Welcome to our Chernobyl project for 2017

[KnottyAndPistey]

Welcome to our Chernobyl project for 2017!! So glad to have you on board!

For the last three years we have been making warm, comforting Little Hugs for Belarusian teenagers and children visiting the UK for recuperative holidays during the summer with the fabulous charity the Chernobyl Children's Project and Chernobyl Children’s Lifeline. Photos from the Leeds group can be seen here.. and our finished blankets from last year here…

Each year these marvellous charities bring children who live in the most contaminated area near the Chernobyl reactor over to the UK. In summer, when the dust causes radiation levels to rise, it becomes even more important for as many children as possible to leave their contaminated homeland for a few weeks of fresh air and clean food. The rates of childhood cancer are very high, the most common cancers being thyroid and leukemia. Coming to the UK for a four week break increases their immunity against the awful disease by up to 3 years when they return home. Often these children are in remission. Sadly though there is a high chance of these children falling ill again. They all suffer living in such difficult conditions and with very little.

Last year 36 children, teens and their interpreters went home with a beautiful Woolly Hug. This year we are keen to help even more groups, so Liverpool, Gloucester/Leeds (same Leeds group but this year spending 2 weeks at each location) Portsmouth and Helpston,Northampton.

That is about 70+ blankets!!

With your help we know we can do this

Please do join us, here’s how..

Crafting Information

• We would like 12" squares in bright and cheery Stylecraft Special DK colours.
• PLEASE AVOID USING black, bright green, bright pink, browns, greys, citron, sunshine, fiesta, jaffa and any pale pastels, white or cream for practical reasons. This will help squares fit together more easily.
• Make squares in a neutral colour theme, or more specifically for a boy or girl. As much as we don’t like to think of colour as being gender specific, these children may.
• We will be happy to accept 6" squares if making a 12" one feels too much.
• Crochet or knitted, 4mm hook or needles. Single colour, mixed colour, simple, complex. No blocking and please sew in pesky ends.
• If needed, we can supply yarn. Let us know if we can send to you.
• Posting of squares please to the South Coast address, PM if you need it.

If you think you’d like to make a whole blanket that is WONDERFUL, but please contact us first. We will be asking for gender neutral blankets which are 48 inches by 60m, but would just like to chat to you first, thank you!

Supporting with funds
If anyone would like to donate funds to support this, we would be so grateful. Please PM us for the donation info. Thank you xx

Can anyone help with extras?
There are a few extras which we will be collecting too alongside squares, items which really help, if you would like to add in any of these we would love to receive them for the children, thank you, bless you.

Underwear aged 10 plus. New only

• Adult size socks (one size fits all) new
• Toothbrushes, single packed please
• Hairbrushes
• Toiletries, toothpaste, shower gel, shampoo etc, but not bars of soap please.
• Sanitary Towels
• Plasters
• Vitamins, please check suitable for 10 years+
• Any little luxuries that teens might love, eg hair clips, make up bits, stickers etc.

If you would like to add 50p in when you post squares for ice creams that would be so kind, we will split any money we receive between the groups.

Last posting of squares (plus whole blankets) and any extras is Saturday 8th April

No later please as we have to get on and sort at the end of that following week. Thank you. The rush will be on as the first group, Portsmouth arrive in May.

What a big ask! Good grief!

But the fabulous Woolly Hug crew never fail to amaze, last year was an astonishing team effort, as the photo shows, we know that together we can do this.

On behalf of these children and their families, a huge THANK YOU.
Actually, thank you doesn't really come close.

Us xxx

• Photo is the collection from last year that went to the Portsmouth group.

It is a lovely thing, what a good idea to do the shoebox, and don't forget the 50p for the icecreams I think that is just lovely. I hope they get to queue for the icecreams at the ice cream van. I have many happy memories of the icecream man coming down the road, the little bit of angst that you might not get your money in time and you might have to chase it, usually barefoot down the road, only to dither between a 99 or a screwball with the bubblegum at the bottom

I have always accepted that figure at face value, but I think it's fair enough to ask for clarification.

User if you were asking a genuine question and were told to ask on this thread rather than a separate one then I apologise - I believed the previous thread had been deleted as it was felt your intentions weren't genuine, and I felt that even if your intentions were honourable it was a little unwise to repost your question here when the previous thread had become so heated. It just came across that you were stirring, which is why I felt the need to report. If I was mistaken in your intentions I wholeheartedly apologise. The last thing I would wish to do is to make Woolly Hugs look bad or sneaky or deceitful.

I believe the statistics did come from the Chernobyl Children's Project; I am sure I did previously read those statistics on their website, though I can't find them now. Perhaps they have been removed as the figures are difficult to be certain about or quantify, I don't know.

