Zombie and Woolly Hugs. ALL very welcome to join us, come and find out about her legacy of Candy’s Hugs.

[KnottyAndPistey]

We knew her time left with us was short, but the news of Zombie’s death on January 30th was still a sad shock, we send so much love to her family and her many, many friends who love and will miss her greatly, we hold our happy memories of her very dear. Bless her.

Just before Christmas, Zombie donated funds to Woolly Hugs and together we hatched a plan to develop an ongoing project with her, which she loved, to make comforting cosy blankets with love in every stitch for women going through treatment for breast and other cancers, and at times these may form part of palliative care.

So glad we could establish Candy's Hugs with her and thanks to you wonderful people achieve her ambition of seeing it all well underway before her death. Her legacy of Candy's Hugs will be one of love and strength, of friendship, learning and developing crafting skills, of creativity, of coming together to show compassion, support and give and receive comfort, Such a beautiful inspirational woman. How lucky we were to know her. X

Raising a glass or two to the fabulous Zombie, we go on together

Anyone seeing this project for the first time, wondering about joining in, make this the day you do! This project is ongoing, and a friendlier more supportive bunch of folk you couldn’t wish to meet. We would love to have you on board, from someone who is keen to learn crochet or knitting to the more experienced, ALL are welcome here. And a lack of funds is no barrier, we have wonderful donors who want to take part and need a crafter, so we can send you yarn, needles and hooks if necessary. It is all about being inclusive and team work.

Our previous threads are the first one here and the second one here..

[[https://www.facebook.com/pg/Woolly-Hugs-349028448480855/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1339798112737212
We are keeping a photo album on our Facebook page.]] All welcome to join us over there too.

Zombie was a bright and beautiful woman so we chose a palette to reflect this which we call Vibrant Riot; it is inspired too by a blanket that was made for her as she went through treatment. She had it with her at the end, we were so glad to know it still gave her love, big woolly hugs and comfort.

If you would like to be involved in any way, we’d love to have you on board. Please post on this thread and PM with your offers: crafting, donating, need wool, etc, we can help you with all of it.

The yarn is Stylecraft Special DK. Just this please for consistency, and in these colours...

Vibrant Riot Palette
Boysenberry
Claret
Empire
Fuchsia
Grass
Kelly green
Lavender
Lime
Lipstick
Magenta
Meadow
Petrol
Plum
Pomegranate
Saffron
Sherbet
Shrimp
Spice
Turquoise
Tomato
Violet

Squares to be 12 inch or 6 inch, crochet or knitted equally welcome, please use 4mm hook or needles. No blocking necessary and please sew in ends, and make sure any colour changes are firmly knotted.

All crafting abilities genuinely welcome, squares made by beginner or expert will be equally cherished. Simple, complex, single colour, mixed colour. It really is the love and thought that counts.

If you would like to learn how to knit or crochet in 2017, let's do it! We have help for the complete beginner here…. And all on this thread are on hand to help talk you through as well. YouTube has lots of tutorials, you WILL find one that suits! :)

If you feel ambitious and would like to make a whole blanket, then that is wonderful, we are aiming for blankets approx 48 inches by 60 inches, certainly no smaller.

Candy’s Hugs will be an ongoing project, our next collection date is March 11th, then April 22nd. Do message for posting info when ready.

We are on Facebook - Woolly Hugs and Twitter too @Woolly_Hugs both are good ways to keep in touch. All welcome over there.

Thank you so much xx

Just checking in to say good evening and marvel at all the beautiful squares up thread - fantastic work all.

I'm now back in the land of day people after my night shifts. Haven't done any more practise crochet as I'm now keen to get going on my actual squares when my wool arrives. I might cave in tomorrow though and try something different, or maybe C2C again after my weird mountain range effort of last time!

Tried crochet for the first time tonight - these are my somewhat dubious efforts (and yes, the one on the right isn't finished).

Question is, how do I look more impressive without going massively out of my depth (only managed these thanks to the Little Tin Bird website). Changing colours in the same square or a more complicated pattern? Or should I focus on getting these right first? I really want to do something pretty....

