Blanket of Hugs for Ukraine

Several years ago I went on a crochet weekend retreat (I highly recommend doing this, it was a wonderful way to spend a weekend!) and met a lady called Amanda, who runs Little Box of Crochet. Amanda's daughter, Jenny, had very sadly recently passed away and Amanda told us about the blanket that her friends and customers had made for Jenny before her passing. Amanda had asked her friends to make crochet squares, crocheted with love poured into them, and then she would join them into a Blanket of Hugs. Well, Amanda's plea yielded enough squares for 7 blankets! One for Jenny, and another 6 which were subsequently raffled off for charity. Aaaaaanyway..... on Instagram last week Amanda sent out a plea for squares, crocheted with love, to be sent to her, which would then be joined into blankets and raffled off for Ukraine appeals. 

Amanda has created a downloadable PDF of instructions. The squares are to be made in a specific colourway (Stylecraft Special DK in Storm Blue, Mustard and Meadow), to a specific size (14cm square) and to a set pattern (solid colours, stripes or polka dots). I set off to my local yarn shop - Stitchery Do - where the owner, Rebecca, had set aside 3 balls of yarn for me. As soon as I got them home I set to work. First I started with solid colours and made 2 of each.

I decided I wanted to make 2 of every possible combination of colours - for example yellow and blue with a yellow edging would be different to yellow and blue with a blue edging, and so on. This would be 30 squares in total. The solids were very easy. The stripes were also pretty easy.

All the solids and stripes gave me 18 squares...

Don't they look fab all stacked up?!

It was then time to give the polka dot ones a go. Well. The polka dots are actually bobbles and after making 18 squares I was in no mood to start on bobbles, so they will have to wait for another day. Amanda wants the squares by mid-April so I have plenty of time to do some spotty ones.

Its a lovely project to be involved in, and I can't wait to see some pictures of the finished blankets. 

Wish me luck with the bobbles ....

Til next time,

Jillxx

Elephant, sheep and Frowen Fields

The weather has been lovely for the past few days, so today I broke out the cropped trousers and a short sleeved t-shirt ..... only for it to be chucking it down with rain all day, and very cold!!! You can see in the photo below how wet it is ..

It is however a perfect day today to stay in and craft and I've been super busy in my craft room all day. A lady had posted on my local crochet facebook group asking if someone could crochet up a little kit for her that her friend wanted - both she and the friend weren't able to do it, so I said I could help. It was a little elephant kit, from Aldi I believe, and he turned out like this ...

Super cute or what! And just when the cuteness factor couldn't get any higher, I crocheted up this little sheep for another lady's church group ...

... isn't he adorable! I tell you what though, doing bobbles in an amigurumi toy is NOT for the faint-hearted, its given me terrible neck ache, and was soooooo fiddly! The lady who wanted him had also posted on the same facebook group asking for volunteers to make her some sheep for her church project. I'm planning to do a few more for her but in a different pattern as I'm not going near those bobbles again!

I also quickly hooked up a little daffodil keyring for my friend Helen in Wales ...

 ... Helen runs a glamping and camping site called Frowen Fields and is going to be selling these in her farm shop. The Frowen Fields site has an amazing glamping pod ...

... decorated beautifully by Helen ...

... in a gorgeous location, steeped in nature.

We're having a dilemma with pricing the keyrings, its so hard to do with handmade items. They don't take long to actually crochet but each flower has 14, yes 14, ends to weave in, so another fiddly job which does take time. Oh well we will see what happens! I want to support Helen and vice-versa so hopefully a few will sell.

Did I mention before that I am making some blankets for our local hospital? They need various sizes including 25" square for wheelchair users, and I think this is also a nice little baby size too. One of my things for 2022 is to crochet one hospital blanket a month in an effort to make a dent in my ridiculous stash. I'm doing well so far, and have completed three. I managed to get the borders finished off today.

Two are in a variegated cream, brown and grey yarn ...

 ... and one is in a lovely olive, mauve and cream colourway ...

I decided to give the olive, mauve and cream one a purple border which I think works really well.

With all that crochet I fancied a wee change, so, for the first time in years, I got out the knitting needles this aftrnoon. I've decided I need to learn to knit socks. I watch the Cherry Heart podcast, and Sandra makes so many amazing socks, I want to give it a go. Well, suffice it to say, I won't be wearing new socks any time soon. Actually I hardly ever wear socks, so I don't really need to make some, but its become a personal challenge now. Its not going well. I'm following Winwick Mum Christine's Sock-Along posts and using this Sirdar Heart and Sole sock-yarn ...

... but the DPNs! OMG! Its like wrestling with an octopus, I can't seem to get the hang of it at all. The bit where it transitions to the next needle is all gappy and gapey and looks terrible. This is what its looking like on my DPNs.  A bit of a mess.

