Wrap With Love - Caring for "Cold Humanity"

Welcome back! We've had a lovely restful Christmas break, refreshed and rejuvenated, and ready for another great year of blogging. I have so much to tell you about! But, I'll have to break it up over a few weeks :P To start with, here's one of the projects we worked on over the holidays!

For years my Mum has supported an Australian charity called Wrap with Love, which makes blankets for cold people around the world. She has a team of knitters who make squares and drop them off, and then Mum sews them up into blankets and sends them on :)

I... can't knit. Well, I can knit simple garter stitch very badly, but I don't enjoy it - attempts at knitting usually end with sweaty, red, cranky me in a great tangle of yarn. Maybe one day I'll get the hang of knitting!

Image (c) http://www.wrapwithlove.org/knitting-patterns/

But I can crochet! I tried quite a lot of different patterns to make 25cm/10" squares out of my fave Stylecraft Special DK, and finally settled on the Blanket Stitch (also called Sedge Stitch - thanks to Jodie from Lupey Loops!!). By doing them all the same, and adding a simple sc edging row to each square, they were super quick to make and even easier to put together. My mum has now decided she's not knitting anymore because the crochet version works up faster!! Together we made a whole blanket (crocheting in front of the tennis, when we felt like it) over the last two weeks, which I joined with slip stitch in the back loops to frame each of the squares.

The texture of the blanket stitch is beautiful - it is solid (no holes!) and the gentle bobbliness makes for a very cosy feeling blanket. It is also a very rhythmic pattern - after making 76 squares, I can also read the subtitles while watching Turkish soap operas on Netflix while crocheting!

I used a 4mm hook for mine, but Mum found that she needed a 3.5mm hook to get the same tension; so I suggest make one with a 4mm and measure it - it should be about 25cm/10". If it needs to be more than 1.5cm/0.5" smaller go down a hook size, or go up a hook size if it's too small. Don't worry about variations between the square sizes smaller than that; peer pressure is a powerful force in a blanket ;) 

Making these blankets are a great stashbuster, or way of clearing out your yarn box at the end of a project. Just join your next yarn on with a Russian join or magic knot, and keep on going! I made 21 squares out of the leftovers from my Carousel kit! You can see in the blanket photos in this post the colour changes. 

If you would like to make squares or blankets for Wrap With Love, or a charity closer to your home, here is my pattern. You can also find, favourite or queue it on Ravelry here:

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/wrap-with-love-blanket-square

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WRAP WITH LOVE - CROCHET BLANKET STITCH SQUARES

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Materials:

4mm hook (or hook size to achieve desired square size)

~50g DK Yarn

Scissors

Yarn Needle

All stitches are in US terminology

sl st = slip stitchch = chain stitchsc = single crochetdc = double crochet


Square:

Row 1: 
Ch 48. In 3rd ch from hook, 2dc. *skip 2 ch, (1sc, 2dc) in next ch*. Repeat * to * to the last chain; in the last ch, 1sc. Ch2, turn.

Row 2:
2dc in first sc (that is, the last sc you made in the previous row). *skip 2 stitches, (1sc, 2dc) in next st (which will be the sc from the previous row)*. Repeat * to * to the end of the row; 1sc into space between 2ch and 2dc on the previous row (not into a stitch or into the chains). Ch2, turn. 

Rows 3-30:
Repeat Row 2. Do not fasten off. 

Tip: The easy way to count rows is to count the "bobbles" that poke out the wrong side of each row - you'll have 15 across, and 15 up on each side once you have 30 rows! You also finish in the opposite corner to the starting tail.

Edging:

Note: I've worked the edging in a different colour so you can see the stitches more easily. It's easier (and fewer ends) to just keep working with the same colour!

Ch1 and turn your work 90 degrees clockwise (not over! you're still working in the same direction as you were when you finished row 30). 

sc into the side of the last sc you made in Row 3. *2sc into 2ch sp, 1sc into side of next sc*. Repeat to end of row. In the last ch2 space, 3sc.