Morning! Such a glorious place to be here in the Riot!

Half Term here over the next two weeks, so it might be wise to ask for a brief pause in posting, we'd hate for treasures get spend time in the sorting office, looking to restart then towards then end of the month. Thank you! xxx

K&P - do all the many varieties of hugs get sent to the same address?

CoffeeAndCrochet. I have all the Riot colours & nothing forbidden, for either, so I'm just doing multi coloured squares full of hugs, I'm happy for them to go to either Candy Hugs or C2017. I have a new ball of each of the 21 colours, all I need now is more time to crochet. Now that's a sentence I never thought I'd utter

Spiral. Yeah, I was pretty pleased with how it came out given it was my first, but given I spent all day a little while learning how to do the flower on Sunday, I got a bit of practice doing doubles/trebles I'm on the C2017 thread, so looking forward to your latest Marigold popping up on there.

Tamsworth. Honestly, it's not difficult to make socks as it's just knit or purl stitches. Have a look on ravelry, choose 'free' patterns and you can look at the actual patterns there, to see which you prefer. There's some lovely wool around for cosy socks.

LEM 🥃 < Hot Toddy. Hope you're feeling a bit better today.

Red. Thank you again for posting your flower & the link. It was the final shove I needed to give crochet a go. Loving it now, my knitting needles are sobbing in the corner. Where did you order your wool from? Are you in Forrin lands? (Sorry, the addled old brain can't keep track of everyone!)

K&P. The Postie will wonder what the hell is up! He'll probably knock to make sure you're ok!

Diamantegal. I used this tutorial for my square above, it's just a plain Granny Square, nothing special, but it'll give you something else to try.

Granny Square

Hello all, it's great to see your work. I am still plodding away and I am loving the petrol colour I'm using. I'm using my late Gran's needles so she's joining in too which I think she'd have liked .

My cat tried to 'help' last night so my square will have added kitty hugs Anyone else having trouble with pesky pets?!

I think I'm going to have another stab at crochet. I just can't seem to get on with it as it feels so unbalanced, not like having a needle in each hand, but it looks so nice!

I didn't know Zombie had passed away :( She was always one of my favourite posters.

Chipping - I'm feeling a bit guilty about your poor knitting needles now! Mine have been consigned to the bottom of my wool bag since I decided they were completely impossible to work and must therefore be broken!
Glad you've found the flower useful though, I still have my crochet training wheels on but I found that nice and easy to follow.
I'm not in forrin, my wool is donor wool so I'm guessing I'm on a BIG LIST somewhere ready for the next posting

Morning all, I'm back making Candy squares while waiting for more Chernobyl yarn to arrive.

I treated myself to a Clover Amour hook yesterday, good old Amazon Prime same day ensured that it was in my mitts and hooking away just 5 hours after I'd ordered it
It's so lovely to use, I want to collect a full set of them now

Madison, me too! In fact I may have ordered the full set the other day. It's so comfy, isn't it?

I'm still trying to finish off my second square. It's turned into a bit of a mammoth job since I decided to add the border to turn it into a 12" square. I'm up to 10" now, I'm hoping another three rows of the Empire will do the trick.

Then I'm going to try a really pretty Willow Square pattern - I'm bored of double-crocheting now!

Thanks Chipping - think more colour is the way forward, it just looks much more interesting.

Am definitely hooked though - meant to be working from home today and DH rang me earlier to ask me something, and asked how much crocheting I'd done instead of working. I indignantly denied his accusation. However the evidence may suggest he has a point and knows me too well...!

I love that Malcolm - how did you get that effect? It looks very techno ;)

I am off work today too, official day off, I usually use Thursdays to blitz the house, but I'm poorly with a cold (actually its pretty grim) but somehow I am managing to crochet :) Wooly hugs is addictive, I am running out of yarn now and I told myself I would then do some home projects but I love doing the squares so much I am going to buy some more - tis all good experience after all

I have done a willow square Malcolm, I found it really satisfying and might do a couple more with my ends.

