Zombie and Woolly Hugs. OVER HERE!! Come and find out about her legacy of Candy’s Hugs, newcomers and old hands, all very welcome

[KnottyAndPistey]

Welcome to the most beautiful corner of Mumsnet, here the love and support is boundless, these are the folk you need to be around, come and join us, you'll not regret it :) Our inspiration comes from the wonderful Zombie, a true legend who continues to inspire us.

We knew her time left with us was short, but the news of Zombie’s death on January 30th was still a 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

So many blankets with beautiful women going through treatment now because of your love and support. Thank you doesn't even come close. xx

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, maybe a bit unsure, 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 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 xx

You're such an enabler norm

Ordered a couple and then added some several SSDK to get myself over £25 to get free postage. I would've liked the Apple Sours one but it was out of stock and I'm too impatient to wait for it to come back in........... maybe next time

That's a perfect yarn buying strategy Raptor When the apple sours comes back in stock you have a valid reason for placing another order. You should also make sure you spend enough then to get the free postage. In these times of austerity you need to make the most of your yarn budget.

Just (rather lumpily) parcelled up 46 Kinship and 12 Candy squares , which hopefully will reach K and P before their well -deserved summer sabbatical !
I'm bowing out temporarily also , as we are off to Forrin Parts to spend the summer with the grandchildren and consume my body weight in rose and mastica ice cream
Looking forwards to lots of hugs, of the non-woolly variety xxxxx

Evening!
Lovely, lovely squares Yia - have a wonderful break :)
I have been heading for a last posting next week - with DD - we have a Little Hug each, Candys squares and a few Kinships to go.
I did pick up some lovely wool in a charity shop, so am just setting off doing some Refugee hats and such too. I shall just keep on during the summer with Kinships, Candys and Little Hugs too .
Raptor and Norm - stop it !!! I have loads of wool .
I have just finished the latest quartet of squares - in the Saffron/Spice/Meadow/Shrimp/Empire

All these squares are amazing. I have just finished a scarf for my daughter's birthday and am back doing some refugee squares before I make her something else and then get started on Christmas jumpers

Crocheters, some advice please.

I have done 2 kinds of squares - grannies and solid 4 sides squares. I want to do some treble row squares, back and fore. How many chains should I do, and do I do extra 3 on ends to go up a row. If any of you can understand this, can you advise? Thanks

When you say treble, do you mean UK treble? I'm assuming you do...

I need to start with a chain of around 28 + 3 to do a 6" square. Then tr in the 4th chian from the hook (last 3 chains count as first treble) and in each of the remaining 26 chains. So you've now got 27 trebles and a chain 3.

Now chain 3 again, then treble in the second to last treble on the first row, and carry on until the end (so again, one chain of 3 and 27 'proper' trebles).

Keep on like that until the end!

Does that help?

Yia have a lovely Summer!

If you can learn foundation double crochet you don't have to guess width as your own tension sets it. Search YouTube for good tutorials.

Thanks Spindelina yes UK trebles.

MrsHathaway I haven't done double crochet yet, just getting to grips with trebles. Will check out Youtube. Incidentially I am left handed and struggled to learn until I found BellaCoco's left hand tutorials, but could n't find one by her for rows of trebles.

Just realised that should be chain 27+3, or tr in 5th chain from hook (so first stitch is chain 4), or 28 tr + 1 chain 3 in each row. Any would work!

Hello :) I bought some wool tonight on 'love knitting' and I used the code CASTON to get 15% off (not inc delivery at £2.95 unless you spend over £25) and it has told me to enter email addresses of friends to give them 15% off and £5 off for me next time, if anyone needs/wants to restock their stash I thought it might be good for all the WHuggers x

Hi all! I've really missed you lot!

Fingers/hands behaving again, so despite not coming on the thread I've been quite industrious and have practically finished all my wool
BUT that means.....

....I can buy more!!!!!!?!!!! Happy days!

So, Stylecraft Special DK. - what colours?? I can get 3. What do people think? I like purples, blues, reds, greens. I need a combination of 3 which will look nice together; Candy colours I think (too late for dear Zombie, but I have done some for her before).

Morning loves! xxx

Good morning! Would it be ok to nominate someone for a Wooly Hug? Who do I pm with the details?

Morning lovely, do you want to message us? xxxx

Jux
so far my favourite combination has been empire and meadow - the meadow is a nice soft green, and seems to go with all the other colours. But thats only two . The fuschia and plum go well together too, with maybe shrimp to brighten?
Depends if you want toning or contrast .
Decisions, decisions!

I think I'd go for three fairly similar - the contrasts really pop and they fit nicely into a big blanket. Or two similar with one complementary.

Maybe:

Empire, petrol, saffron
Spice, tomato, lipstick

Thanks, book and MrsH. I think probably toning rather than contrast. I've C&Ped all the Candy Colours into a document and I can move them about and see better what might work. At the moment my fave seems to be Meadow, Grass Green and Kelly Green, but the Meadow looks grey, so I think the colours aren't rendered probperly onscreen.

Disaster! I have uncovered a whole stash of 7 balls of various DKs. As far as I can remember, I got them at the time I was making squares for Zombie, and I think they're mainly her colours.

They'll be fine for Refugee, won't they?

Alas, no buying and getting carried away for me just yet.

Oh no Jux - are they the lovely merino ones? they will be absolutely fine for refugees - ( I'm learning how to crotchet hats for them atm) but there are also Little Hugs as well if you wanted to make a blanket instead ( or maybe not if your hands/fingers are only just better.) . Don't forget- if you would like to do some for Candy's, I'm sure K&P would send some wool for you.

Yes, book, theyre exctly those; I had completely forgoten they were here. I was tidying up my jute bags, and lo! appearing before my eyes were a whole lot of wool, mostly untouched. Thwarted in my plans to empty our bank accounts in Wool Warehouse's favour.

I have been looking at hat patterns, too.

Its quiet here :)
Just parcelled up the load before the summer break -a bit of everything , from me, DD, and dear sis in law .
Carrying on through the summer, maybe not quite so fast -

Last posting is the 15th, right? I finish work on Friday (whoop!) so I'm planning for a week of solid knitting / crocheting + tour / Wimbledon.

yes! - make the most of it - at least it's a bit cooler now! :)