8th Blogaversary on the 8th

It's my 8th Blogaversary today!  Where has the time gone?

That's me when I was 8.  Once again you can just see my little brother to my right wearing pink and green.  That was a very fetching mustard and green knitted tanktop,  My little sister was at the other end wearing a brown/orange toned dress with a blue ribbon trim.  In the 1970s it was All The Colours For All The Children.  None of this pink/blue nonsense we have now.

We'd had a fairly stable homelife that year.  I moved into the Juniors at School and Mrs Butler's class.  I actually saw her earlier this year and recognised her so it was nice to let her know what an influence she had been.  I read my first Charles Dicken's story in her class - A Christmas Carol.

How has the blog done over the past year?   Readership has held steady, my pageviews have increased but comments have decreased.  I suspect that this is connected to the way people read blogs now.  It's much harder to comment using a mobile device.  If you are a regular silent follower, why not make this post your first comment?  It would be amazing to push those comments to 20,000 by this time next year!

Here are my blog stats:

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8 years

865 posts

645 followers

17,952 comments

1,000,909 pageviews

WOW

Yes, I burst through the 1,000,000 mark this week!

I'd also like to wish my Blog-Twins Susan and Calamity Jr a very Happy Birthday too!

What have I been working on recently?  I had a quick look back at last year's Blogaversary post and all the pieces there have been finished which is encouraging.

So far this month I have worked on my Hallowe'en and Christmas pieces.  The Christmas piece is very close to a finish but here's a photo when I had just started:

This is a Dragon Dreams design and the fabric is actually Reed Green not grey.

I added some bats to my spooky conversion of The Enchanted Alphabet by Lavender & Lace.  They were a freebie found at this blog - Brigitte Dadaux

I took this little Just Nan Butterfly Lace along to my Crafty Coffee Morning last week and got the purple finished and all this white border too:

stitched on 32 count lavender linen

Having worked on my Christmas and Hallowe'en pieces for 3 days each, this is where I would usually pick up my Chatelaine but I decided to do something different this month and work on another of my "19 in '19" choices. As we are close to Easter I chose Gathering Eggs by Nora Corbett.   The first picture is with my TUSAL jar so I can link up with Daffycat for this month.

I worked hard on her hair and face for two days.  The frog had attacked her last year so it was nice to get this part finished.  Lots of different colours and blended threads too.

stitched on 35 count Vintage Country Mocha

Hasn't she got a sweet face?

Last year I asked you all what was your favourite blogging or stitching moment of the last year so it seems like a good idea to revisit that question this year.  Leave a comment and let me know.

A new blogging year also seems like a good opportunity to launch a new blog.  I've been showing my painted rocks recently and everyone seems to enjoy seeing them so I thought I would start a specific rock blog -  Serendipity Rocks UK.  It's still a work in progress, I'll be adding posts over the next two weeks so make sure you follow using a Reader so you see them all, or just pop back from time to time.  I decided on a blog rather than Instagram or Facebook because I can add Labels to the posts and find specific themes if I want to.


Finally, I will be hosting my Annual Easter Treasure Hunt on Good Friday the 19th April. If you would like to take part this year, just leave a comment here. The week before Easter I will send you a letter of the alphabet which will form part of the mystery phrase. On Good Friday you will post that letter along with a photo of something seasonal that you have stitched (could be Easter or Spring or just something cheerful and sunny or floral). We all hop around like little bunnies to find the Mystery Phrase!