2021 by the numbers

These will be comparatively small numbers this year. Due to spending most of the year on two large projects that carried over into 2022, I only finished four projects in 2021. This ties with 2017, the year I dubbed the Year of Barely Knitting, but 2021 is more the Year of Knitting Much, Finishing Little.

So here’s my 2021 finished output: 2 cowls, a shawl, and 5 candle rings, the last of which I’m bunching together into one project and calling it “decorations” as its type:

Google says this color is “red berry.” I can’t think of any red berries this color, but the name adds another level to the term “pie chart.” Speaking of color…

Each candle ring was small, but as each was a different color, they do make this chart jump out. No pink this year, alas (I did start a pink shawlette, but it fell into UFO-dom as I focused on afghans.)

Next up: the crafts involved:

After years of effort, I finally achieved craft parity: as many crochet projects as knitting projects!

As for the weights of yarn (and embroidery floss) in my projects:

Four projects, four different weights of yarn. It looks much more varied than my actual experience of it was.

I’m hoping for a little more quantity in 2022. I’ve finished one of the afghans that preoccupied me in 2021 and am in the final stretch of the other one. Although I’m still in the mood to make afghans, so 2022 may also be a year of a few, large projects.

2020 by the numbers

Apparently I respond to “unprecedented” times by spending quality time with my yarn. While I only finished seven projects last year, down two from 2019, most of what I finished was larger than my projects have been lately: three sweaters and three full-fledged shawls. (The seventh project was a shawlette: can’t skip them altogether!) So 2017, with its four finished projects, is still the Year of Barely Knitting.

On to the graphics! Here’s what three sweaters, three shawls, and a shawlette look like in chart form:

Maybe using green charts this year will make up for the fact that nothing I knitted or crocheted was green:

One of the shawls (the Sunshower Shawl) used twelve different colorways, several of them multicolored in their own right, but it’s hard to get “multi-multicolored” into a pie chart. I mean, there’s probably a way, but I don’t care enough to put that much effort in. 😄 When I glanced at the shawl, though, the two colors that jumped out were blue and gray, so I split the count between them.

Next up: the crafts involved:

Again, just one crochet project. It looks like more since ⅐ is larger than last year’s ⅑. And hey, it was a larger project than 2019’s, too.

Fewer projects, but more variety in the yarn weights this year:

It’s funny how when I try to increase variety, maybe it works but usually it doesn’t, but when I impulsively choose whatever project calls me when I’m ready to start something, the variety shows up anyway.

And with that in mind, I’m not doing much for challenges this year. I’ve decided to go into 2021 with the expectation that it’ll be a lot like 2020, in the hopes that it’ll pleasantly surprise me by being an improvement, so I’m not asking a lot of myself in quantity of projects finished. I’ve just started a Hue Shift Afghan, and I figure that’ll do as a year-long project, and be challenge enough. Heck, figuring it into next year’s “Project Color” pie chart can be the challenge! 🌈

2019 by the numbers

2019 was a year of a lot of knitting (and crocheting), but not a year of a lot of finishing. I came out of the year with nine projects completed: if not as fantastic as 2018, still more than twice the production of 2017 (the Year of Barely Knitting).

Starting with the big(ger) picture, here’s what I made:

You could argue that there isn’t enough difference between shawls and shawlettes to justify making them two different kinds of projects. It’s mainly a question of size. But if nothing else, the chart is more interesting with more categories in it.

So what colors were these nine projects?

PINK AND PURPLE FTW! And did this surprise any of you? Ha.

Next up: the crafts involved:

I keep saying I want to crochet more. I ended up crocheting less this year: that 11.1% represents one crochet project. But I did it!

And what kinds of yarn did these nine projects use?

Again, less variety this year. You’d think that all the projects I’m doing with fingering weight yarn would at least reduce my supply of the stuff, but I’m managing to bring it in faster than I can use it up (surprise, surprise).

Plans for 2020? I don’t have actual challenges this year like I do for reading, but it looks like staying at home is giving me more crafting time. (Hey, look: I finally wrote this blog post!) I’m trying to emphasize the calming, focusing aspects of knitting/crochet over sheer production, but I really enjoy the zing of finishing something, so there’ll be some internally-generated pressure to accomplish things. But if the point is to enjoy myself, then that’s not a bad thing within reason, I figure.

2018 by the numbers

After 2017’s disappointing total of four projects, I’m delighted to have found my knitting/crochet spark again. Thirteen projects completed in 2018! Knitting and crochet were a great stress reliever this year. I deal with words and language a lot: I’m a librarian, I love to read, I write blog posts and journal a lot. It’s good for me to do nonverbal things like tangle yarn into pretty patterns.

So here are the colors of the yarns I worked with this year:

This chart tends to look pretty much the same year after year. I know my favorite colors, and that’s where I put my efforts. And every now and then, a surprise color pops up, like peach this year.

Obviously I knit more than I crochet. But I finished two crochet projects this year. Yay me!

