Zombie and Woolly Hugs. ALL very welcome to join us, come and find out about her legacy of Candy’s Hugs.

[KnottyAndPistey]

Surely the best corner of the Mumsnet, all are welcome here and if seen this for the first time, join us, you'll be glad you did. 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.

A bit of background
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

Raising a glass or two to the fabulous Zombie, we go on together

We have several previous threads now, have a look at the Woolly Hugs topic.

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.

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 dates are October 28th and then January 28th. 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.

We start this new thread having sent out 46 Candy's Hugs to wonderful women, extraordinary, thank you.

Thank you so much xx

I really can't order more at the moment. My last order was 30 balls . Two huge sacks from wool warehouse, I really hadn't thought through how much yarn that was just went a bit mad choosing colours.

I can't get at my wool until the tree goes away 😥 Well, I lie slightly there as I can get my special hugs wool but nothing else

Did someone take my name in vain? . It could well have been me Stitch -

I did a vast large order with Deramores a few months ago, when the sale was on , with the idea that it would cover all my winter crafting. Then the extra colours for Chernobyl came out , the offer at Deramores was still on, so I bought those too .....
I am very lucky that DH doesn't care at all . My only thing is that Wool Warehouse has much quicker delivery, packs the goods a lot better, and you get a lovely organza bag .....But with Deramores I get more yarn :)
Witch - nearly 12th night, not long.
KnittingNell - well done ! And yes, slightly too small is a tweak easier than slightly too big ( I am in the throes of a Candys construction atm and even with my limited experience , I can normally wrangle them into order :) )

My last Deramores order was open when it got here and full of leaves and mud. Most of it brushed off, fortunately, but I wasn’t hugely impressed, nor with the poor response from their customer services.

Just knit/purl is fine, Stitchit. It’ll curl up horribly but straighten up in the construction. You can put a garter stitch or moss stitch border round which will stop it curling up as much, but that’s not really necessary.

When you’re figuring out your tension, you might want to err on the small side - you can do a row (or several) of crochet round it to bring it up to size.

You don't need to border it Stitchit, it will be fine as it is. It doesn't matter if your knitted squares are literally just knit rows - plain ones are needed to show off the fancy stuff I can only aspire to.

I have been moving house and am also THE WORLDS SLOWEST KNITTER (official) but have just discovered a bag of wooland needles and thought I would knit some simple squares whilst I am snuffling away in bed watching ‘How to get away with murder’
Can’t remember how many to cast on for a six incher...is it 30?

I normally do 34 for a six inch, depending on the pattern

hello - Norks - I usually do 31 stitches for a 6" - so different to Witch
Stitch - its nice to have a solid edge when constructing, but not necessary. It can help to slip the first stitch in the row, rather than working a knit or purl.
Are we all moving wool stashes around to make them look tidy? I have just been gifted the second bag of DK wool from someone I know who can't use it anymore .....the last one was Aran/Chunky , and that is in a very large bag, behind the rocking chair in my spare bedroom ( even though I used some for the Debbie Bliss appeal! )

Thank you both.
I think I am quite tight so will go for 32 and see what happens

Tomorrow I'll be able to join in shuffling wool.
I've been given so much woolly related stuff for Christmas I want to join in! 😢

Stichit sorry but that made me snort.

I have no useful suggestions as I cannot knit. My poor mother has tried many times to teach me but I drop stitches. So st least your knitting is more optimistic than mine.

Have you considered crochet instead?

Stitchit what stitches are you doing? . If you are doing something that switches between knit & purl within a row, my guess is that you are creating stitches on your needle by yarning over - putting the yarn over your needle after you’ve completed a stitch instead of before.

And that sounds about right for Deramores. My deliveries have always shown up eventually.

Oh. No idea how you’re creating stitches then!

(btw, that’s garter stitch - knit everything (or purl everything))

mmm Stitch - there are a couple of ways you may be getting more stitches. Either , when you pull the stitch through, you don't always finish that move, and you end up with two loops on the next row . You can normally see this when two stitches seem to be very tight against one another when you come to do the next row. The other way is if your needles a e a little unruly ( :) ) you can inadvertently pick up the loop between stitches if you are pulling the needles apart a bit far and your stitches are a bit loose.