countryside · crafts & knitting · foxes in my garden · in the woods · wildlife

March: the month of emergings

Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)5 Comments

March is one of those lovely liminal months where seasons are transitioning. Days can start with sharp frosts or sleety rain and the feel that winter still is here, or can be bathed in warm sunshine, drawing delicate scent from early blossom and bright bird song from the tree tops. The change from winter to spring is never a smooth linear transition, it is more like the ebb and flow of waves on an incoming tide, each one advancing just a little higher up the beach and March days feel just like this, each one advancing just a little more towards warmth and regrowth and lengthening daylight.

At the beginning of the month the first hedgerow blossoms were opening on the wild cherry plum trees and here at home on our damson plum tree which looked gloriously beautiful and gave great delight for a week. Now, as the end of the month draws near, it is the turn of the blackthorn blossoms. Blackthorn or sloe bushes flower on bare stems with the new foliage opening after the blossoms have faded. This makes for such a beautiful sight, with white clouds of blossom lining the roads and field margins.

The first green shoots of new leaf growth are gradually opening on many of the trees and aconites, anemones and daffodils are blooming under this gradually greening canopy. And this coming Sunday the clocks go forward an hour, which always brings delight, as the lengthening days mean that light lingers until evening. Even when life feels a little heavy these are all hopeful things that bring small joys.

Knitting is happening too. For a while now I have had a plan to take new photos for the front covers of my early patterns and so I’ve been busy making new sample animals and clothing in currently available yarns. As always these days though progress is slow, but a small step forward is better than none at all. I’ll keep you posted on progress and hope to begin working on some new patterns soon too. In the slow and quiet moments of the day I knit socks, mostly choosing patterns that I have knitted many times before, such as this one ‘Lucky me’ socks by Sofia Capelle.

The more years pass by, the more I realise how much comfort there is to be found in the familiar. The familiar turn of one season to another, the familiar trees along our regular woodland walks, familiar routines day after day, familiar patterns knitted time and time again, so much so that they are in my memory. It will sound boring to some, but it gives me a sense of calm and order and pleasure especially when things outside of my control feel unpredictable and stressful. How about you, do you like your routines or do you prefer the excitement of something new?

Well, I’m off to get Toby a snack, so I will say goodbye for now and leave you with the wish that you have a good few weeks ahead of you where you are, see you in April sometime, J x

PS: (added after getting Toby’s snack), I wanted to give you an update on Katsue the fox. I mentioned in February that she had picked up a new injury which looked quite serious, and I’m very happy to say that she is doing well. She is still limping but moving with much greater ease than she was, and though she is still coming to visit most days she’s no longer encamped in our shed and has returned to her den. I still check the shed daily so see if she’s asleep in there but it’s been over 12 days since she moved out and she is now back to coming for her snacks mostly under cover of darkness.

It seems that she will always have a limp in both back legs now but I’m confident that she is managing well and does not need human intervention (other than small snacks). I feel that intervention should always be kept to a minimum with wild animals and that they should not be removed from their family group and familiar territory unless it is a life threatening situation. It is an enormous relief that she is recovering from her injury well enough to live a normal and very wild life.

 

crafts & knitting · new patterns

New Patterns: Small Coats & Cardigans

Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)13 Comments

Hello, I hope you are having a good week, here the sun is shining and it feels warm out there today. Yesterday Toby and I walked in our T shirts for for the first time this year and there were definite signs of the beginnings of Spring. I’ll give you an update on Katsue the fox soon but she’s doing well and things are looking hopeful.

I’m popping in here today because I have a new pattern for clothing to fit any of my 7 inch (18cm) tall animals (there is already a coats and cardigans pattern to fit my 9 inch animals).

This new pattern has 3 basic cardigan/jacket/coat shapes:

  • a short waist length cardigan/jacket,
  • a short waist length V neck cardigan
  • and a longer length ‘A’ line coat

The short cardigan/jacket and the longer ‘A’ line coat can both be made with either a round neckline, a little ribbed collar or a hood. The hood will fit over the head of the animals with smaller ears such as the mouse and bear and for the animals with taller ears, such as the rabbit, it looks nice just folded at the back and I’ve designed it with a curved bottom edge when it’s worn in this way.

As always the patterns are available on Ravelry and Etsy and I’ll hopefully be adding them to Lovecrafts later in the week. I think Lucylocketland may soon have some of her sweet kits that include yarn and a printed copy of the pattern and if your local yarn shop is signed up to the Ravelry local yarn shop service then you can buy a copy from them and ask them to print it off for you.

Please remember that the above listed places are the only legitimate places that you can obtain copies of my patterns. In the last year pattern piracy has become a lot more common and me and my fellow pattern designers are noticing the impact, please don’t support theft and pattern piracy by either uploading or downloading copies of patterns to/from websites that offer them in exchange for tokens.

