Well, yesterday was the last day for both of my countdown to Halloween mini-skein sets!

Two Halloween miniskein sets? Yes. It was semi- inadvertent. It’s a long story involving a misconception on my part and also yarn shopping while drinking a gin and tonic.

Anyway. The first set consists of 31 mini-skeins with colorways based on Nightmare Before Christmas, dyed by Courtney Soto of msmonstercreations on Etsy.

Here they are, in the order I opened them in. This isn’t the order I plan to knit them in though. There are definitely some color groups going on, and I plan to do some rearranging before I use them. There is quite a bit of yarn there – 31 10 gram skeins, so a little over 3 full size skeins worth. What will I make with them? I don’t know, but think I may design something specifically for them. That’s going to take some thought. All in all, very happy with this set of minis!

The second set is Unlucky 13 – 12 larger mini skeins and a full skein on Halloween. This was dyed by Stitch Together Studios. It also came with a black Unlucky 13 tote bag and a button, which you can see off to the side.

These miniskein colors are inspired by various horror movies. I have done a little rearranging with these skeins and there are a couple of groups of miniskeins that work together. I don’t think all of it will work together as a whole. So it will likely wind up being a couple of different smaller projects. But that is OK, because like with the first set, this is just a ton of yarn. 12 miniskeins of 20 grams each plus a full 100 gram skein. So again, a bit over three regular skeins worth of yarn.

It has been neat seeing the different aesthetics the dyers brought to these miniskein sets. Two very different concepts and different aspects of Halloween for sure. A couple years ago when I did the Christmas advent wrap knitalong with Ambah O’Brien, it was neat seeing this same kind of thing unfold on the forums for the KAL. Lots of different dyers had made yarn sets for the KAL, and there was so much variety!

It was a little sad this morning, having no little package to open. I’m not doing a Christmas advent this year, but for a minute this morning I thought about it. And also maybe a Thanksgiving advent, if there were such a thing. But on the whole, it’s probably better if this is a one-time-a-year thing. Speaking of which, I just ordered next year’s!

Do you do advents or countdowns of any kind? If so, do you do them for Christmas, or some other event or holiday?