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What Are We Making This Time of Year?

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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.]

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Pumpkin Knitting Patterns

There are so many great pumpkin knitting patterns out there, and it looks like I haven’t done a roundup of pumpkin knitting patterns in a few years, so it’s high time for another one.

The Lancaster Pumpkins from Cuddle Bunny Knits on Etsy are classic, made with stockinette stitch in the round and using super bulky yarn. If you’ve never knit a pumpkin before, this is a good place to start.

Jazz it up a little bit by knitting ribbing instead of straight stockinette, which gives your knit pumpkin a little more texture, too. This one is form Jessies Knits on Etsy. This one is worked flat on straight needles and there are three size options to choose from.

Or try the Pumpkin Patch pattern from Blue Sky Fibers, which is a free pattern on Ravelry. It’s worked with two strands of worsted weight yarn held together to give your pumpkins a marled look, or you can keep it solid. 

There’s another free ribbed pumpkin knitting pattern at Yarnspirations that is really cute. These are knit flat and seamed, and they come in three different sizes. You can either stack them as a centerpiece to decorate a table or you can leave them separate. Or make a whole pumpkin patch and do some of both! I love that they chose unconventional colors so you can see you don’t have to be limited to orange when you knit up your pumpkins.

Made by Devrie on Etsy has these cute pumpkins with twisted stitches (they look like cables but it’s only moving one stitch at a time) that you can make in any size with any yarn you like.

The Twisted Heart Pumpkin for Etsy seller Percival Makes Things uses cables to make a heart shape on the side of the pumpkin. It’s worked in the round and the cable pattern is charted.

And while I was really sticking to plain pumpkins here, not knit jack o’lanterns, I can’t resist sharing this beaded jack o’lantern knitting pattern from Knit Cole Studio on Etsy. The base pumpkin is simple Stockinette and you can stitch on beads in whatever design you like to make your face, or keep it plain.

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