Knit R2-D2 Makes Knitting, Geekery Cool

I’m a bit of a geek, mostly thanks to my husband, and of course I’m a big old knitting geek, so I’ve absolutely loved seeing the pictures of the knit R2-D2 that was briefly on the streets of Bellingham, Wash., in honor of International Yarn Bombing Day last month.

Knitter Sarah Rudder told a local TV station she was inspired to knit the wooly robot because of a bunch of concrete barriers downtown that look like R2-D2. She measured the thing (technically called a bollard) and improvised a pattern, which can now be found on Ravelry. It takes about 1,200 yards of yarn and took her about three months to knit.

The robot made a brief appearance at the farmer’s market back in June, but Rudder says she hopes to make it regular event given the positive response people have had. Besides, what do you do with a giant R2 cozy in your house?

[Photo by Sarah Rudder.]

I guess I must have had this pattern on my mind, because I had chosen this log cabin blanket recipe to write about, promptly forgot about it and a couple of weeks later started knitting a log cabin blanket using all my pink yarn.

It might stay pink if it makes it to baby blanket sized, or I might add in some pastel green and blue, too, to make a bigger blanket. We’ll see. I’m also holding several strands of yarn together to make a kind of bulky yarn, which means it’s deeply satisfying how much yarn is used even as the project is still relatively small.

In Kristen Finlay’s version, DK weight yarn scraps (or fingering/sock yarn held double) are used to make a simple scrappy log cabin blanket that’s lighter weight than my version. Log cabin is a great technique for knitters of any skill level because it’s worked in garter stitch. The only not completely basic technique you need for log cabin knitting is picking up stitches.

If you’ve never worked a log cabin knitting project before, this is a good introduction, and it is really nice to use all your yarn scraps in one big project you’ll use for years to come.

If you use a lot of DK weight yarn you can keep building on it whenever you finish a project, or if you use more worsted weight you can do the same thing with it, it will just be a little bigger starting out than the pattern calls for. How big it gets is totally up to you.

I have really been enjoying working on my log cabin project, and it’s my current sitting at my desk and need a break knit (do you have one of those or is it just me?).

Ready to start your own log cabin blanket knitting project? You can grab the free pattern from Kristen Finlay on Ravelry.

Need more log cabin inspiration? Check out more log cabin knitting patterns.

[Photo: Kristen Finlay]

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