Check out What’s Popular in Knitting with the Stock(inette) Market

The Venn diagram on knitters and math and science geeks would show a lot of overlap, and when statistics lovers and knitters collide, awesome things can happen.

Like what, you ask? Like the Stock(inette) Market, an analysis of trends on Ravelry sorted by garment type, fabric type, yarn type, color and whether the item’s picture has a person in it. That link explains all the details, and here is the most current report. They cover two-week periods and the results are determined by collecting data on the “what’s hot” patterns on Ravelry twice daily.

It’s so fun to look at this and see what other people are knitting or at least looking at on Ravelry (this time of year, it’s lots of shawls and other things to wear about the neck and shoulders, as well as lots of lace).

This could be a cool tool for designers, too, though what’s presently popular doesn’t mean there won’t be different trends in the future. But it may tell you if you design lace shawls, you want to release a new pattern in the spring!

[Photo via Where the Red-Winged Blackbird Flies.]

For the past few years I’ve taken part in a Christmas in July blog hop that encourages people to get a jump on their making for holiday gifts.

I love to use yarn I already have for these projects in the hope that people will consider what they already have that they can use to make projects for themselves or to give as gifts.

This year it was a couple of knit baskets made using partial balls of yarn left in my stash from other projects.

They use the same basic pattern but the first one is made with two colors of bulky yarn, and the second used two strands of worsted weight yarn held together, which made the gauge about the same, but I cast on fewer stitches to make a smaller version.

The bottom of the basket is square, though you can make them rectangular if you’d rather. Then I just knit up the sides in rounds until I was about to run out of yarn. This gave both baskets rather short sides — maybe more like a tray than a basket — but you can keep knitting as long as you like to make the sides of your basket as tall as you want.

They’re worked in seed stitch, which keeps the edges from curling and adds a nice texture to the baskets.

Of course this also allows you to use even more odd balls from your stash. I’d love to make a big one someday combining lots of different yarn. I mean, I’d probably use it to store more yarn, but that’s a fine thing to do.

As it is, these little trays are great for sitting on your desk or bedside table to hold little things that always seem to appear there. I like to use one to hold the supplies for whatever project I’m working on, things like little scissors, my tape measure, a crochet hook, etc.

And they would make good gifts on their own or as a container to hold some other goodies if you like.

You can find the free pattern for these stash busting baskets over at Our Daily Craft.

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