Woolly Hug crew over HERE!! Chernobyl project 2017, our second thread

[KnottyAndPistey]

Welcome to our second thread supporting our Chernobyl project 2017, the end of the first one crept up on us!

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 previous projects can be found 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 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!! shock

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. star

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. star

I am also loose-ish and do 10 for a 6" and 20 for a 12"

Having a lazy day at home getting my boiler mended, I've got four 12" squares finished now using the donor wool

DH got me a Wool Warehouse voucher for mother's day so I'll have a shit tonne lot of wool on its way to me.

I've finished my squares and I'm about to package them up. I have quite a bit of non stylecraft dk in my stash so I thought I would make some squares for refugee blankets next.

Lovely squares everyone. No crochet for me today, have been struck down with sickness bug & have only just got out of bed 🙁

Woolly that looks ideal - and a lot cheaper than some of things I was looking at!

I'm doing 20-21 blocks on a c2c without a border and 18 blocks if I'm going to add a border. I'd say my tension is quite average.

bookbook I think they also look nice if you do half one colour and half another and do the border in the finishing colour. I've done one I'll post a pic in a bit. I already have a craft cupboard but it's full of other things

Malcolm that looks great! Like a little blanket in itself

Lovely squares Bitchy and Bear

I've not done any yet today, I was painting the bedroom and the cat

Hope you feel better soon Vitty

Oh no Vitty, hope it passes quickly it struck here last week, 3yo DS sat bolt upright at 3am and spewed all over the back of my head then the following night 7yo DS threw up over the side of his top bunk. Joy!

I thought it was the left over Chinese food that had made me ill but Exp text this morning to say the ds1 & ds2 have it too (they are with him this week) On the plus side I don't have to nurse them while I feel this rough! Also had to text dd1 as I had dgs at the weekend- hopefully he's dodged it.

The worst part is the fact that I am on leave this week!

Can anyone tell me - is it possible to prevent the twisty-wavy look on granny squares?? Is it something I'm doing wrong?

These are my first three 12-inchers and my new wool arrived today so I'm finally onto new colours - hurrah! I'm also a bit concerned that with them wavy like this it's hard to get an accurate measurement - I think they're between 11.5 and 12.

Treasures - my granny squares are never twisty or wavy looking. I tried zooming in on your picture to see if I could work it out, but can't see any obvious mistakes.

My only guesses - are you putting a chain stitch in between each cluster of trebles? I started out doing this when I first started crocheting as a lot of patterns told you to, but it made my squares awfully baggy, so I stopped and my squares worked out much better!

Also - how are you moving from one round to the next? I always start a round with a corner (so chain three, two trebles, chain 2, three trebles, and finish with three slip stitches to reach the corner. If you're doing something different your joining method might be creating the waviness?

Treasures, I've only ever done one granny square, so not exactly an expert! It was a bit wavy, like yours, but pull-able into shape. There's a photo of it on the last thread on 19th Feb (about half way through).

A more expert friend suggested that I could turn my work over between each round to even out the twist - might work for you?

Treasures does that happen with your 6" squares too? It looks like it's happening within your first round - what stitches are you doing from your foundation chain?

Evening!
End of a long day.
Only got the hook out at 9, but managed about 9" of a granny in saffron/raspberry/plum ( playing safe....)
Lovely, lovely squares on here today -sorry Treasures I can't help - too new a hooker here ...
Vitty - hope you are feeling better soon - I saw your Little Hug on fb - lovely !
Norm - Hope the wool stash was well out of the way of the paint!
Bear - you have your DH well trained - cracking present!
Right - all the talk of stash in spare rooms - come on , own up - who is looking at those adverts for lift up beds with storage underneath?

I've got one book - although fool that I am I store the spare duvet and DCs Christmas presents in it. 

@KnottyAndPistey I don't suppose there is about 10-15g of Plum floating around in the donated wool pile is there? I'll need about that much to do my last stripe in that colour on my blanket.

Get rid of the spare duvet Woolly - the presents will never be found in a wool stash !
I will have some plum spare if you need it - just doing this square, and I think I will have enough left - will know tomorrow morning , and can get it off to you.

Thanks for the helpful answers

Spindelina Yes, looks like you had exactly the same problem. I'll give your friend's suggestion a try on the square I'm working on now and see what happens.

Mhw02 & DropZone Yes, it happens with my 6" squares too, but it seems more noticeable to me on the bigger ones. I'll write what I do from start to finish and see if you more experienced hookers (god that sounds so wrong!) can 'diagnose' the problem...

Slipknot, chain 4.
Two trebles into the first chain (the one next to the knot).
Chain 2, then 3 trebles, chain 2, etc to make the first round, then slipstitch into the top of the first treble.
Chain 3, then 2 trebles into the corner space.
Chain 1, then 3 trebles, chain 1 etc until next corner space.
At corners I'm doing 3 trebles, chain 2, then 3 trebles.

If I want to change colour:
when I do the slipstitch at the end of the round, I pull the yarn through a few inches, cut it off the skein, then pull it all the way through so there's a tiny knot. I weave that through to the back and weave the end in. Then to attach the next colour, I pull it through a corner space with my hook, leaving a tail at the back, yarn over, and chain 3, then do 2 trebles and carry on as before.

I hope that all makes sense! If it turns out I'm doing it wrong, at least my squares are neat and secure and like Spindelina says, they are pull-able into shape, somewhat. So there's that at least Hopefully the construction crew will be able to work with them. WoollyHugs HQ should receive my 6" squares tomorrow.

Woollyback if K&P don't have any, I can let you have some. Off to work now, but could put it in post tomorrow.

This really is the kindest corner of the Internet

I really would appreciate it if either book or usernumber could send me a bit of plum. Thank you.

I can do it Woolly - just pm your address, and I can pop in in the post today ( if you are like me , I get very impatient :) )

Oh yes indeed book. I've just finished a plum row at the start of my 9 colour pattern repeat so in my head I know that I won't need it for at least 3-4 days while I do the other rows in the repeat and start the next set. It doesn't stop me being impatient to have it, though. Thank you - I'm really grateful.

I'll PM you now.

Many thanks to Usernumber for her kind offer too.

Morning my loves

Stay clear

Fully lurgied here, no voice left and what I do have makes DS chortle

Apols for being awol, we have been working hard on the craft sale, which has been an extraordinary success, so glad, it will help projects just like this one remain inclusive and open to all, no one to be excluded because they can't afford to join in

Feel sad in a way that our Chernobyl project has only a little over a week left to run, such an awesome, friendly and supportive group in here, please everyone, don't fall off at the end, please just shift over to Candy's Hug thread, seems appropriate to use her thread to stay together.

We can have and [twiglets]

Just a reminder last posting for Chernobyl squares and whole blankets is April 8th

THANK YOU!!! xxxx

Morning!

So I finished off the main body of my Coast Ripple square last night - except it was a bit more of a rectangle than a square! I had to guess at the number of stitches needed to give me around a 10" square so I could add the border at the end and it came up a bit short!

So I decided to do a round of triple crochet (UK double trebles) down each side instead of the double crochet (UK treble) that the pattern called for. I was a bit tired, but wanted to make sure I could get it back to a square before I went to bed.

You can guess where this is going, can't you?!

So I did my row of triples down the side and it looked good! Got my measuring tape out and yep, it looked like it was going to turn it square.

Phew! Until I turned my work over AFTER I darned in the peskies and realised I'd done the triples on the wrong side 😩😩😩

So guess what I'm about to do?! 🐸🐸🐸

Oh well, you live and learn! Mental note to self: next time, just go to bed!!!