knitting, nature and living with autism in the family
I've just treated myself to some new yarn – Madeline Tosh Vintage in Antler and Tart*. It may be eye-wateringly expensive, but my goodness it is gorgeous!
Vibrantly rich in colour
with a lovely plied twist
and perfect for a pair of lovely mitts to keep my hard-working fingers toasty and warm on those cold and frosty mornings that are just around the corner!
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* I bought mine from Loop
Walks in the woods are definitely best at this time of year and Toby & I collected lots of different leaves on our walk last weekend. It got me thinking about hedgehogs and hibernation and made me want to come back home and get cracking on a little batch of autumny hedgehog pincushions with leaves on them.
I had lots of fun last year with shrinkle sheets and leaf shapes but couldn't find the sketches I made back then so I've made some new templates which you're welcome to use too.
Just trace them onto a shrinkle sheet (my favourite are the frosted ones – which make it easy to trace an image underneath), colour in with coloured pencils, punch a hole and bake them in the oven to shrink them into tiny little leaves. I use mine as pin toppers for the hedgehogs but they'd work as jewellery, keyrings or phone tags too.
It's tidy up time in my garden. The last of our potatoes, tomatoes, carrots and squash are gathered in for another year with just the parsnips left to be pulled after Christmas, as apparently they grow sweeter after a couple of frosts. I'm left with a bowl of green tomatoes which will probably get turned into chutney.
Around the rest of the garden greens are turning to reds – I do love autumn leaves.
There's even a spot of green and red knitting going on inside. I'm really enjoying playing around with new ideas for a batch of nordic animals which will be ready to find new homes in time for Christmas.
Next week it's forecast to be turning colder and I'm looking forward to getting our fire stoked up and curling up with my wool. Hope you have a snuggly weekend!
little cotton rabbits 