What I do know is that the children who come over for these holidays have been ill, and are at risk of falling ill again, that many of them come from grinding poverty and that the holidays to the UK benefit these children greatly. Even if the statistics are mistaken I would still be contributing to this project. It costs me about £20 to make a blanket for these children - that's very little to me, but it means a lot to these children and their families.

Morning ladies.

Thought I'd check in to make sure that this thread is getting back on track with it's main purpose of spreading support and love amongst everyone involved with supporting those less fortunate than ourselves.

I posted last night that I was tackling a bow design - well here it is.

The book said it would be a 6" square. Unfortunately its approx 7" x 6.5" (if I had done the extra 2 rows at the top it would have been a 7" square!!).

I assume my tension is too slack yet it didn't feel especially loose when I was making it.

Will it be acceptable for the project??

It's quite disappointing when you tackle a new project and you end up with the wrong size .

Fairyfellow I have been a hooker-together-of-blanket-squares before, and trust me, the squares tend to vary quite a bit in size and tension; yours will be fine! It's a very lovely square too!

That is AMAZING!! I am just in the middle of a square from the same book, I saw that one and thought it was waaaay beyond my skill level. I love it! I don't know what sizes the squares are meant to be in the book, does it say? I know that when I started the square I am on the required amount of stitches took me too a ridiculous size, so I used a 3.5mm needle but still had to reduce the size to fit it to 6" and I can't promise it hasn't grown a little in girth . I am sure the wonderful construction crew will be able to incorporate your square, they do appear to work miracles.

Yes, if one child goes into remission for one month and has a nice time for a few weeks with the odd 99 with sauce then goes home with some new pants and a beautiful blanket as a memento then A Good Thing has happened and I'm proud to be a tiny part of that. The 75% statistic isn't needed to prove what an important project this is.

I used to look after the son of the UK ambassador to Belarus. The son stayed in the UK while his father had the Belarus posting (his siblings and grandparents were here) because it was simply not considered safe for him to live there full time. Mother went grocery shopping with a Geiger counter and they frequently had to change plans - including travel plans home - because their personal radiation levels were too high.

Bearing in mind I'm too young to remember Chernobyl, and I was an adult before I met the family, it was made plain to me that the shadow of Chernobyl will be measured in decades if not centuries, and that "children of children unborn" will be affected.

It's a lovely pattern. Maybe try hooking on a 3.5mm next time you do it My knitting club are always telling me to go up/down a size for tension issues - swapping down when I ch for example as my ch are so much looser than my other stitches

LEM It does say on page 12 that all squares should be 6". It probably says more interesting and helpful things in the intro pages but I get too bloody excited and skip over them haven't read them fully yet.

Mhw - thank you, I'll add it to my pile to send in.

This is today's project.

Fairy that's lovely.
I frogged a lot when I started doing squares, but I've got better at judging it now, and probably my tension is more consistent.

MrsH - that's a good idea about a 3.5" hook.

I'll do today's project on my trusty 4"er and, if that's a bit on the big size, I'll swap to 3.5" for projects in this book.

I must be a really loose hooker

Quick question for any hookers out there.

If I'm making a square (one in rows not done in the round) I chain x number of stitches to start my block off. I then start to work back on myself doing a double or treble in each of the chain spaces - which of the 2 rows that I've just done is my foundation row??

I thought the initial row of chain stitches was my foundation row but now I'm not too sure!!

Also which is row 1, 2 etc?? Does the foundation row count as a number or do you count foundation, row 1, row 2 etc .

I've crocheted for 2 years but always following youtube tutorials - following written patterns and grids is a whole new ball game!!!

Ohhhh I missed something!

I THINK the first row you do (the one after the initial chain) is the foundation row and that row 1 is the one after that. Looking at my pattern, the foundation row ends up being the "wrong side" and row one being the "right side"

I don't know about anyone else, but do you find that doing the foundation row is a right royal pain in the bum?

Fairy you will have a foundation chain and then row 1 is the first row of dc or trebles or whatever.

I don't make a foundation chain because it is a pain in the bum.

I've learnt to make the foundation chain and row 1 at the same time. There are lots of tutorials online for this.

KNotty I have PM'd you

LEM to return to the important question, "Bright Green" is a shade in the Stylecraft palette and cannot be used in Chernobyl squares, and is not in the Candy list either. But if you used a green Candy shade that happens to be bright and green that is fine.
It took me a while to figure out!

Ahhh, my shades are Kelly green, grass green and meadow so that they will be ok. How come Bright green isn't ok though? just wondering.