Goodbye Alison

Today I went to a funeral. I'm lucky (?) enough that this was only the eighth funeral I've ever been to in 40+ years.

It was for one of the mums at school. Her son is the same age as my first born, my DS (and she was a year younger than me). So although we were friendly rather than good friends, it hit hard, thinking of my children in the same circumstances, being left without a mum.

She died of multiple myeloma - a cancer that has highest incidence rates among people who are:
- over 75
- male 
- black
- living in deprived areas. 

She was none of those, and it was less than six months from diagnosis until she died. Looking at the stats, the number of women in the UK who were diagnosed with this type of cancer between 2009-2011 numbers... 13. In a population of what, 65 million. 

I'm still wondering to what extent the tears that I cried (there were lots, but I'm a big crier) were for her, to what extent they were for her children, and to what extent they were to do with me, my losses, my feelings and thoughts. 

Anyway, I wanted to do something, so I made a heart, based on the Attic 24 heart. 

It isn't my best effort. I'm not being modest - I made a similar one for my mum and it was better. But here it is:

Front side. The main body is Drops Paris in turquoise, and the flower and petals/wings (there are two, honest) is a variegated cotton yarn, but I don't have the brand anymore.

Back side. The one I did for my mum was blank on the back, but I've added an 'A' for Alison here in the same variegated yarn - the pattern for the A is from Moogly alphabet. 















I hope it brings her parents some comfort. 

Goodbye Alison.  

Strawberry flower pattern

As this is my first ever, pattern, I didn't realise you couldn't just put all the details in Ravelry and had to link it elsewhere!

So here it is:

PATTERN

Ch = chain 
S/s = slip stitch 
DC = double crochet (single crochet in US terms)

Round 1: In yellow, either chain 3 and s/s to join, or use a magic loop. 
Round 2: ch1, then 10 dc into the loop. S/s to first dc - 10 dcs. Fasten off yellow.

Round 3: In white, join in any of the dc stitches. Ch3, then 4 tr in the same stitch. S/s into the next stitch. 
Five trebles into the next stitch, s/s into the next one. 
Repeat until you end up with five petals. S/s behind the first ch of the ch3 to join. Fasten off.

Round 4: In green, join behind the flower in a vertical stitch of the yellow dcs from round 2, between two petals. Ch5, then s/s into the second chain from the hook. Dc into the next stitch, then s/s into each of the next two. 
Ch1, s/s into a vertical stitch that’s between the next two petals. 
Repeat around until you have 5 tendrils, roughly between each petal. 
Ch1 and s/s join to the bottom of the first tendril. 
Cast off leaving a long tail, so you can just anchor each tendril to the back of the petals (so the stitches aren’t visible from the front). This will keep them in place and stop them moving about.

I hope you like it - let me know if there are any issues please, and I'll try to edit it.