I’m pretty pleased about this. I didn’t get a project done in every yarn weight out there—no sport weight, no chunky, no jumbo—but I managed six of them. I like working in different yarns, but there are so many tantalizing patterns for fingering weight yarn and I know they’ll (usually) be good for near-instant gratification, so it takes an act of will to work projects in other weights. By the way, that’s my first lace weight project ever.

I’m doing my best not to put pressure on myself with weighty goals this year. I hope to do more than just fingering weight projects this year, but I’m not formally making that a goal with numbers and criteria. If I have a good reason to use some other color besides purple, pink, blue, or gray, that’ll be wonderful, but again, no pressure. Just me, the yarn, the needles and hooks, and enjoyment.

2016 by the numbers

I see from rereading 2015 by the numbers that “I’m letting myself not feel like I have to do another fifteen projects.” Rest assured, I didn’t. I managed nine projects in 2016. No, nothing was wrong. I just found other things to do that weren’t knitting or crochet.

First up, the colors I used in projects last year. Not that there’s a theme here or anything.

One of these colors is not like the others…

Okay, now there’s a pie chart I could wear. That’s my everyday wardrobe (with one little exception). Oddly, gray, the color I used the most during 2015, is nowhere to be seen. I’m currently working on a gray sweater, though, so if I finish it this year, it’ll count.

Well, this certainly wasn’t the Year of Crafting Variety. That 11% represents one project. On the other hand, I did do one crochet project. But I definitely want to do more crochet in 2017.

No, not much diversity in my project yarn weight either. I enjoyed the projects I did (most of them anyway), but I’d have liked to have done more of them in something besides fingering weight yarn. And when I did do a project in something besides fingering weight, I went to the other end of the yarn weight spectrum altogether. No happy mediums in 2016!

My plans for crafting in 2017? Still up in the air. More crochet, different yarn weights, and maybe even more colors if that happens to work out. But above all, enjoyment, even if I end up doing a year of nothing except knitted projects in fingering weight yarn.

2015 by the numbers

Yes, I’ve decided this is going to be an annual feature of this blog. Whether or not anyone enjoys reading it, I enjoy putting it together.

The first number, of course, is how many projects I finished in 2015, which is fifteen, nicely enough. No, I’m not shooting for sixteen projects in 2016. That’s a slippery slope that will eventually lead to my being in my 80’s and trying to do fifty projects in a year. Let’s not go there.

I love color, so I track the dominant color in my projects. I don’t love too much math, though, so I count this by the number of projects I’ve done, not by how much knitting I’ve done in each color..

Admire the yellow while you can: I almost never do projects in it despite the fact it’s my favorite color. (It comes from the Little Lion project.) And purple made it in here this year: yay! But gray dominates again. When did I become someone who knits so much in gray?

I did much better than expected when it came to doing more crochet. One project last year, five projects this year. It’s not that I’m trying to make it an even split each year; I just want to do more crochet than I have been doing.

 

But then again, diversity of yarn weight went down. I knitted in laceweight and DK last year as well, and fingering wasn’t so dominant. Although it was knitting small fingering weight projects that let me finish fifteen projects this year.

And what’s coming up for 2016? I’ve got some unfinished projects in fingering weight yarn on the needles, and it would be nice to do another sweater, but other than that, I haven’t really planned anything. I’m letting myself not feel like I have to do another fifteen projects. If it happens, it happens, but there are other things I want to do this year as well! [gasp!]

2015 Knitting & Crochet Blog Week—Day 7: Your Time, Your Place

Where and how do you take time out to knit and/or crochet? Maybe you don’t take time out at all and instead have your needles twirling as you try to juggle a multitude of other tasks with no ‘spare’ time to think of. Maybe you enjoy nothing more than to crochet whilst winding down from a yoga session, chatting with some friends in a nearby cafe.

Whether social or solitary, tell readers about your crafting time and space, and where you either most enjoy (or can simply find a few snatched moments) to turn yarn into something even more beautiful.

I started out my crochet and knitting life as a solitary crafter. This had less to do with my personal style and more to do with being in elementary school (not a lot of knitters my age) and it being the 1970s, when not all that many people were knitting or crocheting, period. I’d knit in my bedroom in that space between coming home from school and having dinner, or while watching TV, or as something to do when I had to sit with adults but wasn’t old enough to care what they were talking about.

Now the situation is almost completely reversed. I do most of my knitting and crochet with others, and it’s marked in my calendar, the same as a medical appointment or a business meeting. I have a weekly knitting group that meets at a nearby Starbucks. We used to meet at a LYS, but that fell through a few years ago, and even though that LYS has resurrected their knit night, we’ve gotten too used to readily-available drinks and free WiFi to go back. The other two groups I get together with are monthly. One is a small group of friends; we bring treats, settle in at one person’s house for a Saturday afternoon, and craft and talk. The other group is a loose association of acquaintances that happens to meet at the same time as my weekly group—but it’s good to shake up the routine every now and then. This group meets at a member’s home, usually the same place, but sometimes it works better if a different person hosts. The people who come aren’t necessarily knitters or crocheters: I’ve watched people bead, write poetry, do repair sewing on their clothes, sew bags for prayer beads, and make posters for a protest. One person who comes occasionally makes exquisite hardanger table runners and pillowtops featuring NSFW words and phrases. 😀

I still do craft on my own, usually while watching TV, same as when I was a kid. But now I have so many other things to do that that doesn’t happen much. Usually I’m doing something else I enjoy, like reading a book or doing the astrology or divination I’ve mentioned in earlier posts this week, so I don’t miss the solo crafting all that much—it’s all wonderful!

