At Last!

I know I have been promising to show you my Moogly Blanket for ages but for one reason or another I haven't been able to so here it is at last!..

I finished it in quite a hurry just before Christmas, I didn't really have time to consider how I was going to join it or what edging to use.

Putting a large blanket together does have it's challenges, I placed all the squares on the bed, stood on a stool so that I could get a bird's eye view then kept switching them around until I got the layout I was happy with.

I then sewed them in strips on the wrong side, sewed the strips together, then joined them again in dc/sc on the front. if I'd had time I would have made a cream border round each of the squares before joining but I was in a hurry to get it finished in time to gift to my daughter for Christmas. I'm pleased to say that she really loved it, it's such an interesting blanket with all the different designs and textures.  

I kept the edging very simple because of the complexity of the squares and because of the lack of time and I think it worked very well, One round of dc(sc), two rounds of htr(hdc) and a final round of crab stitch which is my favourite stitch for edging. 

I made this blanket purely out of stash yarn so I managed to bust quite a lot of my Aran stash in fact the last squares were quite a challenge because I had to go with the colours I had left.  Unfortunately I didn't have time to weigh it so I'm not sure exactly how much yarn it took.

All of the blocks I used for the blanket can be found here.

Information about the Moogly 2015 Afghan CAL can be found here.

The 2016 Moogly Afghan CAL begins on Thursday 7th January more information here, will you be taking part? I haven't decided :) 

Linking with ..

Jennifer's Winter Project Link Party

Rhondda's  Link and Share Wednesday

Lunamon Design

Hookin On Hump Day

More about the Follower thing and a little ramble.

Well I must say that's a bit of a relief thank you for putting my mind at rest, it's good to know that I wasn't the only one to lose nearly a dozen followers overnight.   Blogger should warn us about this I think, anyway in light of all your comments I have reinstated the follower thingy but It's at the bottom of my blog where I can't see it and worry when I see someone has flown the nest as it were.

As for my follower numbers you must realise that I have been blogging since the end of 2011 and for the first year I had practically none.  Some blogs seem to be a hit overnight whereas for others it's a long slow process.   Having said that the number of followers you have is not a good indication of whether your blog is popular, I follow many blogs who's follower numbers are quite small but the comments they receive are many.  Surely that is a better way of knowing just how popular your blog is if people leave a comment you know that they are interested and will want to come back again. 

Then again sometimes you receive no comments but if you look at your stats you can see that people have been and read your post but probably just haven't had the time to leave a comment or perhaps they are just lurkers who just like to browse. 

I have noticed that many bloggers seem to have disappeared over the past year or so and that saddens me because I used to love to visit and see what they were up to, however there are always new blogs to explore when time allows, that is the main factor don't you think there is never enough of it.

Anyway I have found that many of the disappearing bloggers can be found on instagram probably because using instagram is a quicker way of doing things it's like a mini blog thing, take a photo add a little caption and that's it.  I have been a member of instagram for quite a while but I keep forgetting about it maybe I will try and be more proactive this year I'm lindasolaiman on there if anyone wants to follow. Do you use it and what do you think?

I have decided to continue with the stash-link party and thank you to all of you who want to join in with the stash-busting.  I'm going to take Preeti's idea and make it a fortnightly party and it will be launched on the second and fourth Sunday of each month so the next one will be this coming Sunday, I hope you will join in.

 I'm hoping to show you pictures of my Moogly blanket soon if I can find any decent ones it's been so dull and I had to take them in a hurry.

Speaking of picture's do you like the one I have for my header, this was taken locally by my brother who is a fantastic photographer he makes even the dullest landscape look spectacular.

Have a great week. :) 

Something Different ?

Happy New year to all you lovely people, I hope that 2016 is the best year ever for you.

I don't make New Year's resolutions for the simple reason I never follow them through, but I do reflect back and think about how I can make the next year better.  That includes my blog and every other aspect of my life.

This past year hasn't been a great one blog wise for the simple reason I haven't had as much time to devote to it because of ill health.  I have also been disillusioned by the number of followers that have decided to stop following, in fact a couple of weeks ago I saw the count go down from 680 to 669  in one day!.  It made me read over my last post very carefully to see if I had said something to offend but there was nothing in that post or any other that I could see would cause offence.  It shouldn't bother me but to be honest it did.

That lead me to remove my followers gadget if people want to follow they can still do so by using bloglovin or by email.

I then had to decide where this blog was going, I started blogging to keep a record of the number of charity makes I had done and when I found that people were interested and actually read what I'd written I expanded the information to include pattern sources and any helpful information.

Then came the stashbusting success, everyone has stash  and usually far too much. Stash busting for Stashaholics was introduced to encourage you all to think carefully before buying yarn and to bust some of the stash in your possession so that it didn't reach mammoth proportions.

So many of you have linked up your stash busting creations to the stash link parties inspiring fellow Stashaholics with idea's of how to use up some of their own stash and remember stash can take on many forms it's not just yarn it can be embroidery floss, material or anything you have in excess to feed your hobby.

The best results by far have been for those who have taken the trouble to weigh in every month so that I can keep a record of how much they have busted throughout the year. Look at these totals...

SSPat
2013..... 11604 grams
2014.....11818 grams
2015.....11851 grams 
That = 552.73 balls/skeins of yarn! 

Pat A
2013... 33650
2014...42644
2015...51424
That = 1277.18 balls/skeins of yarn!!

I think that is amazing, my totals are no where near that, but by weighing in you can see how much you have used and don't feel too guilty about buying more because you know that it will be used eventually. You can see more totals here.

The beauty about knitting/crocheting/sewing for charity is that usually you can make whatever your heart desires because a home can almost always invariably be found for your makes, so it goes arm in arm with stashbusting you need a fair amount of stash to keep up with your workload.

I have been asked  by many of you and some of the ladies from Loving Hands to continue with the stash-busting theme and I'm happy to do that by providing stashbusting idea's and keeping a record of your monthly stash-busting totals if you would like me too.

As for the stash link party I'm undecided, I think rather than have a monthly party it may turn into a weekly one called Stashbusting Sunday, I'm still toying with the idea please tell me what you think.

So really this post is to determine how much interest there is and find out who would like to join me for another year of stash busting....

this years stash-busters so far...

SSPat
Barbara P
Pat A
Barbara
Janet
Libby
Jacqui
Meganv
Flutemouse
Sheri
mrsmp