Charity Crochet

I have been readying other posts about Pembrokeshire, so that I don’t end up huuuuugely behind again, and while I am keen to share those, I am also having a bit of crochet posting withdrawal…

I really really want to be able to share my mum’s Walled Garden Blanket, which I finished while I was down in Pembrokeshire. We took it to her knitting group, and it attracted lots of compliments, and I so wanted to share it! But circumstances snookered me with that – we had such glorious weather for most of the time we were down, but of course the first day of rain came the day after the blanket was finished, and there was rain for the remaining few days after that too. There was nowhere in my mum’s house suitable for photographing it, as she is having building work done, so outside was the only option. With outside ruled out, that sadly means that I didn’t come away with any photos of my finished work :(

It’s not all bad though, at least I will be heading back there in a few weeks’ time, so hopefully I can put a post together then!

So, with that project finished, what next? I have so many WiPs to choose from, except that they are all packed and in storage now: our stuff will all be collected for shipping fairly soon, and anything that doesn’t get shipped will have to either come in our suitcases, or get left behind! Bearing in mind that also in our suitcases will be the things we have deemed too precious to send by sea – family photos, jewellery etc – and the stuff we will need to keep us going for the first month or so over there before our shipping container arrives, there might not be room to keep back a lovely crochet project to work.

I came up with a solution though! I can simply crochet stuff that I have no intention of bringing with me, then leave it behind when I go! Some of the ladies at my mum’s knitting group regularly make things to sell in order to raise money for Tŷ Hafan (pronounced like ‘Tea Have-An’, for those non-Welshie people!). Tŷ Hafan is a paediatric palliative care charity, and offers the only children’s hospice service in south Wales, so it is obviously a very deserving charity. I therefore thought that I can just make as many baby blankets as possible before I leave, and they can all be donated either for use directly by the hospice, or for the ladies from the knitting group to sell at their fundraising stalls.

I began the first blanket while still in Wales, using a few 100% acrylic DK yarns from my mum’s stash. None of them had labels, so I have no idea what the brands or anything are, but I began with a yellow, an orange, and a white, and deciding to make another blanket similar to the Safi Baby Blanket, with the pattern from here at Sarita Creative.

Hooking up the little circles in all one colour is quick and simple, and quite rewarding :)

I did decide to change the pattern a little bit by adding an extra round to the squaring part of the pattern – while I did like my Safi Blanket, I thought I might like it a bit better if the coloured circles were a bit more spread out. I think I made the right decision, and of course it means that the squares are also a bit larger, so fewer are required to make the same size blanket. And of course that means fewer ends to sew in per blanket, which is a win in my book!!

I finished off my last square this morning, so here are my little stacks of circles-in-squares:

I have enough for a small crib blanket of 5x7 squares, using alternating orange and yellow circles. Now I just need to hook them together and make a simple border – I was toying with the idea of using coloured joins this time and double crocheting them together, but on the other hand slip stich joining with the white will be quicker and easier… Watch this space I guess to see what I decide! Haha ;)

Then I can start on the next one: I have a very limited supply of these cute twisty colour yarns in purple/white and aqua/white, so it will be a challenge to find a pattern to show off the yarn without running out! I’m looking forward to it though :)