Introduction
Last year I took up the challenge to Knit for 30 minutes every day in November, to raise money for the Bone Cancer Research Trust. In total I managed to raise £413 because my job matches my fundraising up to £200 a year. I used the time to crechet the Raziel amigurumi. Don’t get pedantic that crochet and knitting aren’t the same.
This year I am taking on the challenge to knit a Christmas jumper over the course of December to raise money for Cancer Research UK.
Specifically I am taking the “Order of the Jedi Pullover” from “Star Wars: Knitting the Galaxy” by Tanis Gray (though the jumper itself is designed by Meghan Regan). I have made this jumper before, but it didn’t go well (it was way too small), so I am making two changes:
- I won’t blindly trust the pattern - I will repeatedly check the size and try to adjust the pattern to ensure that it is comfortable for me to wear
- I’m changing the motifs - this won’t be a Star Wars jumper, it will instead be a Legacy of Kain jumper (of course)
There is a facebook group for this challenge, and despite it being explicitly about knitting over December, there are already a multitude of posts from people who have already finished. Weeks before December starts.
As such, I don’t feel particularly guilty in saying that I have started early. My first jumper attempt took me about 8 months, so I need to use my time wisely.
I finished designing the motifs (generally) on Saturday, so I’m a couple of days in.
I will try to post regularly to the fundraising page, and will strive to do more sparse summaries on this post.
If you would like to donate, then please do so. Cancer sucks.
5th December
This is technically day 5, but in reality day 12 due to the head start.
I’ve completed 3 of the motifs so far:
- A gold filigree
- The skull/cross guard from the physical Reaver
- The Elder God’s ever present eyes
The next section is the last on the yoke, before moving on to the body: The Nine Pillars of Nosgoth
The complication here is that each Pillar has a different colour.
Since each motif gets repeated 18 times, that means I can do each pillar twice.
However, it is ludicrous to carry a single colour across half of the jumper (and since I would be doing that for 9 of them, that’s a lot of strands), so instead I need to do intarsia (having a seperate ball per colour).
I’ve measured out strands for the different colours - each one will certainly not take 50g, so I tried to make an educated guess (measured out the full width of the block, multiplied that by 22). If it’s not enough, then I can always join a new strand in.
BUT, I also can’t do the pattern in the round like I previously have, otherwise I need to strand the yarn across 14 stitches without a way to secure it. As such I need to switch to stockinette stitch (knit row, followed by a purl row).
The biggest risk with this is it laddering at the back, so I need to also be careful with that.
I hope that this will take me no longer than a week.
I’ll update this with pictures later.