Overpacking

My pile of woolens for KnitEast is bigger than any other pile. Do you think I can manage some midday costume changes?

(Pssst--that orange one on the left? Meet Windrow, a brioche cowl in Sunshine Yarns gorgeous Ultraluxe Worsted. $2 of every sale will go to the United Way's Foothills Flood Relief Fund.)

Summer's End

My hands and wrists have been giving me some trouble recently (nothing major, promise!), so I took the weekend off of knitting, typing, and playing on my phone. Since those are the things that occupy most of my time, I suddenly had a whole weekend on my hands! (No pun intended.) So I took a day trip up the coast to the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, a place I've been meaning to visit for years. Well worth the trip, especially on such a lovely, late summer, hint of fall weekend we had here in Maine.  I'm not hugely into plants and gardening in general, but the color play and textures are always so inspiring.

The Stock(inette) Market: A Six Month Retrospective

Six months.  Approximately 360 data collections.  Approximately 9.5 million individual data points (seriously).  Scores of shawls, fountains of Fair Isle, legions of lace, and three chickens in sweaters.  I wrote down my first data collection on February 25th, and it's been a fascinating ride ever since.  Do you want to see what the past six months has looked like in knitting?

Because of the extended timeline of data, there was a good chance all changes would cancel each other out.  So it was very exciting, once the trendlines went up, that there were marked differences over the course of the six months!

It should come as no surprise that neck accessories dominated throughout the entire time, with multiple organic spikes as well as promotion and collection/magazine release spikes.  The highest spike in early April was a direct result of Romi Hill's Easter Egg Hunt contest, with other over-30 spikes due to the release of the shawl-centric Wool People 5, and two organic spikes in May and June.  Even without those major spikes, neck accessories continually held the largest part of the market throughout the entire six months, and grew slightly over that time.

Cardigans and cowls dropped slightly over the six months, despite strong, consistently placed spikes in the former that tied to the release of Knit.Wear, Knit to Flatter, Twist Collective, Ashore, with Friends, and Rowan's multiple summer releases.  An interesting thing to note is that while high spikes occurred organically in neck accessories, most high spikes in garments occurred as the result of a collection launch or promotion.  All other categories remained relatively consistent over the time.  Not represented on the graph due to low representation but also present over the six months: mitts, mittens/gloves, dresses, jewelry, vests (which almost made the graph, with .94 appearances per day on average), ponchos, unmentionables, skirts, pet coats, shrugs, and men's garments.

Remarkably, most yarn types gained prominence, with only two dropping.  Solid yarns dropped consistently over the six months, due to a solid (forgive the pun) presence in the first three months and fewer appearances in the latter.  They had a big presence in Quince & Co.'s Scarves, Etc. and Knit.Wear in late spring, and stayed consistently second place throughout the rest of the time period.  Variegated yarns also dropped over the time period, with no major spikes or collections highlighting the yarn.

Semi-solids, tweeds, self-striping, and multiple color projects rose over the time period, with a major spike in the first corresponding to Romi Hill's giveaway, and others corresponding to the Plucky Knitter anniversary, Amy Miller's kid's collection with the Plucky Knitter, and an organic spike in late July.  There were major spikes in tweed correspondent with the release of Brooklyn Tweed collections Wool People 5 and BT Men, as well as one correspondent with Rowan's summer releases.  There were small organic spikes in multi-color projects and self-striping yarns, but no major releases or promotions during that time.

Model type remained relatively consistent, with a slight drop in modeled garments and a slight rise in flat garments.  This is one that I'll continue watching, but I am under the assumption that this will remain relatively steady.

In fabric type, lace remained consistent both as the most prominent type and across the time period, with very high showings that are too numerous to count.  Notable spikes include Romi Hill's giveaway and an organic spike in mid August.  Cables were the only fabric type that dropped; stockinette, texture, and colorwork all rose consistently, with few major spikes other than an organic spike in texture in late August. 

Finally, color was wildly variable throughout the six months, but most colors trended upward.  Blue was consistently the strongest color, with major spikes corresponding to organic spikes, Interweave Knits, and Knitty First Fall.  Grey also climbed, with a major spike corresponding to the release of BT Men and the Rowan summer releases, and green had a few major organic spikes in the latter three months.  Despite some major spikes in red, including an organic one in early July, the color fell consistently over the time period.  We are currently also seeing a large uptick in cool tones and neutrals, perhaps in preparation for the winter garments to come.

