Moogly CAL 2015

As I told you all a few posts ago, I'm joining in with the Moogly CAL this year, making 24 afghan squares to turn into a blanket for my bed! I'm also working my way through the 2014 CAL motifs (which completely passed me by last years) to make it an enormous blanket!

This week saw the announcement of the first motif! Yay! 

Tamara's Kismet Square by Jessie at Home is beautiful! I just love all the tall stitches looped through each other to give texture and interest to the square. I found the pattern really well written although tricky to follow on my iPad as there are a lot of repeats to keep track of. It would have been easier to print it out then I could have written and highlighted all over it but I was far too impatient to get started.

So here is my completed first square.

Links

Moogly CAL 2015 - http://www.mooglyblog.com/2015-moogly-afghan-crochet-along/

Tamara's Kismet Square - http://jessieathome.com/2014/12/tamaras-kismet-square.html

WIP Wednesday - Knitting!

Since Christmas, I've been enjoying making things for me. I'm trying to improve my knitting skills at the moment and found a pattern for a pretty drop stitch scarf (see pattern link below)

I'm mastering the yarn over and how to drop stitches. I'm knitting it in King Cole a Riot Raphsody which has lovely bright shades of red, blue, purple and pink - I'm enjoying waiting for the next colour to come along.  It's knitting up quite quickly so I'm hopeful it will be off the needles in the not to distant future. 

Tonight, I managed to knit a few rows on it at enrolment for my beginners crochet adult education class.

Link to the knitting pattern - http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/drop-stitch-scarf-2

Link to a similar crochet pattern - http://www.twistyarnshop.com/patterns/NancysWavesScarf.pdf

Well hello 2015

Happy New Year!

I saw in the New Year watching Father Ted (I had been watching Gosford Park!), in my PJs crocheting. It was only the fireworks going off that alerted me to the fact it was midnight!

Although I'm not a big fan of New Year, I do like to take the opportunity to see it as a new start. A chance to think about the year ahead and set myself a few goals.

Last year, I said that I wasn't going to buy any craft supplies unless I needed them for my course or my business. I can firmly say that I failed epically in that department! My yarn stash is bigger than ever. Oops. 

I've set myself 3 goals for 2015.

1) To follow a vegan diet

I won't go into the big details here about my reasons for a vegan diet but I've decided that, starting today, there will be no dairy, eggs, honey or utter animal products in my diet. I've been a strict vegetarian for around 13 years now and I've already cut dairy out of my diet as I'm intolerant to it so eggs (and cake!) are the big challenge now. 

2) Journal 52

Last year I started the art journaling challenge, Journal 52. Sadly, life got too busy and I just didn't get round to making my pages. I love art journaling but haven't been making time for it so this year is the year I do! I've allocated a day, Wednesday's, so I can look forward to it each week. Keep an eye out for my posts!

3) And finally, the stash

I looked through my yarn stash the other day and came to the conclusion that I had a lot of yarn and I couldn't get rid of any of it. I'm not saying that I can't buy anything (look where that got me last year) so I'm going to make an effort to liberate what is in there! 

Have you set yourself any goals for 2015? If so, I'd love to hear about them!