When I learn a new technique I tend to try it out in lots of different ways and so, following on from my Corner to Corner scarves, I have now made a C2C twiddlemuff:
The beads were a suggestion from a friend, and definitely increase the twiddling potential!
Made in Drops Puna light grey and dark grey, Wendy Ramsdale dk Malton and King Cole baby alpaca dk mauve, on a 4.5mm hook.
The winter sun pattern produced such a lovely tactile square that I immediately felt I should turn it into a twiddlemuff:
There is a matching granny rectangle on the reverse, and some twiddly buttons on the inside. I feel there may be another Knit for Peace parcel coming together soon.
I have had four crochet squares made up to a Rowan pattern for ages, with no particular project in mind. Then looking through my stash recently I realised that two of them together would make one side of a twiddlemuff. A quick trawl through youtube found this short video on joining granny squares, and the result is here:
I also managed to join the two raw edges of the twiddlemuff ‘tube’ in the same way:
Made in Drops cotton merino grey, light grey and beige.
Now why has it taken me so long to learn this very useful method?
My latest twiddlemuff:
Made in King Cole Riot dk 1843 (rainbow) and Sirdar Country style 4 ply 634 (Sybil). This was a good stash-buster as the Rainbow riot yarn was left over from my crocodile stitch gloves (here) and the Sirdar yarn was left over from the child’s fingerless gloves (here).
It is interesting how different the different halves of the rainbow ball turned out to be. I geuss my gloves had all the red-orange-yellow and the twiddlemuff has all the green-blue-indigo-violet. Anyway it looks quite cheery.
Based on the assumption that there are a significant number of male dementia patients I thought I would produce a twiddlemuff in a more masculine colourway.
Made in Rowan wool-cotton Moss grey, Deepest olive and Lichen, with Stylecraft Life 2420 (grey) as the background.
Surely a muff any man would be proud to use?
My third twiddlemuff, and I think my most successful so far:
Made in Scheepjes stonewashed XL in moonstone, crystal quartz, lilac quartz. deep amethyst, yellow jasper and coral on a 6mm hook.
I did it in half trebles, and varied which loop I went into on different rows so I could introduce some texture to the inside:
As it is an Aran weight yarn it came together fairly quickly. In fact the only disadvantage I can see is that it is actually warm – and I think most hospitals are somewhat over-heated.
Regular readers might have noticed an up-turn in my rate of productivity of late. Surprisingly this is not due to an excess of spare time, but rather a need for the comfort of crochet. So here, for my benefit as well as others, is my second twiddlemuff:
Made in Rico baby so soft print Grey mix on a 4.5mm hook.
The flower shaped buttons are Trimits craft buttons, and the lovely muted orange and pink buttons are vintage – bought from an honesty box in a shed at the side of a road in the island of Hoy! (I knew they would come in useful one day)
Does it happen to you sometimes that although you have ‘finished’ a project you keep looking at it and thinking that it needs something more? Well such was the case with my twiddlemuff:
So I have added some little crochet collars to the buttons on both sides, which I think pulls the whole thing together colour-wise.
I am glad that I hadn’t posted it off before I had the idea!
You may already have heard of twiddlemuffs, but for the uninitiated these are tubular double thickness hand muffs with tactile objects attached inside and out. They are designed to provide stimulation activity for patients suffering from dementia, and patients in post-operative recovery. There are several organisations looking for charitable donations of these muffs and the pattern I used was based on one from knit for peace.
Obviously I crocheted mine rather than knitting it (!) which meant that I could make it in the round, so it is essentially a tube about 17cm in diameter and 54cm long. The two raw edges are then joined to each other giving a 17 x 27cm muff, which you then decorate. Because all the ends are on the inside of the double thickness there is no need to sew them in, and it is a great way to use up oddments of yarn.
It is not a thing of beauty (ask my husband!) but I think it fulfils a need, and I had fun making it. I used an 8mm hook and two strands of double knitting yarn for the muff, and made it in half treble crochet. It weighs 180g, so that’s quite a bit of stash used up.
Simply hooked 