So that, in a nutshell, is the last six months of knitting! Lace, neck accessories, modeled garments, and semi-solids reign, and there are some interesting developments with the drop in cables, solids, garments, and reds.  Spikes have occurred both as the result of major publications and of organic self-publications and searches, with neither taking a substantial causal lead.  Things should be interesting in the new few months, as well--there's been a new develop recently with the addition of the weekly "Community Eye Candy" feature on the front page of Ravelry.  As with the "Harlot effect", when an item is blogged about by a famous knitter and causes a spike in traffic to that pattern, the highlighting of specific garment or project types on the front page of Ravelry skews results soon thereafter.  It will be interesting to see how this comes into play in the next little bit! In addition, we've reached the beginning of the biggest time in the knitting world, with multitudes of collection launches, magazines, and books coming out soon.  It's been an exciting journey over the past half year, and I can't wait to see where it goes next!

Postcards from the Pacific Northwest

(From top to bottom: yarn at Twisted in Portland; the line at Voodoo Doughnut; the view on the train from Portland to Seattle; dahlias at a Seattle farmer's market; a picnic on the dock at Seward Park; the view from the path at Seward Park; blown glass at the Chihuly Museum.)

A whirlwind three days on the other coast with some of my favorite people in the world. Rejuvenating, inspiring, reaffirming--the best birthday present I could have given myself. Here's to a wonderful year!

Birthday sale!

Oh, blog, I owe you so many posts.  I owe you posts on about seven designs (Stria! Harpswell! Rekaviður! Triangulate! Marlena! Mariella! And today, In August, Away!), two amazing past trips, (Iceland! Medomak!), two amazing upcoming trips (Portland and Seattle! Kniteast [still spots open in a couple classes--come join us]!), Stock(inette) Market (an amazing six-month retrospective coming soon!), and the general everydayness of my life.  I think at some point I need to declare blog bankruptcy and just move forward (and don't even get me started on how many of you I owe comment replies to.  That keeps me up at night).  But for today--big news! If you enter the coupon code "28on28" at checkout on Ravelry, you'll get 28% off almost all of my patterns (ones not for sale on Ravelry, Twist Collective, and Brooklyn Tweed patterns excluded)! Why 28? Because a week from now, I'll be turning 28 on the 28th--a true golden birthday.  I'm just starting the celebration a week early! The sale will run until the 31st.  Thanks for helping me celebrate!

The Stock(inette) Market: June 18th-July 14th

Would you look at that--I think we're actually caught up on the Stock(inette) Market! There were some amazing publications this past month, with some interesting and unexpected results in the numbers.  Let's take a look!

One note on last time's Average Percentage: I had mistakenly based the chart on only those categories that had averaged more than 1 appearance per data collection, rather than factoring in an "other" for the remaining categories.  It's been amended to reflect this; the dominoes in this fell most on neck accessories, dropping them from 51% to 47%.  While they still dominate this month, they have a slightly smaller percentage at 46%.  Cardigans have crept up from 14 to 15%, due to a heavy presence in many of the publications this month.  There were also more categories represented this time around, with men's patterns making the cut-off for the first time due to the release of Brooklyn Tweed's Men's collection and Martin Storey's book with Rowan, Pioneer.

Neck accessories had some major peaks throughout the month, corresponding both to the release of several publications (in the beginning of the month, Grace Anna Farrow and Kelbourne Woolen's collaboration on their new lace-weight yarn Meadow, Allium; and at the end of June and beginning of July, the release of the latest patterns in Romi Hill's Seven Small Shawls, Year 3) and organically (the spike on June 27th).  There were also small organic spikes near the end of the month as well.  One of these occurred due to Maylin's decision to turn Wingspan into a for-sale pattern instead of a free download; it and many of its descendants (and a few copycats) climbed back to the first page.

Cardigans and pullovers also had a few major spikes, occurring with the release of Knitscene's Fall 2013 preview and the spate of Rowan releases the first week in July (Rowan 54, Summer Selects Online Collection, Autumn Knits, and Pioneer), all of which were heavily geared towards garments.  BT Men's was also geared towards garments, and caused the obvious spike in men's garments seen around July 10th.  While both cardigans and pullovers were well represented throughout the month, the former rose as time went on, while the latter fell.  All other categories remained relatively steady.

 

Yarn type remained consistent with what we've seen in the past; semi-solids dominated, with a big spike in late June helped along by the release of Amy Miller's collaboration with the Plucky Knitter, The Little Collection.  There were also smaller organic spikes throughout the month, tied to Knitscene and Romi Hill's new collection.  Solids had a large spike with Rowan's Summer Selects and a smaller one with Carol Feller's new collection, Among Stones, but otherwise dropped over the month.  There was a small spike of tweed during the BT Men's collection, and two- and three-color projects had prominence as stranded colorwork in the Rowan releases and as stripes in Amy Miller's collection.  Variegated yarns were not present in large numbers at all this month.

The modeled categories remained steady, with modeled garments seeing a large spike due to Knitscene at the end of June and the Rowan releases around the 4th of July.  They had a sharp organic drop at the end of the time period, however, corresponding with a rise in dressforms.

