I Finally Decided What to Knit With My Advent

I Finally Decided What to Knit With My Advent

So you purchased a knitting yarn advent, and you excitedly opened the packaging each day, but now what do you knit with that advent? It is such a big decision. You want to do something that really will show off the beautiful yarn. All advents are different. Some flow from yarn to yarn in almost a fade or gradient, and some, while beautiful, are a different theme every day, and those are challenging to use in a single project.

The advent that I purchased is the For God So Loved the World Advent from Knitty McPurly in DK. It is a beautiful advent that begins with a series of blue yarns and then moves into different shades of green. I chose this particular advent for a couple of reasons. I love all things green, and blue is a close second, so when Devin of Knitty McPurly said that her 2025 advent would be mostly blues and greens, I thought it might be a good choice for me. Also, I have worked with many Knitty McPurly yarns and colors. I like her aesthetic, and I trust her color sense.

It is not exactly a gradient, but the yarns to flow pretty well from one color to another.

Not all advents work this way because each dyer really does their own thing. They usually have a theme that inspires their colors. Shauna of the Shauna's Stitches podcast got 6 advents this year. She does a Vlogmas each year and hangs all the yarn from each advent on wires behind her. That is a really great way to show all the variations between the different advents.

Advents Shown Stitchin’ With Yarn Advent: https://www.stitchinwithyarn.com
Knitty McPurly Advent: https://www.knittymcpurly.com
The Cozy Knitter Advent: https://www.thecozyknitter.com/en-us
Chicken Lady Fiber Arts Advent: https://chickenladyfiberarts.com
Charming Ewe Advent: https://charmingewe.com
Mystery Mouse Advent: https://mysterymouseyarn.com
Cuddlebums Advent: https://www.cuddlebums.co.uk

Shauana's Stitches: https://youtu.be/f1_xIL3d4FM?si=Emw5IBkoEC22kqZ5

During the month of December, I looked at many patterns and found some really great ones, but I had gotten it in my head that I probably wanted to do a slip stitch pattern that would highlight 2 colors at a time. I settled on doing a cowl that was knitted in the round as a tube and then the 2 ends were grafted together to make a continuous loop. I also wanted it to be long enough that I could wrap it around twice with enough fabric that it would hang down a bit on the second loop for some extra warmth.

Once I had opened the last box on Christmas Day, I had to put the yarns in order.

I just laid out all of the mini skeins in a line, alternating greens and blues.  I changed the order quite a few times trying to maintain a good contrast between the yarns and to make a nice flow as the cowl progressed.

When you are trying to check contrast, a good way to really see if there is enough contrast to see both colors is to change your photo to black and white.

You can see in this picture that there was not a good contrast between some of the yarns, so more shuffling of the skeins was required.  Once I got the skeins in order, I came up with a plan to keep them in order.

I used the box that the yarn came in and zip lock bags to organize. I labeled each bag 1-25 and put 1 skein in each bag and loaded them into the box in numerical order. I just pulled the skeins out 2 at a time, knit the section, then put them back in their place. I repeated that until I got to skein 24.  That was 12 16 row repeats of my pattern and I figured that would be a little less than half of my cowl. For this first run through the advent I used between 5 and 6 grams of each color.

Next, I shuffled the colors around and repeated the pattern again. I did not want to use the same color combinations twice, because I knew I needed to add a few extra sections before I grafted the ends together. I didn't want the 2 12 section repeats to be the same. I thought it might be obvious that there were a couple of extra sections that were added. Honestly, with this many colors, I don't think it would be noticeable, but I did shuffled the colors for the 2nd run of 12 sections.
         
 

         

 

I will write up and publish the pattern in the future, but here is what I did.

I used a crochet provisional cast on and size 6 needles (16 in) to cast on 80 stitches. My yarn is DK, but if you have fingering, you could double strand it.  Here is the chart that I used for the 16 round repeat. Each repeat uses 2 colors. You will need to work about 26 repeats of this 16 round chart. The boxes with a vertical line are slip stitches. Repeat the 4 stitches of the chart 20 times around each round.

 

Work in your loose ends as you go, or alternatively, turn the cowl inside out to work in the ends before grafting the ends together. Trust me, it is easier to work them in as you go. Once 26 repeats of the chart are complete, or your desired length, graft the 2 ends together using the Kitchener stitch.

Watch for the more detailed pattern before next advent season!

 

 

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