What Are We Making This Time of Year?

I’ve been writing about knitting for a long time (on this site and others, more than 15 years!), so I can tell you that it seems like people don’t knit as much when it’s hot outside. This based on pageviews, which tend to be higher in the winter months than in the summer (except this year, y’all have been friendly and I so appreciate it!).

A story in The Washington Post looked at Ravelry’s data since 2019 to determine when crocheters are starting more projects and how long they tend to take. I assume the data would be similar for knitters.

The month when the most projects are started? January. Though that could be all the crafters who have “use Ravelry better” as one of their new year’s resolutions.

The exception to that was the spring of 2020, when more people took up yarn crafts, are were probably making more, when they were home during the pandemic.

The month projects are most likely to be finished? December. Probably a combination of holiday crafting and “I’ve got to finish this before the end of the year!”

The data showed that projects started in the summer (in the Northern Hemisphere) tend to take the longest. Because who wants to work with yarn in this heat?

But what kinds of projects are we making at different times of year? Again this is crochet, but I imagine it’s similar for knitters:

Blankets are most popular in January
Tops and bags are started most in the summer months
People start making hats in August
September is when scarves become popular
More people are making sweaters in October

They also looked at the projects most likely to remain unfinished and found that more than half of the crochet coat and jacket projects listed as started on Ravelry haven’t been finished. But people who use Ravelry to keep track of their projects are, in general, finishers: 75 percent of all projects on Ravelry have been completed.

This is not my life. I use Ravelry as a project tracker in fits and starts and have plenty of projects that look abandoned because I never bothered to update them.

What about you? Do you use Ravelry to keep track of projects? How good are you at keeping up with it? Do you agree with these notions of what’s popular each month?

If you want to look at the article I’ve got a gift link for you here.

[Photo via The Washington Post.]

Over the years I have shared a lot of pumpkin knitting patterns, and I’ve knit and crocheted a lot of pumpkins myself. But it feels like there are always more fun things to try with knit pumpkins, so this year I wanted to look a little more beyond basic stockinette or ribbed pumpkins and share some pumpkin patterns with cables, bobbles and colorwork.

In the cable collection we’ve got these cute little basic cable and ribbed pumpkins from Elly Bear Knits. There are two sizes that make a wide, flat pumpkin and a taller round pumpkin. Both are worked in the round as a tube that’s cinched top and bottom when you’re done, and they use bulky weight yarn.

Another cute cable pumpkin knitting pattern comes from Gray Bear Akswokrat. This one is knit flat and it looks like a chunky yarn but you could use other weights to make pumpkins of different sizes. This one also has an I-cord stem and uses yarn to cinch up the sections of the pumpkin, giving it a more natural look.

Add some bobbles to your pumpkins with this design from Autumn Shelter Makes. Also worked in the round in a tube, it features a repeating pattern of bobbles and uses yarn wrapped around the outside to make segments. This one looks like worsted weight yarn to me.

Of course there’s nothing that says your pumpkin has to be a single color, so let’s throw in some colorwork. I love the look of the Cozy Fall Pumpkin knitting pattern from South Stitch Girls. The little leather loop adds a rustic touch but you could also just add a stick. These pumpkins have five colorwork options and are worked in worsted weight yarn in the round.

There’s also the Autumn Fair Isle Trio pumpkins pattern from Equestriann Style, which has three different sizes of pumpkins with four colorwork designs. They are worked in super bulky yarn in the round and look good with high contrast or more muted color combinations.

Have you read?