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

Am loving the willow pattern in blues - we may be up to our ears in crochet

Italian cross in green only i did popcorn instread of puff by accident

Oooh LEM, those are lovely! I like that darker green, too, what colour is that?

Is there a scarlet in Candy's colours, and if so, which is it?

DropZone ( good name, my bro was a sky dive instructor at one point!), thank you!

I taught myself to crochet from a great little book about 45 years ago. I haven't knitted or crocheted for nearly 20 years, as ms messed up my hands\arms, but they've recovered quite well now and I'm so happy I can do it again! I'll be back on the old violin next

POP. C25K - I'm impressed. Very impressed. I'm struggling with SofaToBathroom 😂

Bookbook. Have you acclimatised yet? It's not nice is it!

SevenTillFour. Love your Niece's atttention span 😁

Lucy. Well done!

NormansNipple. Do you like your Clover Amour hook? I love mine. 😳😂 I bet you made your Posties Day.

Amethyst. Moss stitch, eventually you get into the rhythm, but I still don't really like doing it.

Bearfrills. How are you & Babybear doing?

Picards. How are your hats coming along? 😬

Diamantegal. I love your cat, definitely deserves it's own blanket!

DropZone. I ended up getting one of each of the Riot Colours. I like being able to actually see the colours together. I like saffron, shrimp, turquoise & green together. A lot. It feels very 'Summer'. Sherbert, Empire & Petrol look good.

LEM. I realised after I posted about how I hold my wool, that I don't hold it like that after all, only for one specific type of stitch. Idiot 😁 Anyway, it all inspired me to try again to hold it as most of them seem to in the tutorials and it's actually going ok. So, thank you!

💐🍸🍫 for everyone.

Jux Lipstick is a nice red and is on the list of colours for Candy's Hugs.
This bears sweater is in Lipstick.

The other real red in SSDK is called Matador and isn't on Candys list. Hth.

i was going to suggest lipstick

The darker green is kelly green

Thanks, Marcipex and LEM.

Thanks for the link to Chernobyl - I've just had a mosey over there.

Guess what's arrived today.....Candy wool! I'm really excited and can't wait to get cracking

Evening to all, I've not been on the thread for a week or two, but I'm still playing about with my hook. Might've accidentally just ordered some more wool.
Depression caught me in the net, so I've rather impolitely not caught up on the thread, sorry about that. I've signed up for a six week evening crochet class, quite a coup for such a homebody. No particular agenda, it says bring your own projects if you want. I'm having a good go at a waffle square at the moment, it is somewhat bizarre exuberant on the one side, but full of good wishes.
Hope everyone is well and enjoying their creations.

ChippingIn I love my new hook! It's so much easier. I was letting go of my traditional style one all the time, this one just rests in my hand and I can crochet for hours

FrenchDucks hope you're feeling better now, I've been there

A lot of us on this thread keep accidentally ordering wool so you're not alone! It's strange how addictive this is.

That's great Ducks, the crotchet course I mean. It's funny how wool just keeps turning up isn't it

Another with that T-shirt Frenchducks Good to see you back on the thread

Can someone explain to me why they put the "posh wool" in those sort of twisted loops instead of balls? Am crocheting a scarf for my friend from a lovely alpaca wool, have spent most of the evening untangling the fucking thing with dp dragged in to help! have now rewound it into a ball, there is a massive blue cloud over my house

Just discovered Attic24 - amazing ideas & patterns

Here

You old huggers probably know about it already, but it's new to me

LEM - I think yarn with natural fibres doesn't like being tightly wound in a ball for too long, as the fibres stretch and distort, which might be why the posher yarns come in hanks. I think the idea is you only wind it into a ball when you're ready to start working with it. There might be other reasons but that's the one I know!

Finished this one this morning. Didn't enjoy it as much because of the amount of double crochet into the previous round. My tension is so right I find it really hard to crochet into a stitch rather than a gap - which meant I had to add another couple of rounds. Must remember to keep it looser for the next one!

FrenchDucks. Nice to have you back 💐 Sorry to hear about the horrible Depression Net catching you, evil bastard thing! WEll done on signing up for the class, I hope you enjoy it as much as the other one you did 😊

Many of us appear to be quite accident prone, accidentally buying wool 🤣

Norman they are lovely aren't they. I'm going to get one for the kids piano teacher, she was admiring mine the other day & she's like a spare Granny to them all, so it's nice to have found a little something to get her.

LEM. What Coffee&Crochet said, plus I think it's probably to make it look bigger & 'posh'. I've never had a problem when knittng with it, but I haven't done any crochet with it.

I'm finding Stylecraft a right mare, it unravels itself 😠 and every time I turn around the wool bags is are a right mess! I'm trying to find something to put around them, to keep them in line!

FurryLittleTwerp. It is pretty well known, but I bet there's at least one person who didn't, that will now due to your post. It's always good to share 😊

Diamantegal. It looks good though 😊 I knit & crochet really tightly too, if I try to do it looser it just ends up looking messy. I'm having a buggers job crocheting into a chain stitch, especially those in magic circles or chain loops, but I'm using stitch markers which is helping.

Just popping in to say hello. I'm still on Chernobyl squares atm, but keeping an eye on this thread too.

I will leave this picture here for all those with a yarn purchasing addiction...

Very timely, Spin - says she who has just this second arrived home with three balls of Stylecraft.
But the yarn shop had a dog in it who gave me a lovely welcome. I couldn't leave without buying something...

We have a lovely local yarn shop, but it lacks a dog

I don't normally shop in that particular town and passed the shop and had to go in, only to be greeted by a gorgeous little Westie.
It's a sure fire way to get me to return. Wool and a dog. Perfect.

We have two lovely little yarn shops, where I can spend a LOT of money on linen thread etc for lace.

But they are too posh to sell anything in acrylic, so I'm having to buy SSDK online, which means I can't really see the colours, which meant I had to buy them all. Obviously.

(Bead shops are also a bit of a money sink, for spangling bobbins.)

I did go into a lovely one which is more local to me a few weeks ago when I was nearby getting my haircut and they had a huge range of Stylecraft. Let's just say it's probably a good thing I decided to grow my hair last year so don't need it cutting as often as when it was short.

I've just ordered the Jan Eaton book from Amazon. Thanks to my husband's love of Jeremy Clarkson and friends, our reason for having Amazon Prime, it's coming this evening. I had just 5 minutes to get it ordered before the cut off time for same day delivery