Turn 90 degrees again so you're now working along the other side of your Row 1 chains, and sc into the first ch (the same one you did the first two dc into). *2sc into 2ch sp, 1sc into next ch*. Repeat to end of row. In the last ch2 space, 3sc.

Turn 90 degrees again, and sc into the side of the first sc. *2sc into 2ch sp, 1sc into side of next sc*. Repeat to end of row. In the last ch2 space, 3sc.

Turn 90 degrees again - we're back to the top! sc in each stitch, and 2sc in the last stitch. slst to the first sc, cut your yarn and weave in the ends.

Joining

You need 28 squares to make a blanket - 4 wide and 7 long. Join however you like! Whip stitch, mattress stitch, sc, sc or slst in the back look - the choice is yours. 

Once joined and your ends are all woven in, work a simple sc border around the edge of the blanket to support the seams and stop the squares stretching too much. You can do a more elaborate border if you wish, but that's yarn that could be making another whole square! 

Teddies for Refugees - an Update!

Hi everyone! 

My Teddies for Refugees project is going really well - I've sold 20 teddies, with $10 each going to support the world of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre here in Australia. Plus, a local tennis group have chosen the Resource Centre for a charitable donation from hearing about my project! 

I wanted to share with you a special story today :) 

My cousin is a church minister in Western Sydney, an area which has a high number of people who have come to Australia as immigrants or refugees, and who do not have English as their first language. One particular family that he is working with are refugees from Syria. When I was talking with them over Christmas, my cousin asked if I could make a pair of teddies to give to the family - one in Aussie green and gold, and the other in the colours of the Syrian flag! 

The Aussie one reminds me so much of a soccer player! I had fun looking up the Syrian flag, and figuring out how to get the stars on the white middle of the flag.

I used Anne's Cross Your Heart Teddy pattern (which is free!) and the Teeny Tiny Stars pattern by Lucy at Attic24 for the stars. The yarn is Stylecraft Special DK, except the stars which are Red Heart Margareta.

Making these teddies, and special requests like these buddies has been so much fun, as well as raising money to help refugees!

If you're in Australia and want to buy a teddy and support refugees, visit the shop at https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/TeddiesforRefugees! 

Poppies!

Hi everyone! 

I have been a bit quiet on the blog front for a few weeks - we travelled with my family to the lake house for Christmas and New Years, and I did wayyyyy too much cooking and chatting and game playing. It was great fun, but it led to quite a few fatigue crashes. 

I've been working on a few crochet projects over the holidays, but the one I want to talk about today is - Poppies! 

An incredible group of people put together an exhibition of 5000 for Anzac Day 2015, the 100th anniversary of the original Anzac Day landings at Gallipoli. This group has now been invited to participate in the Chelsea Flower Show in 2016 (sponsored by the Victorian Government), and they needed 20,000 more poppies!! A crochet friend on Facebook put out a call, and I thought I could add a few to the total. 

I used this pattern: https://5000poppies.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/chelsea-patterns-oct-2015.pdf , but you know me - I have to fiddle with every pattern to figure out how to make it easier :P 

Rather than making the green centre with the black eyelash yarn, and the red part separately and then sewing them together, I did the following:

1. Make green centre.

2. Do Round 1 of red petals

3. During Round 2 of red petals, crochet through back loop of green centre on top of red petals. Then, continue red petals to the end of Round 4.

4. Crochet black eyelash yarn to the spare front loops of the green centre, using the same instructions as in the pattern.

Ta dah! Even easier poppies that don't have any sewing!

I made 27 poppies, and my friend Sam made 3, so there are 30 poppies heading off in the mail soon to join their 19,970 friends at the 2016 Chelsea Flower Show :) 

What projects have you been working on over the Christmas break? 

Teddies for Refugees

Good morning everyone! And happy birthday to me! 

For my birthday this year, I want to give gifts rather than receive them. 

I am so lucky to have been born and live in this peaceful, prosperous country, to have a wonderfully supportive family, to have safe and open access to education for as long as I want to, to say pretty much what I like where I like, and to have many excellent friends of different ethnicities and backgrounds. 

