get the project sheet next week – this has the instructions for the functional swatch in it.

• May 22, 2023: Theme is announced
• May 28, 2023: Project Sheet Releases
• June 4, 2023: Pride Month: A celebration of LGBTQ+ knitters and designers
• June 11, 2023: Sock 1 Releases
• June 18, 2023: Sock 2 Releases
• June 25, 2023: Community Spotlight

The project kit released today just ahead of this post. As with all GAL patterns, you are in no way obligated to purchase that kit in order to participate. For those of you wanting one though, I have a very important PSA:

I normally try to think about uplifting things while I dye** and I want you to know I absolutely did not do that for these. Every single skein was dyed while I blasted a “riot-witch-summer” playlist Jac made for us, and as I gently lowered the yarn into my dye pots I imagined Brett Kavanaugh being subjected to a transvaginal sonogram as a prerequisite to seeking erectile dysfunction treatment. After they were finished, I carefully rinsed the residual citric acid from the stands and imagined Ron DeSantis being asked to show his papers at the gate of Disney World and being unable to provide adequate proof of citizenship. An investigation by Orlando Child Protective Services is opened into the reported rumor that someone in his family had sought gender affirming services. The righteous anger montage in my mind concludes with his children being 100% fine (because it’s not their fault that their father is not worth the skin he’s printed on, and I wish only peace for all children) but also a magnificent reveal of documents and text messages that show evidence of both his many crimes and the weird kinks you just know that soggy sock of a human has. I cackle as I hang the yarn to dry, whispering dark secrets to it, ensuring in this final step that each stitch will be knitted not with love, but with righteous fury.

Available with limited quantities, each Burn it Down Sock Kit contains two beautiful, 50 gram skeins of Lattes & Llamas’ Vacation base in “Stars Hollow” and “Baskerville” and three 20 gram mini skeins in “Marigold”, “Garnet”, and “Hep Alien”. Plus a set of stitch markers hand-crafted by me. The pattern only calls for 2 markers, but I’m going to give you 3 markers in this kit because it’s almost Pride month and if that’s not a good reason to be extra I don’t know what is. The kit is available in very limited quantities and I’ll be restocking it over the next few weeks but when I run out of beads for the markers that’ll be it. So if you want one, I’d plan to get one early.

Because this happened last year despite our preempted disclaimers, let me state the (I guess, not so) obvious: The kit does NOT include the actual Burn It Down Socks pattern. The clues must be downloaded from our website or Ravelry as they are released. See release schedule above for dates.

~Megan-Anne

*On the off chance you don’t know what TERF means, let me google that for you: A person whose views on gender identity are considered hostile to transgender people, or who opposes social and political policies designed to be inclusive of transgender people.

**That’s a true fact. I tend to be very cognizant of what kind of environment I’m dying in and the mood I am in when I’m dying because I do think that matters. For me, fibermancy is all about knitting an intention into something and that starts with the yarn. Most of my yarn is created with the intention of peace and empowerment and fulfillment. The yarn in this kit though? It’s giving “Come at me, bro”.

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