Come and be merry and bright. It’s the Oxford Christmas Hugathon!

Tickets on sale from 7pm on Friday 1st September  The eventbrite link is here…

The Great Woolly Hugs’ Christmas Hugathon in Oxford takes place on Saturday 2nd December 2023 between 11.00am and 3.30pm, at St John’s Hall Church, Broadway, Kidlington, OX5 1DD. All welcome!

Our Venue is fully accessible. Access to the venue is smooth from street level. There are accessible bathroom facilities.

As it is our Christmas Hugathon you might like to wear any Christmas jumper/decorations you may have, but NO OBLIGATION!

TICKETS COST £18 EACH, which includes Event swag!

Our Hugathons are a wonderful opportunity to meet fellow Woolly Huggers who share a love of crafting. They are friendly and inclusive. It is a great time for chatting with your fellow Woolly crew and sharing ideas. If Tortie behaves we will let him come too! We’ve included some testimonials from folk who have been to one before, which might be useful if this is your first time.

We will also be running a couple of fundraisers, our fabulous Lucky Dip (£1 a go) and our legendary Gin Raffle (£1 a ticket)  We will also be running a DeStash table. If you have crafting items to donate to our DeStash table please do bring, remember one person’s destash is another person’s treasure! So do bring along some cash, or we do have a card machine if that is easier, happy to tap for any amount!

And finally we will play a couple of games of our infamous Yarn Bingo game, but with a Christmas twist, you will not want to miss this!

During the Hugathon we will attempt to get as many 6 inch squares made for Chernobyl 2024! We will provide all SSDK, but please remember to bring your 4mm hooks/knitting needles, you will need them! If you have any squares already made for THIS project, please bring them, it may be that we can get some kits out for construction. New palette for 2024 below. We will also be making pompom decorations for our woolly Christmas tree.

We have access to hot water for drinks, and will provide the wherewithal for making tea and coffee for a donation. We are planning mulled wine and mince pies. Bring a packed lunch, snacks and drinks, we won’t judge if that is alcohol.

How to get here..

There is parking at the front of the Church, and some local street parking. Ali has made us a map. All red lines denote on street parking for free, but do double check in case things have changed.

Oxford Parkway (Park and Ride) is only 15 mins walk. Parking tariffs for Oxford Parkway station: Up to one hour: Free. Up to 11 hours: £2.00.

The nearest train station is Oxford Parkway. It takes an average of 6 mins to travel from Oxford to Oxford Parkway by train, over a distance of around 4 miles (6 km). There are normally 40 trains per day.

All buses from Oxford to Kidlington stop outside the Hugathon venue

And it is pretty close to Oxford Airport!

St John’s Hall Church, Broadway, Kidlington, OX5 1DD

The invasion of Ukraine by Russia as we all know is incredibly devastating, some of our Chernob families have been able to leave, others have to stay, but the CLL continue to be astonishing in their efforts to support families. Even those who managed to flee now have incredible stuggles as funding ceases and finding accommodation or meeting basic needs are a challenge.

We can’t fix this, but we can do our part as best we can. We can confirm our project will run in 2024, and are launching it as Chernobyl 150. We aim to achieve 150 blankets!

Check out our Christmas in Poland blog. Looking back to last year, mid December 45 Ukrainian children were driven to Lubin in Poland by our friends at the Chernobyl Children’s Lifeline for a respite break with Christmas treats and Father Frost! We can only imagine how much this was needed. We have included a few pics from their trip. So delighted to see our name on their fireplace. These children already have very little, still with the threats from the legacy of Chernobyl , now with war looming all around and the impact that has on every part of daily life. Each child was given one of our blankets. This is overwhelming. In addition, children and their mums already refugeed in Lublin came for a Christmas partyWhat the Chernobyl Children’s Lifeline have done here is extraordinary, so glad these children and families have a warm blanket full of love from us. So glad we can do this. These kids are now all going back into Ukraine with the uncertainty, dangers and chaos. Ot continuing with their refugee status. But they’re all taking love and woolly warmth from us. It doesn’t fix anything but it’s a tangible sign of love and care.

This means the world. Thank you!

24 we hope to repeat this, and with your love and support we are very hopeful!

We need YOU!!

Here’s how you can help….

Squares. We need twelve inch squares in the Stylecraft Special DK palette as in photo,  if 12 is too much, 6 inch squares are fine too, just this yarn in these colours please, inc for embellishments so the blankets come together and are consistent for wash and wear. Knit and crochet equally welcome, beginner or expert, as simple or complex as you like, single colour, multi colour. Design of square up to you, but not too lacy, they need to be hardy. Please use a 4mm hook or needles. If sizing is a challenge with your pattern/tension, we prefer them just under sized rather than over!