There are lots of people in the world who have not been nearly as lucky as me - they were born and live in war-torn countries, or where they are not free to be themselves; who live in fear of their lives and the lives of those they love every day. Some muster the courage (and funds!) to escape, to seek refuge in countries like mine, to share and build peace and prosperity. 

Australia is built on our native peoples' lands, and the work and effort of all Australians, whether born here or overseas. We are a nation of immigrants, and it saddens me that our government is indulging in dog whistle politics, trying to scare us about new people arriving. We keep people, including children, in "immigration detention". We are learning to be selfish and judgmental.

This year I want to do something to help - to prove to the thousands of people seeking safety and opportunity in Australia that most Australians do care, do want them here, and do recognise the achievements and contributions of refugees past and future. But what could I do? I do not have much money to spend, nor do I have much energy for activism or physical assistance. But I can crochet :)

So, I have launched my "Teddies for Refugees" shop on Etsy today, for my birthday. For each teddy sold, $10 will be donated to the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, an organisation providing practical assistance and advocacy to those seeking a new life in Australia. I have chosen this organisation because of the great work it does, and their work fits well with my career in the legal profession, as well as my practical nature. If you want to learn more about what the ASRC does, visit their website at www.asrc.org.au 

https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/TeddiesforRefugees

My birthday wish is for my friends to share my shop link, so that we have the best chance of selling as many teddies as possible to help the ASRC.

At the moment it's only available to Australian customers because of ridiculous postage costs to anywhere else, but if you are not in Australia and want to help those fleeing terrible situations, I encourage you to contact a refugee organisation in your area and ask them what they need the most. 

As the Australian national anthem itself says:

"For those who've come across the seas, 

we've boundless plains to share;

With courage let us all combine

to Advance Australia Fair."

My first Heart Teddy Bear

Hey there!

How are you today? My life is incredible busy at the moment and sometimes I have the feeling my life is a mile ahead of me and I am trying to catch up. Oh well. It shall get better I guess!

I finished my first Heart Teddy Bear yesterday. :) He turned out quite big: about 30 cm in height I would guess. Very huggable! It didn't take too long to complete the teddy. I started on the 12th of September and finished it last night. With lots of crochet breaks in-between that is - I would say in total the teddy took about 3-4 nights. I used this pattern by the way.

The sewing together was a bit of a pain in the butt. I am not very good with the fiddly thing but I think it turned out alright (I had to undo one of the legs though... sewed it on the wrong way. ooppss). Practice, practice... I love making amigurumi but the sewing... Eeek. I wish I was better at it!

The teddy went into a box with lots of sweets and shall be delivered tomorrow. It will go to an organization which will hand out the gifts to refugee children this weekend. It is the biggest family celebration of the Muslim calendar (Eid-ul-Adha) and traditionally children get gifts on this day. I hope it will lighten up a little one's day!!

The new refugee home near out house will open next month. I hope to finish more teddies by then. :) Fingers crossed everything goes as planned... This week they found some old world war II bombs in the ground next to the new home. They were deactivated by specialist. There are so many bombs in the ground here in Dortmund! They are left overs from World War II and as Dortmund was one of the major industrial towns a lot of bombs fell down here. 

What is on your hook at the moment?

Take care

Anne

Heart Teddy Bear / Herzensbär

Hello!

Over the last couple of weeks more and more refugees have arrived in Germany (and other European countries). The pictures shown in the media are heartbreaking: Adults, children and babies - so many people who lost everything and are looking for a safe place to stay where they can live without their lives in danger all the time. Yet there is so much resistance everywhere to take them in; it makes me very sad and disgusted with mankind.

Fortunately there is a huge wave of people who want and try to help. Here in Dortmund where over 5000 refugees arrived just over the last week, lots of people waited at the train station to welcome the newcomers and offer them food and the first basic things. In Munich the police had to ask people to stop bringing donated goods as they couldn't store them anymore. Of course all the help is not enough as the refugees will need help for far longer than just for that one moment. They need help learning German, finding their place here and so on.