Well, LEM, I used the half-treble stripy square tutorial by Bella Coco. However, my finished result doesn't really look like hers! Don't know why, I've checked back and I've definitely been hooking into the right place. Oh well!

I decided to go with Saffron as my base colour and then laid out the other colours to try and get through most of the colour palette in the stripes. Then when I had to do a border, I used Empire because it's one of my favourites and Saffron again. I think it would've looked better if I'd done a first row of border in Saffron before moving onto the Empire, it would edge it better but you live and learn.

I can't work out if I like it or not, but it certainly is BRIGHT!

Amythyst. It's lovely to have your Gran along on the ride 💐 Crochet does feel incredibly unnatural, I'm all fingers & thumbs & I keep grabbing the yarn with my right hand knitting style - but I figure it'll feel more natural in time.

Unfortunately we don't have any pets so no little helpers...but I remember the days of battling with cat v knitting! I eventually trained the foodie cat to sit beside me & leave the wool alone by giving her treats & lots of fuss when she did that. It took a while though.

Spiderlight. Sadly yes, she did, at the end of January. We all miss her 💐

RedGrape. My needles are bamboo & I love them. The old metal ones just scowl at me from the bottom of the bag now. Oops. I have another square in mind for Tunnocks blanket, to add to those ready for posting, so they might get a turn tomorrow.

Please PM K&P. There might have been some mix up, I know they have lots of yarn & it usually goes out really quickly. They won't mind you asking where it might be 😊

Madison. I bought one of those hooks the other day. I wasn't sure about it as my original one is all metal like a knitting needle & when I tried it in the shop the girl looked at me and said 'You're a knitter aren't you. They're lovely to use & no, you don't need more useable length' 😁 So I bought one & I loved it so much I bought another one for out & about (Granny squares I can do without a pattern).

What yarn are you using for C2017? I'm just using the Riot range. I had a look yesterday & nearly got some other blues, but figured I should really try using some of this up first 🤣

Malcom. It looks really good with the boarder though!

Diamantegal. That looks lovely! 🤣😂@ you & DH!

Knitters, could I have some help please? Hopefully my photo has appeared and you can see my square is too big by around half an inch . I need to start again, so please could you suggest how many stitches to cast on? This was 33 so 30 should work out I think? Thank you!

Bob is casting a critical eye over my latest efforts. The 12"squares are for chernobyl but keep coming back to 6" so i think I'll sticj with giving those to candy's hugs.

God i love this project

Bob approves and sends doggy hugs alongside my wooly ones.

I love the effect Malcolm - I am not sure I have the patience!

LEM, I love Bob! I want one.

It really didn't take long at all to do the stripy bit, it's the border that's taking ages!

I could package him up with my wooly hugs, am sure K&P would soon send him on!

Amethyst some of my squares have a little bit of cat hugs on too! He is suspicious that the crocheting is stealing some of his petting time, and keeps walking across my chest between my eyes and my crochet to disrupt me! He's not tried to join in yet though, my old cat couldn't be in the same room as a ball of wool without pouncing on it.

The first photo of mixed colours is the squares that I knitted for Zombie's hug when she was poorly . I loved knitting those vibrant squares.

The next two photos are Fuscia Purple and Boyzenberry for Candy's hugs.
Still got a bit of wool left so will keep knitting .

I'm inspired to give it a go - wool ordered and on the way. I can knit, but nothing complicated, so stripes is about my limit. This is such a lovely project.

Amythst and Norman I too have lots of cuddly cat hugs in my squares too.

I just waiting for some more yarn to arrive and am going to do a square with a cat on it. In homage to my lovely furry friends and I think Candy was a cat lover too. So quite fitting really.
I have been doing a bit of crochet but can only manage granny squares so think will stick with the knitting for now.

I'm hoping to join you! I've never knitted before but my mom is an amazing knitter and she's given me a couple of lessons. I've learnt to cast on and off, knit and purl (admittedly in a slightly haphazard way!), so I'm going to attempt a practice square then buy some of the right wool.