The 2014 Afghanpalooza

Even though I swore off crocheting afghans many years ago (so much time! so much money to buy the yarn! so much boredom with doing the same pattern over such a large area!), I managed to crochet not one... not two... but THREE afghans in 2014!  Well, two and 9/10ths, anyway.  I finished up the last bit of the third afghan just yesterday, but it's barely 2015, so I think that counts.

The first afghan I finished in 2014 was the last one that I started....  Even though I had been working on the Moogly Crochet-a-long all year, I couldn't resist jumping into one more CAL in November.  One of my favorite crochet pattern designers (whom I had discovered through the Moogly CAL), Margaret MacInnis, hosted a mystery CAL for her new afghan pattern.  A mystery CAL is fun because you buy your yarn based on some hints provided by the designer, and then you crochet bits and pieces of the project without knowing until the very end what it's going to look like!  You definitely have to place a lot of trust in the designer.  I think this "Maggie Muggins Mystery CAL Afghan 2014" turned out great!!  I made it for Niki & Corey, so I let them choose the colors (didn't they do a great job?).

I helped test the pattern for Ms. MacInnis, and it was so much fun talking with the other crocheters on Ravelry as the mystery CAL unfolded.  Right before I finished the last couple of rounds of the border, I caught Margie Cat lounging on the afghan (which is more of a "lapghan" size)....

My other two afghans were the result of the amazingly fun Moogly CAL 2014.  I was having such a great time crocheting the 12" blocks that I kept doing "extra-curricular" blocks in addition to the official CAL ones.  By August, it was clear that I was going to have too many blocks for one afghan, so I decided to make two: one for Andrew and me, and one for my sister- and brother-in-law.  Without further ado, here are the finished products!

Ali & Daniel received this afghan for Christmas:

Andrew and I kept this bad boy for ourselves:

Apologies for the poor quality of the pictures....  Due to their sheer size (around 6.5' x 4.5'), it is incredibly difficult to get good pictures of afghans!

Spread out over one year, crocheting my two Moogly CAL 2014 afghans didn't seem to take horribly long or cost too much, but when I crunch the numbers....

- Crocheting one 12" block: 2-4 hours (let's say an average of 3 hours)
- Joining the blocks using the flat braid join: 2 hours to join 6 blocks
- Working one round of border (each afghan had three rounds of border): 2 hours

During 2014 (and the first 2 weeks of 2015), I spent 172 hours on these two afghans.  ONE HUNDRED SEVENTY-TWO HOURS.  Whoa.  That's 86 hours per afghan.

Each afghan took about 6 one-pound skeins of Caron One Pound acrylic yarn at about $7 per skein.  Most of the patterns were free, but I splurged and spent about $6 on patterns for each afghan.  So, I spent a total of $96, or $48 per afghan.

Would I do another CAL?  Most definitely!!  But I need to take a break and finish some baby gifts, commissions, and some other items.  Plus, I'm trying to learn how to knit!  I know, I know, flying pigs are being spotted everywhere.....  I'm not sure if I'd do another "sampler"-style afghan where every single block is a different design.  It's fun not crocheting the same design over and over, but even when you use the same colors in each block, it's still not very cohesive.  I think I like the look of Niki & Corey's MMMCAL afghan slightly better than the Moogly CAL afghans.  But I still love all of my afghan babies!  And let me tell you, the huge Moogly CAL afghans are SO WARM.

Hurray for afghans!