2014 by the numbers

I had fun analyzing my crafts last year, so I decided to inflict more craft data on you again this year. I finished nine projects in 2014. That doesn’t seem like a lot, but hey, Viajante took time. Lots of time.

First, the dominant color in my projects, by number of projects. I did three small- to medium-sized projects in gray, and Viajante, despite its size, was only one project, which is why it looks like I knit more in gray than pink (not so!). But I’m not obsessed enough to start counting how many yards of yarn in each color I used, so this is as good as it gets.

I’m surprised brown made a return appearance, but I did knit a brown cowl for someone. (All my brown projects are for other people.) But how did I manage to avoid doing any purple projects this year? Even the two projects I frogged were pink.

Only one crochet project in 2014. Well, maybe I can do two in 2015. We’ll overlook the fact that there aren’t even very many crochet projects in my Ravelry queue.

But surely there was more data I could analyze—only two charts seemed a bit too succinct. Hey, I could look at yarn weight!

That was a bit eye-opening. I feel like I knit almost exclusively with fingering weight yarn nowadays, but there’s a fair variety of weights in that chart. Okay, the lace weight yarn was held doubled and treated like fingering weight, but it was lace weight.

On to 2015!

2013 by the numbers

I’m having way too much fun with pie charts.

It’s a bit misleading. I’m not that fond of brown, but a set of six brown dishcloths pushed the total ahead of larger but fewer projects in other colors.

More crochet than I thought I would manage this year. Again, credit those dishcloths!

Crafting balance

And we have made it to the seventh and last day of Knitting and Crochet Blog Week. It’s been fun, if exhausting. And now that it’s over, I can do more actual knitting and crochet.

Day Seven: 29 April. Crafting Balance

Are you a knitter or a crocheter, or are you a bit of both? If you are monogamous in your yarn-based crafting, is it because you do not enjoy the other craft or have you simply never given yourself the push to learn it? Is it because the items that you best enjoy crafting are more suited to the needles or the hook? Do you plan on ever trying to take up and fully learn the other craft? If you are equally comfortable knitting as you are crocheting, how do you balance both crafts? Do you always have projects of each on the go, or do you go through periods of favouring one over the other? How did you come to learn and love your craft(s)?

I am both a knitter and a crocheter. The crochet came first; the knitting gets more practice. This is essentially my mother’s fault. While other people choose to learn knitting and/or crochet because they’re interested in it, my mother signed me up for a crochet class when I was 9, entirely against my will (“But Mom, only old ladies crochet!”). There was yarn. There was this hook. There was my near-total inability to find the last stitch in any row, leading to me crocheting a wide variety of triangles, as I lost one stitch on every row. With all this, I have no idea at what point I actually started to enjoy crocheting. But just about the time I became a crocheter in heart as well as in skill, Mom decided I needed to learn to knit as well. I’d enjoy it, she promised. It was more versatile than crochet, she claimed. I wasn’t nearly as hostile to the idea as I had been to learning to crochet, but I was confused: if crochet wasn’t as good as knitting, why did she make me learn crochet in the first place? (I never did get an answer to that question.) Mom taught me the bare bones of knitting, after which I never saw her touch needles again.* I took an accidental revenge for all this enforced learning, though: I spent the rest of the years before and during college hitting my parents up for yarn money.

Mom had a point, though. As it turns out, my favorite projects are sweaters, and over the years, I’ve found lots more knitting patterns that I wanted to make than crochet patterns. I also like to make afghans, and I lean towards crocheting them, but how many afghans does a girl need?** I have finally figured out that since crochet goes faster than knitting, I could crochet sweaters in fingering weight yarns which would have enough drape to wear comfortably, but I haven’t really tried this out yet. So I’m equally comfortable knitting and crocheting, but I don’t crochet nearly as much because I haven’t found as many patterns that I adore.

I don’t set out to balance the two crafts in my life. I have happily not crocheted for a year or two at a time, simply because I didn’t have a pattern that I cared enough to make. Whatever drives me to knit or crochet in the first place apparently doesn’t care which craft I pursue as long as I’m doing something with one of them. So I fall in love with a pattern, finally feel the time is right to work on it, and whatever craft it is is whatever craft I’ll be working in while I’m working on it. Which means that at the moment, I’m actively working on two knitting projects (cardigan and scarf) and one crochet project (shrug), just because they’re what called me at this time. (And I’m doing my level best to keep it to just three active projects, because I picked up pretty new yarn at Yarnover yesterday and it wants me to do something with it! Help!)

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*My hypothesis is that my mother had been made to learn to knit from her mother and hated it, but thought that this was just something that mothers were supposed to teach their daughters. I don’t think I was actually supposed to enjoy it.

**I know, I know: make some for charity. Maybe someday. At this point, I’m just not much of a charitable knitter.