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

Taking a break here too. Have added a border to a little hug blanket then decided to try and use up the ball of yarn.....5 x 6" squares later.....still have peskies to sew in

The loop stitch is only on the nest Bookbook, the owl itself is really simple

Help, I didn't know there was more than one destination address. I've sent mine all together, Candys and Chernobyl in the same package. Also craft sale stuff. All to the usual depot.
What should I have done?

Witch - will go and browse :)
Marcipex - I bet they can sort it, I'm sure lots do!

Why oh why oh why did I think it was time to try a 12 inch square? This was supposedly a 12 inch pattern and I'm only at 7.5 inches (with the benefit of hindsight, the clue was in the fact it said to use a 5mm hook, not 4mm). I see many rounds of trebles coming up!

I have also learnt two important things from this pattern. 1 - if I'm going to follow a US pattern, I need to write it out in UK terms - there are a number of trebles that should have been double trebles. 2 - despite being an accountant, I can't actually count unless I'm really concentrating.

Please could anyone pm me who knows what should have gone where?

Feeling really pleased this evening that I've managed this square. Used saffron, spice and claret.

Until I started doing squares for Candy's Hugs, I'd never crocheted at all, so this is my first try at something harder than an ordinary granny square. Isn't crochet so much faster than knitting?

pm'd you Marcipex :)

Evening! I'm currently working on a bright 12" for Chernobyl at the moment, but thought I'd pop along here to say hello!

I was hoping to get it finished tonight, but on one of the more complicated rounds I got to the end and realised I'd made a pretty basic yet serious error right at the beginning! 😫 Nothing for it but to frog the whole round and do it again.

There are a few non-Candy's Hugs colours in it, but I'm going to swap them out with similar 'official Candy' colours and make another one for Candy's Hugs.

Diamantegal that always happens to me too. It's annoying that all the 12" patterns I've found are for a 5mm hook and thicker wool! I've ended up just putting borders on them too. I really love your pattern, by the way, what is it?

Lucienandjean that is stunning! One thing I love about this thread is seeing all the different colour combinations and then pinching them for myself!

Also loving seeing the finished blankets, they're amazing! I take my hat off to the Construction Crew!

Malcolm it's meant to be the 12 inch Harriet Square from Ravelry (hopefully searchable - on mobile so can't link) but Soccer Saturday means it's not exactly the same design despite best intentions.

I've had a night off tonight and coloured instead - DH had rented Inferno (crap film, don't bother) which meant I had to pay some attention to what we were watching. Will finish the monster tomorrow.

Opinions please - do these colours work for Chernobyl or shall I just send everything in for Candy's Hugs?

Oh, and Lucien, that's stunning! So you're obviously morally obliged to post a link to the pattern please!

Diamantegirl it's the willow pattern square from the 200 blocks book, but I did it by following the Bella Coco tutorial on YouTube. I'm still too much of a beginner to make much sense of the pattern written down, but it was pretty straightforward once I could copy someone else!

I'm going to have another go at it next in different colours - I'm thinking blues - petrol, turquoise and sherbet which are the only blues I've got. I say 'only', I've been and splurged on some more wool today (just don't tell my dh).

I love those colours lucien. i did a willow pattern tonight too - i used plum violet and lavender. I have also done greens and blues. Its one if ny favourite squares to do. Although i am so loose i had to miss a round even using a 3.5 hook

I'm on holiday in Cornwall and it looks like Truro might be the Stylecraft Special DK capital of the UK (this might be a slight exaggeration). I found it in a lovely little wool shop behind the cathedral and then saw they were also selling it in a shop in the indoor market.
This was a real bonus for me because I've been unable to find it locally in my home city.
I had already bought an - ahem - adequate amount online but ended up buying another 5 balls here on the ground that it is good to support local businesses, and I have now added new colours to my "stable".
Was amazed at how orange Tomato is - was planning a sort of fire stripe square of yellow, orange and reds, so that will fit in nicely.

Bear love and good wishes to you and your baby - and lucky her to have a knitting mum

Thanks, diamantegal, I've found the pattern and added it to my ever-growing pile of patterns to try! There just aren't enough hours in the day! 😂

IAmNotAUserNumber, I love tomato too. Your square sounds fantastic, brilliant colours, can't wait to see the end result!

Lucien - I'm inspired that you're managing such a complex looking square so soon. I'd like to learn crochet but imagined being on granny squares for years.... I like the sound of crochet being faster than knitting as well. This would logically mean an increased need for more wool and all this talk of new colours is making me twitchy. I've already cunningly offloaded about a third of my stash to my mum who said she might get back to knitting and make some squares. I was surprised by how look it took us to wind the wool into new balls.

Ooh bear I've just read through the thread and seen your post. Your poor thing, how stressful for you and babybear. I echo the Sirdar Snuggly recommendations, my DM knitted DS2 a beautiful cardigan when he was a newborn and it is so gorgeously soft, I kept putting it up to my cheek to snuggle it even when he was wearing it! I think it's inspired to make some leg warmers, well done! My brain didn't work properly for a good few months after my children were born! Would love to see a picture when they're done. for you both.

My Candy squares production is slow - I'm on my 6th knitted - I am in awe of all the gorgeous crocheted squares and their speedy production.
What I'm doing now is alternating a 12" Chernobyl with a 6" Candy. Which is my way of prioritising Chernobyl until the beginning of April.
My knitting speed has definitely increased in the last 2 months.

These are the ones I've done this week. I'm becoming a bit obsessed with the empire, saffron and pomegranate colour combo.

Morning loves

Three finished blankets arrived yesterday, bless the Construction crew!

I've had a go at a textured square using front and back post crochet rows interspersed with rows of trebles. The texture is good but it's a bit wonky. Apologies to the construction crew but it does have a fair bit of "give" in it .

Some lovely squares have been posted up.

We so need to win the Stylecraft competition!!

Currently out of Candy donor yarn, this would help so much, last time they let us choose colours

WE NEED TO WINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!

Thank you if you have voted! We proper heart you xxx

www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/KDM5VBB

I voted and shared the link on FB at the time with a nag to my friends asking them to vote, will reshare it for a last push.