This is my dissertation project for the first NerdWars. Below is much of my dissertation proposal:

For about 1,000 years, the Grey Council ruled over nearly every aspect of Minbari life. Its name is interconnected with its purpose through a sacrament repeated by its members:

“I am Grey. I stand between the candle and the star. We are Grey. We stand between the darkness and the light.”

Perhaps you are familiar with Delenn? Surely, most people in the galaxy know of the great Ambassador Delenn, member of the Grey Council!

Well, what is little-known is that Delenn kept a diary. I have spent a good deal of effort and a great many credits to get my hands on that diary.

Imagine my surprise and pleasure at discovering that Delenn herself was an accomplished knitter! Here is an excerpt:

Dear Diary,
Another Grey Council meeting today. In the name of Valen and all that is holy, why must our meeting room be so blasted cold?! It is the 23rd Century! Surely we can design a thermostat that can do a better job at regulating the air temperature! I would wear one of my sweaters, but none of them are the right color. Both the royal blue one and the purple one show through the fabric of the grey robe. Of course, the red sweater is out of the question for the same reason. I suppose I will have to knit one out of grey. (((sigh))) I do so much prefer working with color!

Later on in her diary she wrote the following:

Dear Diary,
I have resigned myself to knitting that cardigan for council meetings. Since I can not get very excited about knitting miles and miles of stockinette in plain grey, I have decided to make it a cabled cardigan.

On one level, the cables will symbolize the intertwining of the Human and Minbari souls.

(Diary, I would never tell this to anyone else, especially my beloved John, but I must confess, sometimes I still find it hard to believe that some of our precious Minbari souls are reborn in Human form!)

On a more personal level, in the same way the cables cross and recross one another making a lovely pattern, it will remind me of how my life’s path has crossed with John’s and created something beautiful. By the way, have I ever mentioned how cute he is in the morning? But my! He has the most awful morning breath and he…

Well, the rest of that entry really has nothing to do with knitting and is rather private!

To conclude, I have decided that I too will make a cabled cardigan in honor of Delenn and the cardigan she knit to be worn under her grey robes in that chilly council chamber.

Rav Handle: BlueMoonArtistry

Team: Team Rangers

Project Name: Grey Council Cardigan

Patterns Used: Must Have Cardigan

Yarn: Patons Classic Wool (colorway: Dark Grey Mix)

Category: Technical

Project Description and Explanation:

A knitted, cozy, relaxed, cabled cardigan based on the “Must Have Cardigan” pattern.

I propose that this project will fulfill the Technical category and will require a full 3 months (or more!) because:

-- It has LOTS of cables - if you look at my project page you will see I have very little experience with knitting cables.

-- It is a garment - this will be only the 4th sweater I have ever knit. Shaping and fitting are still relatively new to me.

-- It is not knit in the round - the few sweaters I have knit were mostly stockinette stitch and knit in the round, not pieced. Knitting a sweater in pieces and seaming will be a new experience for me.

-- I am not a fast knitter - even the sleeveless sweater Amazing Technicolor Dream Cardi I knit in stockinette stitch at a much larger gauge took me over a month to complete. My current, plain stockinette cardigan project has taken 2 months.

-- This will not be my only project I am knitting. I am also planning on working on other Nerd Wars projects while attempting this (one of them being a man-sized EZ sweater, not in bulky weight yarn!)

-- My dual-life as a Ranger, as well as a full-time home-schooling mother and wife requires many hours of my day. Other important activities like cooking meals, educating and taxiiing the children and saving the galaxy from bad guys consume most of my time, leaving precious few moments to dedicate to knitting.