SO IMPORTANT! Please ensure you knot off every end/colour change very very securely, leave approx a 6 inch tail end and use a needle to sew in. These blankets have to be super sturdy as there is no way back to fix them if squares collapse.

Whole blankets We know some crafters love to make their own whole blankets and this is wonderful! Please use SSDK. Finished blanket size remains the same at 48inches by 60 inches, and please work within the colour palette.

Donating funds As always we like to be inclusive and would love to send yarn to folks who otherwise would not be able to craft. In addition,we already know there will be the cost of transporting them to the children again and would be incredibly grateful to anyone who would like to donate funds for this project.

Our Paypal is admin@woollyhugs.com

Bank transfer

• We are a Cooperative account in the name of Woolly Hugs
• Account number: 65579631
• Sort code: 089299

Please do inc your name so we can thank you properly.
Any funds raised from our Spring/Easter sale in 2024 will be used to support this project too. 

LAST POSTING FOR SQUARES  IS JUNE 1st 2024!

LAST POSTING FOR WHOLE BLANKETS IS JULY 1ST

THANK YOU.

In 2019 we were able to visit children at home in Belarus, who the previous year had received our blankets when visiting Bristol. Such an honour to be able to do this.

Thank you wonderful people.

How to help by making…

The theme of Camp Bestival 2023 is animal snap and the animal kingdom, so we are looking for small handheld pocket friends in animal themes. Sewn, knitted, crocheted. These sold incredibly well last year, and with your love and support they will again. This quote from the organisers….

“Animals come in all shapes, sizes and styles…just like us lot in the human race… We wanted to celebrate the amazing 8.7 million species there are out there in the world! From the tiddliest underwater creature in the depths of the oceans to the highest bird in the sky… Travel down as a family of animals, come and find your mate in the crowd, team up with a tribe or friendly up with a twin flame. Whatever your vibe, wear it with pride and join in the Animal Snap!” Josie & Rob da Bank.

Photos from 2022

This is the pattern from 2022 if anyone wishes to use as a base…

Introducing Bee’s Blankets

Bee’s Blankets

There are plenty of ideas to be found online, they are called many things – Sensory Mats, busy blankets, fidget blankets etc, but we have come up with some guidelines.

• Bee’s Blankets MUST be machine washable. Everything MUST be sewn on securely and then securely! They must be safe and sturdy.
• Blankets to be lap sized only, so from 50cm up to one metre, no bigger or smaller please.
• Blankets can be made in wool, fabric, fleece and need to have interesting textures. This does not need to be too complicated, a classic granny square by its nature is very tactile.
• Please do add on extra fiddly bits, but these MUST be securely fastened so as not to put the recipient  at risk.
• Suggested extras include zips, ribbon, plastic rings, pompom trim, toggles etc. . All must be very secure!

We were delighted to be approached by the Lead Governor for the Hampshire Hospital in Basingstoke who were desperately trying to find blankets and 3D hanging hearts for their organ donation team to use with organ recipients their families and the families of those who are bravely donating loved ones organs. We’d love to help them, we hope you will be on board too. When we introduced this at the Manchester Hugathon recently, folk were certainly very supportive.It certainly will be a very special thing to be able to do.

The Hearts for organ recipients, their families and the bereaved families donating organs.

Aiming for hand held/palm size. These will go to children and adults so variation in size is good. But hand held size is what we are aiming for.

To be predominantly red. Accent colours can be used, but NOT white please. This is because in folklore, red and white together represents blood and bandages and is quite common to avoid these colours together in hospitals.

Hearts should be 3D and soft, so with some padding please.

Please add a hanging loop.

Knit, crochet, fabric all welcome.

The hearts we are after are very similar to the Hearty Hearts we already make so that we know is popular. Went through the hearts we had here and found these beauties, all perfect for this project too.

Blankets and Quilts

This is a perfect project for our fabric crafters to get behind as lightweight quilts would be perfect for this too.

Blankets to be roughly single bed sized, (80cm long and 45cm wide was their minimum guidance) any colour, but go cheery and bright, made as a whole piece or by joining squares etc. Whilst blankets will be steam cleaned in hospital, once home they will need to be machine washable and tumble dryable yarn. SSDK is perfect.

These will go to individuals who have received transplants

Lovely Maggie S sent two blankets and said we could choose the project and we would like them to go to this.

Posting will be Teddington. We’d like to send a first collection, so an initial last posting please of Saturday 4th March. Thank you!