40 inches in 40 days

Starting on Ash Wednesday (February 17) there will be a daily knitting meditation posted here every day during Lent except for Sundays.
Lent is a perfect time to start or renew a spiritual discipline. How often have we thought about spending more time in prayer or trying to figure out how to deepen our relationship with God? Dedicating time for prayer every day is difficult. When we pair knitting with praying, we may have a better chance of developing the habit and sticking with it. But how to start? The idea is to commit to something that involves knitting and praying for 40 days. You can commit to sitting and knitting for five minutes a day or knitting an inch a day or whatever commitment makes sense for you.
You can make anything you want. Just like there is no one way to pray, there is not one right way to knit, or just one thing to make.
However, if you are looking for suggestions, then consider making a infinity scarf. A possible Lenten Knit Along project is a 40-inch infinity scarf. The idea is to knit one inch a day for forty days while praying and reflecting on the meditation for the day. There will be a daily meditation on this blog every day except Sunday during Lent.
What needs to be done now to be ready by Ash Wednesday.
- Choose a yarn. Any yarn will do. Usually, I would suggest you look in your stash but this year, because of Covid, I am going to buy yarn in order to support my local yarn store.
- Choose the size needles that is recommended for your yarn. This can be found on the ball band or just experiment until the knitted fabric is what you want.
- Cast on twelve to twenty-four stitches, knit at least twelve rows and check your gauge. You want to know two things: how many stitches per inch and how many rows per inch. Since the goal is to knit one inch per day, you may want to pick a yarn that is a worsted weight to bulky weight.
Example:
You could use size 8 needles and cast on 48 stitches (there are a lot of stitch patterns that use a multiple of 8 stitches). After knitting the gauge, you discover 4 rows a day equals one inch of length. This seems doable. After you knit the forty inches using any stitch pattern you want, you could join the two ends together for a wrap-around scarf that will be 40 inches long by 12 inches wide.
Or
Pick any project that you want to use for your spiritual knitting time.