Zombie and Woolly Hugs. Please join us, newcomers very welcome. Come and find out about Candy's Hugs.

[KnottyAndPistey]

Her legacy of Candy's Hugs will be one of love and strength, of coming together to show compassion, support and give and receive comfort.

Seven blankets already with women on the rocky road of cancer treatment in Candy's name. Love in every stitch we say and it really is true. Together we go on, Candy is with us every step.

For anyone joining us, and please do, this is an ongoing project, just jump right in, this explains what we are doing and all crafting info. Thank you EVERYONE! x

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.

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.. and third 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 to give hugs and comfort 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

Meant to add I've never attempted fair isle : I'm reasonably ok following a chart , but if I tried to add colour changes into the mix I think it would end horribly.

Yiayoula - if you are doing fairisle you have to be careful not to leave long loops of yarn on the reverse that can get caught.

I want to have another crack at crochet before attempting fair isle, Purple : have had a couple of tries using the video tutorials that ChippingIn and others have added to the thread.

Luckily have a longish train journey this week with a crocheting friend who has promised to show me the ropes ( or should that be chains ! ) : I think I need someone to show me where I am going wrong at the time I'm going wrong, IYSWIM !

For every foolproof system there is a system-proof fool......

Yia this is the book and the pattern I used for the fair isle. I picked up the book ages ago at the charity shop so doing all these squares is finally a good excuse to use it.

Chipping I don't have an ipad but that's a great tip, new needle should be here by Weds. Not done much today as DD2 is off school and we've had little vintage Kitty to the vets. That hearts pattern square looks fab and the hugs one too, I love all the bright squares, honeycomb slip stitch looks lovely.

Finally got my first parcel in the post today!

8x6" & 2x12"

Some pretty good, some okay, a couple slightly warped & mutant, but hopefully all can be used..

Thanks, Nerr, will have a look out for that one : the pattern charts look nice and clear on the photo, which is always a bonus !
Honeycomb stitch is easy peasy, Vintage, only knit and slip stitches, and the squares seem to grow quite quickly too.

And totally off topic, but looks like the site issues are sorted : hurrah !!
Thank you, all the techies at MNHQ .

Lol, Furry, at your "warped and mutant" squares !!
Though from what I have seen of them on thread, they are anything but .

Thanks Yia - you're very kind as is the camera

Seriously though, very few are actually square!

SevenTillFour. That's lovely, it looks SO snuggly!

Witch. I found this tutorial really easy to follow Granny Square

bookbook & malcolm. I just cant resist giving something a go when people are talking about it or I get an idea! 🤣

Some of them I can only do when the 11yo doesn't have her nose between me & the tutorial 😂 & I need my eyes re testing when the lighting isn't good enough I have to stop doing some of them, but can start another one in a different colour, as some of the colours are easier to work with. Some are too awkward to take to do in the car & CTC are good for in the handbag.

Don't be amazed now, it's EASY to start things, be amazed if I finish them! 🤣

Mine are all in CH colours, so I'm just going to send them & K&P can do what they like with them .

MamaTJ. Don't redo it! It'll be totally fine! It was made with a LOT of love.

NerrSnerr. They're lovely. I especially love the one with the little red hearts.

Yia. What a Vibrant Riot you have going on there! They look fabulous! 'Slip Stitch' always looks good, but my brain hates doing it! That should be a fun train trip! 😊

Vintage. Hope DD is feeling better soon & Kitty is ok.

Furry. Well done! 🎖

Evening!
What beautiful squares on here today ....and MamaTJ - I would leave that square from your DD - it is truly made with love :)
well, I promised myself to do a square for Candys before settling back into Chernobyl. I have been MIA today, so just sat down tonight to keep it. Done a bobble stitch for the first time. I had to slightly improvise the granny square around with a reminder of circle to square . It's not quite flat , positively woggly!
Saffron, Boysenberry and Meadow. I wanted it to look a bit like a pansy , but I think I need one less round of boysenberry, and an extra one of meadow. It had reached 6"

As always, that's a beautiful square Book. Look what I've done tonight

You did it Witch !!!! - there will be no stopping you now :)

Oh Witch that's lovely!

Furry I've finally done it! The (easy) spiral! Yay!!!!!

Thank you. It's only measuring 5inch do I think I need to do another round. It's still really awkward holding the wool but I guess I'll suss it. I asked DH if he wanted to buy me an early Easter present, so he's bought the 200 squares, a crotchet basics book and a full set of hooks - he doesn't know yet though... 😇

Garden, I think we are all slow to start with. Give it a couple of weeks and your needles will be smoking!

Jux that is stunning. It looks awfully complicated!

Ha ha well done Jux

I thought the hardest bit was getting started & working out exactly where to crochet into. Once going it was fine, the hardest bit then being counting the last section on any one round, as you have to stop accurately int he middle of the first colour, without coming up against the next colour IYSWIM.

The 12" was quicker than expected & needed a count of 31 for the last round, if that makes sense (2dc - actually UK trc - 31 dc/trc 2dc/trc).

My 6" had a count of 15 for the last round (2dc/trc 15dc/trc 2dc/trc).

Clear as mud I expect

Clear as mud, Furry Now mine's finished it's not very square and it's a bit under 6" so I wondering whether to leave well enough alone, and let them pull it out to size during blocking, or whether to risk putting on a simple border with proper corners to make it squarer. I think I could do that without completely ruining it.....

It is quick, though, and once you get how it works, not very hard. As has been said, worst of it is keeping the wool untangled!

This thread has been so great. It has really boosted my confidence in crochet and made me try all sorts of things I would have just thought "too hard" about and passed over. I've done some pop corn stitches somewhere and though not overly neat they were OK. Not sure I'd've tried otherwis

Yippee, yarn for the ZFamily squares has just arrived, together with some more for Candy Hugs : got my hands on some Boysenberry at last !

The Debbie Bliss Rialto DK in cyclamen was darker than I'd expected, but gorgeous nevertheless .

I'm anticipating Knotty and Pistey will have a huge response to the ZFamily project, so may only do one square in each colour : does anyone know how many you would get from a 50gm ball of that yarn, please?

And with the remainder, are there any other WH projects I can use it for, or would it be best to send to K and P to redistribute?

Quick then off to library : going to venture into the hitherto unexplored Crafts section and see if any good pattern books lurking !

Alas there will always be more Woolly Hugs. I find that most of them tend to be blue/purple with cream accents, so it's very likely that you would find a use for it yourself all too soon when the next big Hug comes along.

Yia you can use up different colours for Chernobyl in 12", or the refugee in 6". They are still posted to the same address, you just need to pop a note in saying what they are for

I've read that about 6 times now Furry and it's still double Dutch! I don't think it's helping that I learned how to do the Granny Square off You Tube so the pattern abbreviations don't mean anything!

My 200 crotchet blocks book has arrived - I just need the beginners one now! - there's some beautiful squares in there

Witch

2 double crochet (US terms) or treble crochet (UK terms) in the same stitch

31 double (US) or treble (UK)

2 double (US) or treble (UK) in the same stitch

here's the original pattern - I extrapolated from there

spiral

Finally got my squares posted off. Then got home to find I'd locked myself out.
Am torn between making more and starting a just because project

Thanks Furry that makes slightly more sense. I'll bookmark it and go back once I feel slightly more confident.

I hope you weren't locked out for long Hat . I love the colours in your squares. Have you decided what you're going to do yet?

I've just finished another round so my very first granny square is just about 6". I think I'm going to give a Chernobyl one a go next - I've lots of different colours that need using up so I've got some more room for more wool 😁