I had planned to share the creation of our YMCC CCCKAL (Yarn Me Calm Community Calming Corona Crochet and Knit along) earlier but well, life sometimes just happens!   So I will share it in 4 parts over the coming months instead!

I'm generally a glass half full sort of person (or so I tell myself)!!!  

So with that in mind when I heard In mid 2020 that here in Melbourne we would be facing an uncertain period of time in isolation and lockdown I thought "Well at least I can crochet more".  

I did however also worry about people who would be impacted negatively by the isolation, perhaps without others at home with them, possibly unwell  and maybe without someone to interact and engage with.  So I started to think about what I might be able to do in my small corner of the world.

In discussion with some of the amazing humans in Yarn Me Calm Community we came up with a few different things.  We started catching up via Zoom for what we called "The Yarning" and decided that we would create a CKAL.

What is a CKAL you ask?

Well, it is a crochet and knit along, normally it is one or the other but I wanted to be inclusive so we had both going simultaneously!

We did things a little differently to how they would normally occur for a CKAL, instead of one person designing the project, it was a collaboration between myself and some of our fabulous community members.  A poll was conducted to get a gauge of how many people wanted to participate and whether they were knitters, crocheters or bi-stitchual!

There was quite a bit of interest so we decided to make a total of 16 squares over 16 weeks.  

How our CKAL worked....

• Every week I drew two of our CCCK contributors names to choose a stitch for us all to play with randomly.
• It was one crochet stitch and one knitted stitch for the week (and possibly a Tunisian stitch too)
• No one was expected to create the stitches but they needed to identify where and who it came from to ensure you credit the designer etc. appropriately.
• ensure that the directions are lovely and clear for everyone to follow. Upload videos etc of the stitch if that makes it easier!
• choose to do either a crochet or knitted stitch for the week or both!
• we created squares with our stitches that measured 15cm x 15cm.
• Use any yarn weight you like! 
• We didn't include paid stitches, this is so our CCCK is accessible for everyone regardless of their circumstances.
• The joining stitches were part of our CCCK
• Everyone was free to invite others to the group to join in!
• Stay kind, have fun and hopefully learn something new!

I used a yummy Bobbel Boxx from Garnmanufaktur for my CCCKAL and made just the crochet version.  It is a lovely throw rug size using all 16 squares.  You could make 2 of each square or add a plain square between the textured ones to increase the size of your finished blanket.

WEEK ONE

I chose the first week of stitches to get us going!

Our First Knitted Stitch was Bee Stitch by the Nervous Knitter.

Our First crocheted stitch was Basket Weave Stitch!

WEEK TWO

WEEK THREE

Week 3 Knitting stitch chosen by the talented Amy. 

It is the Japanese Lace Knitting Stitch with Bobble.

Pattern is in graph form and opens in a new page.

WEEK FOUR