 Fabric type was wildly variable this time around, with no clear winner.  While lace has been continually and clearly dominant in the past, this time there were major spikes in texture (Autumn Knits, Pioneer, and BT Men's), colorwork (Rowan 54 and Summer Selects), and stockinette (The Little Collection, BT Men's).  There were lace spikes to correspond with Knitscene Fall and Romi Hill's release, and an organic spike at the very end of the time period, but lace fell overall.  There was also a slight drop in colorwork once the Rowan patterns made their way off the front page.  Cables rose steadily, with spikes occurring for Knitscene and BT Men's; as we're seeing the first of the fall publications, we can surmise that these may be rising to fit seasonal trends.

Colors again were incredibly variable, with major spikes in reds (organic), greys (Rowan and BT Men's), and blues (BT Men's).  Red did drop sharply after its major spike at the end of June, but rose again organically at the very end of the month.  Green, white, yellow, and black rose slightly, and purple, brown, and orange stayed constant. 

Overall, a very volatile month--we had what seems to be the tail end of the light, lacy spring patterns and the very first of the textural and cabled fall patterns.  It will be interesting to see how this develops over the next month!

Stock(inette) Market: May 20th to June 17th

Hello again! Thank you for your patience as I get back in the saddle after my trip to Iceland! You're in for an awesome version of the Stock(inette) Market today as we work through a whole month's worth of data.  This marks the beginning of my transition to monthly posts; this will help us see the data in a larger picture, and also give me a little bit of a breather between posts.  We've got a little more catching up to do after this one, so there'll be one more post in a couple weeks, and then it'll be every month from then on out!

Before we start, I have to send a special shout out to Annika Barranti and Dianna Walla for their help in my absence; these awesome ladies made sure that all the data was recorded so there wouldn't be a huge gap in statistics.  Please join me in thanking them! (Pssst--Annika's got a sale going on one of her adorable patterns (coupon code: POSY50) and Dianna just put out a gorgeous tee.  Just saying.)

Neck accessories continue to be popular over this month, capturing 47% of the Hot Right Now real estate. There was a bit of a shakeup in the other categories--surprisingly, given an assumption that they'd be popular in the Northern hemisphere summer, vests have been replaced by toys.  Cowls and socks also took a larger percentage of the average than previously.  Cardigans and pullovers remain about the same.

There were some wild variations throughout the month in garment type, but most items remained steady overall. The beginning of the month saw mostly organic interest in patterns, with few major publications or sales.  While the few promotions during that time period (a sale from Thea Colman's BabyCocktails and a promotion by Brenda Burrell) bumped pullovers and cardigans, and shawls respectively, the biggest swing occurred at the end of May with the publication of Ashore with Friends, a collection by Cecily Glowik MacDonald that featured a number of sweaters.  This caused a spike in cardigans and a drop in neck accessories.  There was a further spike in sweaters and cowls in the first week in June due to the anniversary celebration of The Plucky Knitter, which featured sales and collections showcasing her yarns.  The end of the month saw a tick back up in neck accessories, which was a bit contrary to the big publication of the time, Knitty First Fall 2013, which only had three neck accessories this time around.  Other notable spikes include a kid's spike around June 7th due to the presence of many patterns by Elena Nodel, and a small spike in cardigans when Knitty debuted.

Solids and semi-solids continued to dominate, with semi-solids the clear winner this time around.  Semi-solids were present in Ashore with Friends, patterns associated with the Plucky Knitter, and in Knitty, so this dominance is unsurprising.  There was a small decline in 3+ color projects, a slight rise in 2 color projects and variegated at the end of the month, and stability in tweeds and self-striping yarns.

Model types also remained relatively constant, with a sharp dip in modeled garment coinciding with a rise in flat garments around the 10th of June. This doesn't seem to be attached to any publication or promotion, nor does it follow our hypothesis of lower modeled counts on the weekend.  There was also a drop in modeled/rise in flat at the end of the session.  Dressforms had a small spike around the 12th, also organically.

Fabric type saw a continued rise in lace over the month, even though there were several sharp organic drops throughout the time.  It had a steady presence both organically and in the publications of the time period.  There was also a slight rise in colorwork with several spikes towards the end.  Cables, though continuing to maintain a low profile during the summer months, had a slight rise.  Colorwork remained steady and stockinette, after starting high and with a big presence in Ashore with Friends, dropped slightly over the month. 

Color was as widely variable as ever during this time, but was relatively constant overall.  There were major spikes in blue, red, and green during Knitty First Fall, and blue continued to be a major player throughout.  Red and green both rose over the month, as did yellow and purple.  Grey and white fell, and black, though remaining low, did climb slightly.  This does raise the question of whether we do indeed favor bright colors during the summer months, or whether instead those colors are already pre-selected by the mood board and yarn support process of larger publications. 

Overall, while there were some large publications that debuted during this time, quite a lot of the changes that occurred were the result of organic searches and results.  It will be interesting to see if there is a marked difference between the two sources of traffic over time.  What do you think will occur?