Counting the Days is here!

The last pattern in the Marking Time collection is here and ready for your advent kit scraps!

Weirdly, though my main goal for this project was to work well with advent kits, the yarn I used was a collection of 24 5g minis from Canon Hand Dyes. That at least gave the correct yardage limits as if I really were working with scraps, so it all worked out!

Though my natural inclination with a simple daily knitting project is always garter stitch, I wanted a little bit of SOMETHING for visual and knitting interest. I found a simple lace pattern that has the added bonus of creating a slight chevron shape, and it worked perfectly! I couldn’t believe how much fun it was to knit the sample - that confirmed it as the perfect daily advent kit pattern. (Of course, it would be equally fun in a single color; that way you don’t have to pause in between each stripe!)

My favorite type of cowl is one where the different colors/patterns circle around your neck, rather than stack vertically, because the vertical type ones always end up hiding some of the design in the folds. This cowl is long enough to wrap twice (though I didn’t get any good photos of that since I later discovered a huge logo on my jacket was in every photo!)

My 2020 Made Nine and a Canva tutorial

“Shouldn’t that be make nine?” you might ask.

And the answer is…no! As much as I am an active and aggressive planner, I don’t seem to get much value out of deciding a bunch of things early in the course of a long year. Instead, I usually end up feeling stressed if I haven’t completed specific projects from the list, even if I’ve been doing plenty of other great projects!

This year, I’ve decided to create a Made Nine grid to enjoy the projects I already made last year. One thing that surprised me when selecting them is that I feel like I made fewer items than I normally do! The biggest reason was likely being less active on Ravelry - in March I stopped playing the House Cup, which had been a huge driver in projects for me previously, and in June Ravelry released their new design, which greatly reduced my interest in being on Ravelry in general. I was able to regroup on Discord with some friends and that’s been one of the best things about this year, especially when in-person interaction was so sparse.

Are most of these projects of my own design? Hell yes! Knitting design samples takes away time from knitting other things, and besides, I’m proud of what I created this year :)

Top row: Alba socks, Black Flame Candle socks, The Wheel of the Year shawl, all by yours truly~⁠

Middle row: Find Your Fade by Andrea Mowry, Ewe Rock by @sosuknits and Lacy not Lazy Madness Socks by imawale⁠

Bottom row: Star Chart cowl, Chocobo Racer socks, Counting the Days cowl, also by me :3⁠

Want to make your own grid (to reflect or to plan)? Let me introduce you to Canva. It’s free, and I’ve been able to get what I needed out of it without having to upgrade to pro.

After making an account, hit the “create a design” and pick one of the presets or enter custom dimensions. I usually go with an Instagram post because it already had the pixel settings I need.

To make a photo grid, click “Elements” in the left side bar, then scroll down to “Grid” in the sub-menu. There are a ton of grid layouts, so go with your favorite!

To get your photos into the grid, click on “Uploads” in the left side bar. Upload the photos you want to include, then drag them to where you’d like them in the grid. They’ll snap into place, automatically centered. If you want to change how they’re cropped in the grid, double-click the photo to open a photo-specific editor. Drag the photo do the crop you want, then hit enter to exit the editor.

Play around with adding text and other elements like borders or badges if you want. When you’re ready, hit the download button to save your work. Enjoy!