crafts & knitting

December: time for cosiness

Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)38 Comments

Winter is here, and today is the solstice and shortest day of the year.

The last few autumn leaves are still clinging to the tips of branches, but most now lie underfoot and the first frosts have come, sprinkling every surface with a crystalline sparkle. Days dawn in a beautiful splash of colour, with each sunrise delightfully unique, and when you step outside your breath creates tiny swirling clouds the icy air. Gone are the lunchtime salads of summer, instead there are soups and stews that warm you up from the inside (above is my winter-time favourite – Caribbean Curry Recipe from the Clever Guts Book by Dr Michael Mosley).

And whilst it is true that when Winter starts to drag at the end of February I will be impatient for the woodland to begin unfurling the glory of its greenery, for now I am not depressed by the drab, dormant state of the countryside, at the moment Winter still has all the appeal of a newly arrived season. A much appreciated pleasure at this time of year is the contrast between being out on a bracing walk and returning home to cosy up and relax. Outside is a world of frost and icy wind, reddened cheeks and cold fingertips, whereas inside there is stillness and calm, warmth and comfort. And though I might choose to stay inside more were it not for the need to take Toby out on walks, I am rewarded for my very slight sacrifice by Toby’s evident joy at the wet & windy weather. He seems to find it funny and whoops with delight at the wind whipping through the branches of the bare trees, and even seems to quite enjoy heavy rain, and it is certainly fun walking with him despite the conditions.

In between the colder days of frost and ice we have had a lot more days of milder but very wet weather, and the woodland paths are once again extremely muddy tracks. Just recently my legs have been really aching at the end of our walks and I had started to think ‘uh-oh, it’s my age’, but then I realised that it’s actually down to all this mud. Walking along the muddy paths is a tricky business, each step slides out sideways and of course uses different muscles in your legs, so I just need to build up strength again in my winter walking muscles, which over a hot, dry summer have not had much use!

As always we have a quiet and low key Christmas coming up here, but the tree is up now and I feel reasonably well prepared. I made a few mini Christmas stocking from my free pattern, some in 4ply on 2.5mm needles but also a couple of slightly larger ones in DK weight yarn on 3.5mm needles, you can see the size difference in one of the pictures above. The two larger stockings will be stuffed with a few small gifts and given to Amy and her boyfriend on Christmas Eve, as he is Danish and the Danes celebrate on the Eve of Christmas.

I also hope to finish off the pair of seasonal socks that I started in the first week of December, I’m a little obsessed with stripy socks at the moment and these will hopefully be worn on Christmas day as I’m now past the second heel so don’t have too far to go.

Well, I’m signing off now until the new year and am looking forward to a couple of slow-paced weeks of quiet and peace and comfort. I hope that you too have moments of peace and joyful comfort in the coming days,

Thank you so much for your company and your kindness across this year, my warmest best wishes to you and yours for the celebrations of this season, J xxx

crafts & knitting · free patterns · new patterns

Free Holly Pattern

Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)26 Comments

Hello hello, it’s just a quick post from me today in order to share my free holly pattern with you again. This was first shared in November 2007 as a post on my previous Typepad blog, but when Typepad closed and deleted all blogs from their servers the post was lost, so I have written a revised version of it which includes better increases. It is free to download from Ravelry:

Free Holly Pattern

As always I look forward to seeing what creative ideas people come up with for using it; maybe on a Christmas napkin ring, a hair slide, a pretty trim on a well wrapped present or on a hairband for a knitted bear, whatever you decide to use it for I hope you have fun with the pattern.

Happy knitting, and as always love from me, J x

countryside · crafts & knitting · in the woods

Late November: and musings on water cycles

Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)16 Comments

November has brought some proper English rain: days of constant, steady rainfall from deep grey clouds that form a dense blanket across the sky, reducing the daylight to a semi dark twilight. Murky, miserable, gloomy, overcast, dim are all words that we use for weather like this, and the Scots have their own wonderful word for this kind of weather: dreich

On days like this I marvel at the amount of water that is held aloft in clouds, it can rain non stop for days, causing flooding down here on the land, and yet the density of the cloud above seems to remain constant. It’s estimated that an average cumulus cloud weighs around 500,000 kg and at any one time there is six times more water held in clouds in the atmosphere around the globe than in all of the world’s rivers combined. As I cloud watch on our walks I often think about the constant cycle of water across the planet: from a vaporous state in clouds, to a liquid state in oceans and rivers, and a solid state in the frozen cold places of the world. Of all of the known elements, water is unique because it is the only natural substance that exists in all three states under normal Earth conditions. Isn’t that something marvelous to ponder on cold and wet November day?

Most of our walks take in some form of water, there are the narrow brooks that criss-cross the woodlands, the chalk streams and rivers that flow alongside Waterford Marsh and through Panshanger, the shallow pools left from second world war bombings at Balls Wood and the deep gravel pit extraction lakes at Panshanger, now home to such an amazing array of wildlife.

All summer long the pebbles that line the woodland brooks were baked dry, but now they are once again submerged under a few inches of languid water. The stream strength is not yet enough to wash away the fallen autumn leaves that float on the surface but now the ground is fully saturated one more winter storm will swell the gentle trickle to a rushing, babbling flow. And we no longer crunch our way through the fallen leaves, their dry crackle has been dulled by dampness and underfoot the squelch of mud has replaced the baked earth of summer.

Back home inside is warm and cosy and there is some quiet calm, some gentle-paced sock knitting, and a little tentative pattern writing. I hope to pop back very soon with an updated version of my free knitted holly pattern. It was first written and shared in November 2007 and I have learnt a lot more about knitting since then so have re-written it with different increases methods. I just have to knit a few more samples and photograph them so will share a free PDF file in my next post.

‘Til then I hope life is treating you kindly and you are finding enjoyable moments in your days, see you soon, J x