Maybe I should try a circular needle, will that help do you think ? Any and all advice from all you lovely sock knitters is very welcome. In the meantime I shall be ordering said circular needle and giving it a try.

Til next time,

Jillxx

Another man in my life

Crochet-man is now complete! If you remember from my previous post I was crocheting a little man doll for a local charity, Camp Mohawk. This is the blurb from their website:

"Camp Mohawk is a multi-functional day centre for children with special needs and their families, set in 5 acres of beautiful countryside, just outside Wargrave, Berkshire. Throughout the year the centre provides a range of activities, facilities and natural space to encourage children with a variety of special needs to play, socialise and learn in a secure and caring environment."

The charity posted on a local facebook group asking for someone to knit them a doll to look like one of their staff, members, a chap called Alan. I was very happy to be involved as my own son has an autism diagnosis, so I replied on the post saying I couldn't knit one but I could crochet one if that would help ? Well they took me up on the offer and so "Alan" was born ...

 

I followed the patterns in this book by Kerry Lord of Toft Yarns ...

It's very clever. There is a basic body pattern which you then add a mix and match head and outfit onto, there are over 20 heads and 20 costumes so a vast array of possibilities!

Alan has had a busy old week. He's played on the playstation ...

... done some crafting ...

... done a bit of cooking ...

... had lots of coffee ...

... and had porridge for breakfast...

... watched some TV ...

... played cards ...

... and even done some crochet!

But alas Alan's time with me came to an end when he was picked up by another Camp Mohawk member today, and taken to his forever home. As a thankyou I was very kindly given a lovely bunch of flowers :)

Alan has been my constant companion this week so he will be missed. But I know he will bring much joy to the children and families at Camp Mohawk. Farewell Alan!

Basildon Park March 2022

Every year, for Christmas, my Mum gives us National Trust membership. If you aren't in the UK and maybe don't know what that is ... it is an organisation that looks after hundreds of historic properties and estates in the UK. Here's the blurb from their website  ... 

"We protect and care for places so people and nature can thrive. We look after hundreds of houses and close to a million objects, along with vast areas of coastline, countryside and green spaces, for everyone’s benefit. With our staff, members, volunteers and supporters, we’re the biggest conservation charity in Europe."

We are fortunate enough to have at least 6 NT properties within an hour's drive of home, so we get plenty of use from our membership, and we also use it when we go to visit my family in Northern Ireland. For a few years we had a break from it as the children became teenagers and no longer enjoyed the visits, but now they are old enough to leave at home while Mr EC and I plus the dog go and enjoy a lovely walk. It does make me very sad that the teenagers no longer want to come with us, but it is the way of things and I suppose they have to grow up, although I wish it wasn't so! Sometimes Miss 14 comes with us though so I am clinging onto that while it lasts.

Yesterday we paid a visit to Basildon Park, which is our favourite local NT property. I've blogged about it before (here and here) and I feel my photos from yesterday's visit aren't quite up to scratch, but I always find it hard to take pictures when we have the dog with us! I think possibly she pulls us along so I feel I can't take my time.

Basildon Park has 4 mapped out estate walks to follow - we decided to follow the blue route which is a 1.5 hour walk. It's only 2.5 miles but very muddy with a lot of hills so feels longer.

The blue route follows around most of the periphery of the estate, the scenery is very varied; there are lots of rolling fields, woodland areas, tumbling-down walls covered in ivy, and narrow pathways.

You remember I said Miss 14 sometimes comes with us ? Yesterday was one of those days, and she agreed quite happily to come along. Well despite her agreement to come she was in true stroppy teenager mode (no idea why) and insisted on walking a good 50 yards ahead of us at all times. In the photo below you can see her in the distance if you zoom in!

There was lots of evidence of spring about ....

We went off-piste a bit and got a tiny bit lost, but eventually we ended up back at the house...

It was so nice to see some blue sky, and have a dry day with little to no breeze, after a few weeks of rain and storms. And much as we love bringing the dog with us it does mean we can't then visit the cafe afterwards! Boooo! And its still a bit cold for al fresco coffee, so we just headed home.

In crochet news, crochet man is coming along, his limbs are now attached ... 

... and today I started his jumper. I had some Stylecraft Special DK in Meadow left over from a previous project, and I decided to use that. The brief was for a dark green jumper but Meadow was all I had to hand (the fact I have a ridiculous amount of stash in the loft is neither here nor there ....). Anyway the small amount of Meadow is pretty definitely too small, I ended up playing yarn chicken, and then had to stop altogether, to make dinner.

I'm pretty sure I won't have enough Meadow left to finish the other arm, so I had a root around in another cupboard and found this ball of Cypress, which, on reflection, is a much better green for a brief of dark green, so I think tomorrow I'll be making up a whole new jumper and frogging the Meadow one. Oh well! I'll just consider the Meadow one to be a practice version!

Til next time,

Jillxxx