Earlier in the year I came across a gorgeous Crochet-a-Long (CAL) after seeing much chatter about it from a few of my favourite crochet designers on social media. When I investigated further I found out that not only was it run by one of my favourite yarn companies (Scheepjes), but there was also a really sad, but lovely story behind the design of it. The CAL was originally designed by Marinke Slump (aka Wink) from the blog A Creative Being. Unfortunately Wink was never able to finish what was to be her final design. You see, Wink suffered from depression and very sadly succumbed to her terrible illness and ended her life last year - she was only 31!
Scheepjes and Wink's other online friends and bloggers decided to get together to finish the design of this CAL in memory of Marinke and to hi-light the terrible reality of depression, by donating a portion of the sales of kits to the mental health charity Mind.
Here's what Scheepjes has written about it on their website:
As many of you know, this CAL was designed by the late Marinke Slump (aka : Wink) from www.acreativebeing.com and was the final design she was working on at the time of her passing. In accordance with the wishes of Marinke's family, 12 of her online friends and bloggers have completed her unfinished design to present this beautiful and sensitive CAL in Marinke's memory and as a tribute to her work.
The theme of this CAL is: Last Dance on the Beach.
We are sure Marinke would approve of one final dance together on the beach with all her creative friends.
For those of you who don't know what a CAL is or why you would want to take part, here it is - it's basically what it says it is...a Crochet-a-Long. Each week a part of the pattern is released - in this case we were given one block design every week and then had a week to complete 4 of those blocks. The idea is to encourage people to follow the timeline and then you will have a finished product at the end. So many of us LOVE starting new projects, but we're not that great at finishing them! Obviously there is no strict rule about meeting a deadline, it's more of a motivation idea. There is also usually some sort of support group for a CAL as well. For this one there is a really great Facebook Group where people posted progress photos, offered advice, asked questions when they were struggling with something and just generally cheered each other on!
Another HUGE plus about this particular CAL is that there are tutorial videos for each part of the CAL! These have been done by the lovely Esther from the blog It's all in a Nutshell and are so helpful and easy to follow - even the more beginner crocheter could follow them and create their very own masterpiece!
Scheepjes released 2 kit options in 3 different colour ways - Dance in the Sea, Dance under the Stars and Dance in the Rain. You could either get the Lux kit ,which is their lovely Merino yarn in a gorgeous bag with all sorts of extra goodies or you could get the basic kit which is done in their Colour Crafter yarn.
The lux kit was a bit out of my budget, but the Scheepjes Colour Crafter yarn is so soft and lovely to work with, that I really didn't mind. I also didn't really like any of the 3 colour ways Scheepjes had put together - they are nice, but just not quite me. So I decided to create my very own colour combination like a few other people in the Facebook group were doing. They were also giving their colour ways their own names - there was a Dance in the Autumn Leaves, Dance in the Ice-Cream Shop, Dance in the Caribbean etc. I chose my favourite colours from the Scheepjes Colour Crafter range and as I lost my Granny last year decided to dedicate it to her as I think it is something she really would have loved. So I called mine "Dance in my Granny's Garden". Someone later pointed out that the colours looked just like SweetPea colours - which my Granny always had in her garden, so how fitting!
And the link to all the patterns is here and to the tutorial videos is here.
Tag your projects on Facebook and Instagram using #madewithdbc I'd love to see your creations!
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