Please also be extremely wary of the masses of AI generated images and videos that are now on facebook and other parts of the internet, these feature amazing looking ‘knitted toys’ and promise free patterns so you can make them. I know it can be hard to understand how something that looks so very real and beautiful does not actually exist, but the lovely looking AI generated images are merely bait to entice the unsuspecting to follow a link to a dodgy website (‘knitbangkokbikethailandchallenge’ for instance* see note below) or a link to buff.ly with the true web location hidden behind it. By following such links you will either risk picking up malware, or have to scroll past masses of adverts (which make the website owners money), in order to obtain an AI written pattern which does not work out and bears no relation to the fake AI image that was pictured.

*If in doubt about any facebook page you can look at the ‘transparency and privacy policy’ for that page by clicking on the page name. This brings up an info box that tells you how long the page has been active, what previous names the page has had and who manages it. The facebook page daily knitting ideas, which is completely full of AI generated images and links to the knitbangkokbikethailandchallenge website, lists NY, USA as their location (the address they give is actually a hotel), but is run by 7 people in Vietnam.

Stay smart and thank you so much for supporting independent human designers and allowing us to make a small living from our own work , J xxx

 

countryside · foxes in my garden · in the woods · wildlife

February, the patient month

Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)32 Comments

 

If January is a month for hopefulness, then what is needed during February is patience. For there is a promise whispered on the breeze and gently stirring beneath the soil, hinting that change is coming, but not just yet. Because it can feel that February is the most wintry month of all, cold winds, frosty mornings, and almost constant sleety rain have made warm and sunny days feel impossibly distant. But in the truth February is a turning point between seasons, and again I am reminded that it is a privilege to live in a place where the procession of seasons creates a constantly transforming landscape. There is always something new to delight in, and a comforting sense of order and rhythm in the year.

Here at the shabby and monotonous end of winter there is still beauty, even in an unassuming muddy puddle, which is transformed into a perfect pebble-edged mirror by low winter sun, and so reflects a delicate tracery of overhead branches. And the outline of trees with the sun behind them highlights their beautifully intricate structure. Last autumns seed heads still cling to many trees and bushes: hornbeam samaras* hang like paper lanterns from bare branches; swirls of old mans beard, the apt and evocative name given to clumps of fluffy wild clematis seeds, decorate the hedgerows which are still jeweled here and there with hawthorn berries and rose hips. Around the margins of the lake the bulrush heads are exploding in slow motion with the gossamer fluff that carries their seeds away on the slightest breeze. And yet there are also leaf buds gradually unfurling and early blossoms opening, and the snowdrops are a wonderful sight, carpeting patches of ancient, undisturbed woodland and trembling in the cold winter breeze.

*(Samara is a new word to me- it’s the name given to winged tree seeds, ie. those that are windblown such as Maple, Ash, Elm and Hornbeam)

Sometime last week I suddenly became aware that I could hear birdsong again out in the woods. Looking up into the treetops I could see the distinctive shape of a flock of long tailed tits (their tail is as long as their body) and with them larger great tits, as they often travel in mixed flocks. It’s rather beautiful to think that small birds sing their territorial boundary lines, their pleasing song stakes a claim on a small patch of the wood early in the year so that come the warmer weather and breeding season they have secured a good spot in which to raise a family.

Back in the warmth and comfort of home I have been putting the finishing touches to a new pattern – the coats and cardigans for the small 7 inch animals. I have a few corrections still to make but I should be back with a finished pattern next week.

Lastly there has been sad news from the garden. Katsue, the little fox with the broken back leg who has been visiting often since May 2024, has badly injured her other back leg. This happened sometime at the end of December as she missed her visits for 10 days and when she finally showed up she had a large open wound on her right hip and was walking only on 3 legs, mostly her front two and just using her already broken leg for balance. Now the good news is that she is managing and the wound has now healed, but the injury, perhaps a break or dislocation, seems to have left her right back leg unusable and able to bear weight.

She seems to have moved in to our shed – she is able to crawl through a gap under the door and in there she is warm, dry and safe and only a few steps away from a regular meal. She now comes a couple of times a day for food and I’ve been feeding her lots because I’m not sure she can hunt anymore. She’s eating daily meals of cocktail sausages, leftover meat, sunflower seeds, bread, honey and other leftovers. Foxes are great scavengers and they will eat most things that a human can. Anyway, she is managing and choosing to stay close by (though never within reach) and we will continue providing food and a safe place to rest until she chooses to return to her den.

Well, that’s my February, I hope that yours has been good and that you are finding small joys in your days, see you again soon, J x