I planned to teach German in one of the refugee camps/homes here in Dortmund but at the moment I just can't see myself doing it. Not because I don't want to but because I don't have the energy. Like so many of you out there, I am a Spoonie. Plus I have mentioned my dad is really, really ill and we try to  cherish as much time together as we have left. So I can't commit to something (at the moment) where I don't know if I could teach each week/every couple of days. It just wouldn't be fair plus it would add a lot of stress to myself, stress I am not sure my body can cope with at the moment.

Still. I want to do something. At first I thought about making blankets but while I was talking with Michelle, we came up with the idea to make teddy bears for the kids. Crocheted ones of course. They work up quickly (compared to a blanket) and I imagine they would be well loved and close to heart. 

Would you like to join me in making Heart Teddy Bears? :) 

If all of us just make one, there will be heaps of happy children. Plus you can take it to any refugee place close to your house (if there is none, you can also send them to me), so there is little logistic effort.

I browsed the internet and found many lovely free crochet teddy bear patterns. Here is just a short selection of the ones I really like (the pics are from the Ravelry pages of the patterns):

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/teddy-bear-50

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/bear--pot-of-honey

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/teddy-in-a-tee

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/lil-classic-teddy

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/walter-bear

I will add a little heart to the breast of the teddy to show it is very close to my heart. A heart teddy bear that is :)

If you want to join me, I made little labels to add to the teddy bear:

I will try to finish my first teddy bear over the weekend (if I can decide which pattern to use). Pictures should be online soon! 

Take care and happy crochet

Anne

Decluttering and Organising the Yarn Stash

Hello all!

Guess what... I am sick with the cold again. Gosh, I am so annoyed by this. Does any of you have good ideas on how to avoid getting sick this much?! I am willing to try almost everything by now.

Anyway, back to more pleasant things. As I told you some weeks ago, I got myself a yarn winder to organize my yarn stash. It took me a lot longer to wind all the yarn balls into nice yarn cakes than I expected - lot more yarn than I thought I had. Opps.

As you can see on the pictures, I stacked the yarn cakes into IKEA shelves which seems to work really well. I get about 4x4x4 yarn cakes into one shelf. I do see the problem of getting to the yarn cakes at the back but at the moment this seems to be the best solution. I could add metal drawers but I wouldn't be able to add as much yarn to them. And let's face it: There is only so much space in my office/studio. Sighs. Perhaps one day?

If you search for "yarn storage" on Pinterest, you will find tons of wonderful ideas - this board for example has tons of ideas, tricks and hints.. I have tried some of them, like the boxes, but the yarn got tangeled up all the time. And if I put them into shelves it worked as long as the yarn was in proper balls. By the time I used half of it or more, it tended to get very messy. 

 

How do you store your stash? Send us pictures to crochet.between.worlds@gmail.com and I will add them to this post if you like!

 

You shall be very proud of me! I filled three bags with yarn which I won't use and will give it to charity. Wohoo, I never thought the day where I would give yarn away (willing) would arrive. Did you? At the moment, we (as in the boyfriend and I) are very busy decluttering the flat. One wouldn't believe all the stuff one collected over the years which is still in very good shape but never used. So it shall leave our flat and more somewhere else. We usually donate our things to Oxfam which will resell the stuff. There is a little store here in Dortmund and it is always a bit funny when I go in there and discover things in the selling shelves which used to belong to us. Feels good though. It is amzing how less stuff in the flat actually frees one's mind!

Have a wonderful week! Is it a long weekend for you too? It is here in Germany (well, for most people. Thursday is public holiday and most people take the friday off).

Take care

Anne

Captain Poprocks Helps Days for Girls

Recently my mother and sister came across the charity Days for Girls, an international organisation who provides women around the world with washable sanitary pad kits.  

From their website:

"What if not having sanitary supplies meant DAYS without school, DAYS without income, DAYS without leaving the house? Girls use leaves, mattress stuffing, newspaper, corn husks, rocks, anything they can find...but still miss up to 2 months of school every year. It turns out this issue is a surprising but instrumental key to social change for women all over the world. The poverty cycle can be broken when girls stay in school."

