Woolly Hugs: The Babettes, Billie's Blankets and Little Hugs.

[KnottyLocks]

This is a continuation of our Little Hug and Billie's Blanket projects.

Little Hugs will continue to go to babies and children who are seriously ill in Yorkhill hospital and Billie's blankets will be sent in Billie's name, via the wonderful charity World Child Cancer, to children undergoing treatment for cancer in low and middle income countries.

Our aim with the Babettes is to make some bigger blankets for older children, both for Little Hugs and Billie's Blankets.
We will still make blankets of other sizes too.

THE BABETTES

The idea is to make a 12 x 12 inch panel, either crochet or knit, that can be added to others to create bigger blankets.
The panel can be made as one piece, or as a combination of squares, stripes or patterned. For example, a large granny square, or 4 six inch squares together, or a panel of stripes.
The design is up to you as long as it isn't too holey and will be fine stitched or hooked to others.
If you choose to use separate squares as part of your design, can we ask that they be either stitched together, hooked as you go, or hooked together with the seam on the back.

Yarn for Babettes: Stylecraft Special DK only, so we know that the blankets will wash and wear well and, unless your tension is very tight, use 4mm hooks or needles.

Colours: your choice although for practical reasons, we advise avoiding white and cream.
Some colour combinations that would work: blues/greens, purples/pinks, spring colours, primary brights, rainbow shades.

If you Google 'Babette blankets', you'll get an idea of what we have in mind once the panels are combined.

***

FOR WHOLE BLANKETS - Little Hugs and Billie's Blankets:

Minimum size: 18 x 18 inches for Little Hugs; 24 inches by 24 inches for Billie's Blankets.
If you would like to make a blanket that is bigger, that would be lovely.
The children we send Billie's Blankets to are aged 0 to 14 and Yorkhill treat children of a similar age so we will need bigger blankets too hence our Babettes.

Colours: Your choice.
Although again for practical reasons, we advise avoiding white and cream.

Things to avoid:
Any embellishments that could scratch delicate skin or could be swallowed.

Materials:
Suggested yarn for Billies Blankets: Stylecraft Special DK, a soft, non-scratchy acrylic yarn.
If you would like to make a whole blanket, you could use a different weight and make of acrylic yarn. The essential thing is that it needs to be soft against sensitive and delicate skin and that it can be washed and dried quickly and easily.
For Little Hugs: As above, plus any of our usual Woolly Hugs woolly wool or yarn that is soft and can be machine washed.

We would also love fleece backed quilts, or edged fleece blankets if you prefer sewing.

As always, we also welcome any 6 inch squares made using the Stylecraft Special DK or any of the usual Woolly Hugs blanket wools.

If you would like to take part in this project but feel you can't due to the costs involved, please PM Pistey and we'll try to help with materials.

As ever, thanks for your support.

Knotty and Pistey

Website- www.woollyhugs.com
Facebook ? MNWoollyHugs
Twitter - @MNWoollyHugs

This is a fabulous Little Hug for a child in Yorkhill Children's Hospital, Glasgow, and is beautifully made by the very lovely Ruby, absolutely glorious!! The most enormous thanks,

This gorgeous Billie's Blanket has been beautifully made by our very lovely Ruby. It will go to a child in Myanmar with the fabulous World Child Cancer. Enormous thanks xxx

Drops Merino currently on sale at wool warehouse for £2 a ball. Till the end of the month.

Morning :)

We bought 62 balls for our Woolly Hugs stash!!

And now we are thinking we should have bought more

Woolly Hugs and the Great North Children’s Hospital

Remember lovely Keir and his blanket?

Inspired by him and his fabulous mum, we are absolutely delighted to be announcing that our Little Hug project is expanding!

Our new and additional aim is to support children ( 0-18 years) on the ward at the Great North Children’s Hospital where Keir spends a lot of his time having treatment. It’s Ward 2, which specialises in serious and often life threatening respiratory conditions. There are beds for children who have tracheostomies and require long-term ventilation, and also beds for those requiring a course of treatment.

Imagine how fabulous it would be to spread our woolly love?!

Staff on the ward are so grateful, they love the idea, we had a lovely chat with one of the play specialists yesterday.

We hope you love the idea as much as we do!

Our project with Yorkhill us as important as ever, this is very much in addition, with your amazing support we know we can do it.

Little Hugs for the GNCH will be exactly the same crafting wise as they have been for Yorkhill. All in the OP here. We hope to send collections at the same time.

If you ever make a blanket and specifically wish for it to go to Yorkhill or the Great North, PLEASE LET US KNOW. We are very happy to help with that, not a problem.

Once again lovely crafters, donors and supporters, we could not do this without you. Such s you are.

On behalf go the families, THANK YOU xxx

This beautiful joint Billie's Blanket is for a child in Myanmar.

