Stashbusting Blanket

This year, one of my goals is to reduce the size of my yarn stash, and blankets are my favorite thing to crochet, so when I came across this Neat Ripple pattern I had to make it!

Here's the blanket, in progress:

 Adding the border:

And the finished blanket:

It's an easy, fast pattern and I enjoyed making it.  I followed Lucy's advice for straightening out the ripple on the edges and adding a border -- I think it came out great! And it made a dent (okay, a small dent) in my yarn stash, so I'm very pleased. :) 

Remember Me?

Hello there!

If you're reading this, you are indeed a faithful follower... or perhaps you just stumbled upon my woefully neglected blog.

In a nutshell, 2013 was a difficult year and I'm glad it's over! While there were some great things that happened last year, there were also some difficult and sad times... so let's move right into 2014 and leave 2013 behind!

I'm sending you a belated Valentine, and hope that you had a wonderful Valentine's Day!

The pattern for the Granny Sweet Heart can be found here:

http://yarnpumpkin.blogspot.com/2014/01/granny-sweet-heart-pattern.html

It's a wonderful pattern! Thank you, Nancy!

HAP Games, Final Results

I'll start out by asking... what happened to August?
It seems like just last week it was July and the HAP Games were starting! Now the Games have been over for a couple of weeks so I guess it's time to post our results... at least before I turn around and it's 2013!

The grand totals for all of the work done within the 17 days are:

• 27 assembled afghans
• 619 rectangles made
• plus lots of tasks done for HAP in the "Freestyle" Event

We also had an Event called the Mile of Yarn Marathon and the stats for that event alone are:

• 560 rectangles made, with 8 participants using at least a full mile of yarn!
  (1760 yards = 1 mile)
• In yardage, we used approximately 25,052 yards, which is 14.2 miles -- amazing!! We "ran" more than a half-marathon!!

 I assembled one blanket. First, I joined the columns.

After the columns, I joined the rows.

The finished blanket!

I also made 54 rectangles, using 2150 yds. of yarn.

Way to go, HAP Volunteers!

And thank you to everybody who gave us their support!!

HAP Games, Day One

Today is Day One of a personal challenge project that I've coordinated for my favorite charity HAP. It'll be fun and will benefit HAP!

The HAP Games will last for the duration of the Summer London Games, but is in no way affiliated with those other games... after the US Olympic Committee sent an unpleasant letter to Ravelry about their Olympic-style events, I feel compelled to make. that. clear!

I'm ready!! And here are my supplies:

The rectangles at the top will be assembled into a HAP blanket and the bottom row of yarn, specifically 1,760 yards of yarn (which equals one mile) will be made into rectangles for other HAP blankets!

And it's all to thank those wounded in service to our country!
GO, HAP, GO!!!

Happy Independence Day!

May the sun in his course visit no land more free, more happy, more lovely, than this our own country!  ~ Daniel Webster


Just by coincidence, I recently received this red, white and blue rectangle set to assemble. The rectangles were made by HAP volunteers all over the USA. The blanket was designed by more volunteers, and I volunteered to assemble it! 

It's large enough to cover a hospital bed and is HAP's way to say Thank You to a wounded warrior. Thought I'd share this patriotic blanket today, on the Fourth of July!

Happy Independence Day!

Headache woes...

I get headaches on occasion... and what works best for me is Excedrin. One or two tablets and I'm all better! Works great for DH's aches and pains, too.

Well, the big bottle that I bought a while back from Costco was empty so I went to Target to buy a small bottle and there was no Excedrin in sight -- turns out that it was recalled back in January 2012 and is still off the market! So I bought a generic brand and the next time I had a headache I tried it -- it didn't work. Oh, no! This morning I checked eBay, and here is just a portion of one page (out of 4 pages) of completed listings for "Excedrin":

Holy cow!! And these packets started with an opening bid of 99-cents!
People are also selling (and buying) the generic versions of Excedrin -- I had no idea... but there's no way I'm going to pay that much for the real thing... what to do, what to do?

I decided to check our travel bag with the little packets of shampoo, toothpaste, etc. and yay! I found a 24-count bottle of Excedrin! I feel better knowing that headache relief is still available, at least until I run out!

Scrappy Afghan for Baby

I love to crochet afghans.

And I love scrappy projects -- I love to combine different colors and use up the odds and ends from other projects.

Every once in a while, I get to crochet a baby afghan, and they're really fun! They're fast to make and this one is colorful:

It was made to welcome my new grand-niece.

I did buy the light pink yarn, but everything else was from my scrap stash. 

I plan to make a throw using this same pattern, also using scrap yarn. I really like the granny square in the middle -- so cute!