I can't even imagine not having access to safe, reliable sanitary supplies, for something that happens every month! 

Over the last few months, we have been working on sewing the components of the kits - shields (which look like normal panty liners with wings, and have a waterproof layer in them), liners (flannelette squares to be folded and inserted into the shields for absorption), and drawstring bags for the whole kit to go into. We have also been buying and collecting underpants, face washers and hotel soaps for the kits. Here is a pinboard showing what goes into each kit. 

Yesterday we had a working bee with 20 wonderful volunteers to make a mountain of liners for the sanitary kits. We finished over 600 liners start to finish, as well as completing 100 liners that were already partway through the pipeline, and have another 500 started. 

Of course, Captain Poprocks came to lend a hand, and had a very interesting afternoon... 

...hiding under piles of flannelette... 

...learning how to use the overlocker and the sewing machine...

...and crowing over the stacks of finished liners! 

It was an incredibly successful working bee, and we are so very grateful to the wonderful volunteers who came with donations of underpants and time :) 

If you are interested in finding out more about Days for Girls or making a donation of money or materials, visit their website or send me a message! 

There will be a special Global Sew-a-thon on 11 October 2014 to celebrate the International Day of the Girl.  We are still working out what we might be able to do to celebrate this occasion and help this wonderful charity even more! 

Yarn in honor of Findus

Hello all!

Yesterday something happened which shocked me to the core: My cat Findus died aged 16 years. He lived with my family since he was less then 4 weeks old and really owned us. 

We were lucky to have him this long since he almost died several times (he had an autoimmune illness) but that doesn't make the loss any easier. Earlier this week my mum took him to the vet because he was eating less and breathed really hard. The news weren't good: There was water in this lungs. He went home with my mum that night but had to go back to the vet last night where he had to be put down. The decision wasn't an easy one but as a pet owner you have a great responsibilty for you pet. And we didn't want to let him suffer and "drown" or starve because he couldn't breathe or eat. My parents and my sister were there with him til the end. I just wish I could have been there too!! Because I had a bad feeling beforehand I did skype with him earlier the day though and was able to tell him I love him. 

Anyway, I spent the night thinking what I could do in honour of him. When I feel sad I usually buy yarn but I figured that this time I should do it for someone else. On the World Vision homepage I found the Micro Credit Project of Judith Monica Herrera. She lives in Bolivia and needs a micro credit to expand her yarn store which feeds her family and allows her child to go to school. The project can be found here. 

When I saw the project I decided to donate some money to her yarn store in honor of my beloved cat Findus. I bet he would have loved that (oh, well, he would have loved the yarn to play with... or to eat... or to chew on... or all of it really).

 

These micro credits are a really good thing to support. More information can be found here (German) and here (English).

Take care

Anne

Villigster Decke Part 3 - The Auction!

Hello to all of you!

This weekend, the annual Pentecost Meeting of the Evangelisches Studienwerk took place in Haus Villigst. Around 200 current and former scolarship holders attenened the three-day-event with the title "Creativity and Order". There were workshops, talks and creative evening events. The later involved a "knit and crochet happening" organized by Wibke and me - it was good fun and lots of people spent the night (and days afterwards) with knitting and crochet needles in their hands.

When I wasn't running around organizing things (I as in charge of the meeting), I spent my time sewing the Villigster Blanket (I told you about it here and here) together. More squares arrived during the week and I believe there were around 150 in total. Plus heaps of new squares were made during the meeting. There will be a second blanket for sure next year.

Anyway, the blanket was auctioned off on sunday (we used the American Auction Modus) and raised 290 €! What a brilliant result!! In the end the "Counil of Five" which is the council of our former scolarship holders made the last bid and thus "won" the blanket. They gave it to the office of the Evangelisches Studienwerk! Lucky them! It was already used for the kids playing in the park! Couldn't be happier and I am so proud of the result!

But now, some picture impressions!