After 2020, we had high hopes for 2021. In a lot of ways, unfortunately, it didn't live up to our expectations. But through it all, Ravelers kept on making beautiful creations! This year our Ravelry community:

• published more tha 82,000 patterns, helping the Ravelry database grow past 1.1 million patterns
• finished over 1.2 million projects: 1,000,000 knitting, 192,000 crochet, 7,000 weaving, 6,000 machine knitting, 1,000 loom knitting, and 14,000 spinning projects.
• used at least 440 million yards / 400 million meters of yarn
• added over 31.7 million patterns and 3 million projects to your favorites
• spun over 1200 kilograms of fiber
• added over 9 million photos throughout pattern, yarn, project, and stash pages
• kept our Hot Right Now area busy! 6,230 different patterns were featured in the Hot Right Now top 20. 4,135 designers appeared in the debut patterns spotlight. You can find both of these lists on the Patterns page.

Last year, we posted the number of projects countries had completed per capita and it sparked a little friendly competition between countries who wanted to move up in the rankings. Here's our Top 5 2021 countries based on projects per capita:

🇮🇸 Iceland: 744 projects per 100,000 people
🇳🇴 Norway: 601 projects per 100,000 people
🇫🇮 Finland: 544 projects per 100,000 people
🇨🇦 Canada: 302 projects per 100,000 people
🇸🇪 Sweden: 285 projects per 100,000 people

While Iceland, Norway, and Finland remained our top three in that order, Finland moved much closer to Norway. Last year they were separated by 167 projects and this year only 67 projects separated them!

Your creativity has kept us inspired throughout 2021 and we are very much looking forward to seeing what you will make in 2022. If you'd like to set a goal for how many projects you'd like to create, check out our Project Challenge! It allows you to set your goal and make a plan for 2022 using your queue. You can find out how it works in this blog post.

We know the year hasn't quite started on a hopeful note with high Covid rates in many parts of the world, but your creations bring joy both to those around you and to those of us who get the pleasure of seeing them on Ravelry. Here's to more creativity and joy flying off the needles and hooks in 2022!