We have a definite comic book divide in our house; I love Marvel and DC so they take up the majority of my comic shelves [I do have some others, such as Preacher, Freshmen and Hellboy but Deadpool, Hawkeye, Red Hood et al rule my heart]. My husband, on the other hand, far prefers indie comics; so give him The Walking Dead, We3 or Grandville and he's a happy bunny. But the majority of his comic shelves are taken up by 2000AD. So when it came to picking comic book squares for his blanket, that was obviously the way to go and I had to start with his favourite character; Strontium Dog.
It came as no surprise whatsoever to come up empty when looking for Strontium Dog charts online, I pretty much knew going in that I would be making this chart myself. I decided to keep it simple and go for a Search/Destroy Agency badge and disguise the gold on the edging by making the black outline thicker. Then I went browsing on the Geek-a-long Ravelry group...
I was on the 'Alternative Geekery' thread [because that's obviously where I belong] and a member called Whistler42 posted a photo of squares she'd made using more than two colours. Double knitting with more than two colours? It blew my mind! Thankfully, she also posted links to the video tutorial's she'd used to learn how to do that and I already had a candidate ready and waiting; I could add the gold edging to the S/D badge after all.
The video tutorials were made by Alasdair Post-Quinn and the ones I found most helpful were:
How to follow a three-colour two-pattern double-knit chart and How to do a three-colour double-knit selvedge
Square number 26: Strontium Dog.
I'm pretty pleased with how this came out. I like that the badge is a bit grungy; perfect for a post-apocalyptic UK [although I'm sure that with a little bit of playing around with the chart, you could get a smoother outline if that's what you'd prefer].
Knitting with three colours is definitely fiddly and the yarns get tangled very quickly. Also, the extra wool being carried along means that the square is a lot bigger lengthwise than my other squares. I've decided to deal with that by having one row of the taller squares along the middle of the blanket; that way, I won't be trying to fit a bigger square in a row with smaller ones and throwing the whole aesthetic out of the window.
Overall, I think that double knitting with more than two colours is something you could only do in small doses - I definitely couldn't have done a whole blanket that way; I'd have thrown in the towel after just two or three squares, lol. I'm glad that I tried it though and I do think that my row of multicoloured squares will look great.
This is a design that I made for my own personal use and is not endorsed by or being used by Lamas and Lattes or the official Geek-a-long blanket. I am merely a fan of their project and have decided to make my own version. Don't forget to visit the Geek-a-long page to show your support for the official Geek-a-long blanket project which is raising money for a great cause and if you'd like to donate to that cause then please visit The Child's Play Charity here.
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