The most enormous thanks to all who contributed 6 or 12 inch Stylecraft special DK squares and to lovely WoolPixie for putting it together so beautifully

Oliver spent 12 weeks in PICU. We had many dark days in there. When he received this woolly hug it put a smile on our faces knowing that a complete stranger was helping/thinking of our boy. This may sound silly but it gave us hope. Thank you woolly hugs and the person that made this blanket. You truly are a blessing. You helped to brighten up a dull day

Morning

Celebrating the start of #VolunteersWeek with the most enormous, THANK YOU to each and every one of our fabulous Woolly Hugs crew, crafters and donors alike.

What you do is extraordinary, so many children and their families feel love, support, comfort, kindness and compassion through your overwhelming generosity.

Loved and looked after. To all our amazing volunteers who make it all possible THANK YOU!!

I'm afraid the 2 blankets I'm working on (crochet this time) will not be ready for Myanmar, sorry.
but I'll do my best so they can be added to the Malawi lot, for 12th September.

Thanks lovely

Information for our Ongoing Projects

We are delighted to announce the next phase of our Billie's Blanket project will be to Malawi. Thank you again to WCC for transporting the blankets to the children for us.

Last posting for whole blankets for Malawi will be September 12th, and please remember if a whole blanket feels too much, we love to receive 12 inch stylecraft special dk squares to go towards joint blankets. Thank you so much.

Saturday 31st October will be the next last posting date for....

• Angel Hugs
• Little Hugs
• Angel Teds
• and the following collection of Billie's Blankets which will be to Ghana.

Again a huge thank you.

All posting dates are on the website if you need to check www.woollyhugs.com as is all crafting info for these ongoing projects.

We appreciate every single stitch, thank you so much

So beautiful.

This is our collection of Billie's Blankets that will be on their way to World Child Cancer's London office tomorrow, on the first stage of their journey to Myanmar. It's a new destination for Woolly Hugs, and we are so pleased to be sharing our woolly love even further.

Crafters and donors - the most enormous thank you, what s you are.

Always thinking of Billie. x

Our inaugural collection for The Great North Children's Hospital in Newcastle is on the way, with love for the babies, children and their families on Ward 2. Go to work Little Hugs.

THANK YOU so much crafters and donors, we appreciate every stitch and every penny.

A reminder about this new strand of our Little Hug project

Remember lovely Keir and his blanket?

Inspired by him and his fabulous mum, we are absolutely delighted to be announcing that our Little Hug project is expanding!

Our new and additional aim is to support children ( 0-18 years) on the ward at the Great North Children’s Hospital in Newcastle where Keir spends a lot of his time having treatment. It’s Ward 2, which specialises in serious and often life threatening respiratory conditions. There are beds for children who have tracheostomies and require long-term ventilation, and also beds for those requiring a course of treatment.

Imagine how fabulous it would be to spread our woolly love?!

Staff on the ward are so grateful, they love the idea, we had a lovely chat with one of the play specialists yesterday.

We hope you love the idea as much as we do! :)

All welcome to join us at any time. Thank you

Morning

Oh goodness, love in every stitch right there, these photos of some of the beautiful children in Yangon, Myanmar with our latest collection of Billie's Blankets, more pics below.

Thank you so much to the project leader over there for taking them, and for Liz from World Child Cancer for sharing them with us all. We hope the children feel love and comfort from their blankets. xxxx

Sending so much love to the children and their families. xxx

Bless their hearts xx

With the summer holidays looming we're thinking it's wise to ask for a Pause in Posting to us between July 22nd and Sept 1st, as with holidays and trips out etc, neither of us can guarantee there will be anyone able to take woolly treasures in, nor will we necessarily be able to acknowledge safe arrivals and say thank you. And we'd rather treasure stays with you, than gets stranded in the sorting office.

We hope this is OK. Thank you so much everyone.

Morning :) Just catching up

I have just posted a Billies blanket (via My hermes). I forgot to say that it has been washed.

Thanks Purple, and it is here, just gorgeous, so bright and cheery, love it, bless your heart, thank you

They go to World Child Cancer's London office on Wednesday, they then travel to Malawi at the end of next week.

This gorgeous Little Hug will be arriving today at the Royal Children's Hospital, Glasgow (formally Yorkhill) as a special request from Patient services. It goes to a poorly little one stuck in hospital there who is sight impaired so the contrast and shape make it extra perfect. Thank you so much Mhw02 for crocheting it, you, like your blanket are stars.

Good news - the hospital are now ready to receive our Little Hugs again after their big move in the summer. Looking to get the collection underway next week.

This gorgeous Little Hug has been beautifully crocheted for a child in the Great North Children's Hospital in Newcastle by the very lovely BusyBeeHooker, it's just super, thank you so much.