all is well

April 23, 2014 Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)40 Comments

If you've popped in here for a visit over the last 5 days you may have been greeted by a blank page and been wondering what has happened to me and the little cotton rabbits. Last thursday Typepad (who host my blog) were targeted by a rather massive and sustained distributed denial of service attack which knocked out all of their services and since then they've been working round the clock to get up and running again. Fearing for it's safe return has made me realise just how much I love my blog and the contact it gives me with others who like woolly stuff and similar things and I'm very happy to have it back.

Anyway, I'm getting back into the term time swing of things here, catching up (albeit rather slowly) with an email backlog that built up over the school Easter break, settling back into pattern tweaking and writing for those seasonal sweaters that I promised and generally just enjoying having some time to call my own instead of Toby's. This morning I've been on a bluebell walk as the local woods are full of them and we have a lovely sunny morning here today so it would be daft to sit inside all day.

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Bluebell

I always think of April as the month of unfurling and those bright chartreuse green shoots emerging everywhere from little brown tree buds are quite magical. The most magical sight of all though is the carpet of bluebells.

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For just a couple of weeks each year the woods are transformed into a place where you can really believe that fairies exist. When you sit quietly on a mossy log in a bluebell wood, troubles fade away for a while and you feel a sense of timelessness and peace, at least until a dog comes bounding up to lick your face as one did to me earlier! Still, it's a lovely way to escape from modern world stresses and I have resolved to go walking in the woods on my own more regularly, and of course it is the regular weekend activity with Toby – the woods are his favourite place to be.

Hopefully if you pop in again you'll find everything in it's place but if things do go wobbly again please don't give up on me as I will definitely be blogging here for a long time to come 🙂

Elephants

April 7, 2014September 5, 2025 Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)65 Comments

Hello and sorry to have been away for so long.

There has been rather a lot going on here recently in between the day-to-dayness of family life. Of course I’ve been knitting lots and have finished off a few animals which I’m hoping I have time to re-home before Easter. But I’ve also been busy writing, tweaking and compiling patterns and at last have 2 elephant patterns to share – a girl in a frondy frock and a boy in a textured sweater.

I’ve uploaded them to both Etsy and Ravelry if you are interested.

Whilst on the subject of patterns I’ve also published a new free supplement to the existing animal patterns – this time for a little peter pan collar which you can attach to any of the dresses. It’s my plan to release plenty of free supplements to my patterns, so if you’ve bought any it’s worth taking a look on Ravelry to see what else there is to download. At present there are 2 extra dress designs and the collar but more will be coming.

It’s the school Easter break here at the moment, so I don’t have much time to chat but after Easter I’ll be back properly and now that the latest pattern writing is out of the way I hope to have some more regular posts.

I hope all is well in your corner of the world, see you soon x

crafts & knitting · general stuff

definitely spring

March 9, 2014 Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)52 Comments

Yep, Spring has definitely arrived, hooray!

We have spent the whole weekend out in the garden, sorting out the lawn (which is now mostly mud thanks to the very wet winter), tidying the beds ready for veg planting and just soaking up the wonderful warmth of the sun. It seems that we aren’t the only ones sunbathing either as the plum tree is a magnet for Peacock butterflies emerging from hibernation. We often find them hibernating in the wood pile – they make the most alarming sound with their wings when disturbed and we’re always careful to rebuild a shelter for them when we take wood away to burn on the stove. At one point this morning I counted six of them fluttering around and feeding from the tree blossom (which must be one of the earliest and most abundant food sources available to them), it was a truly magical sight.

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Despite the closed wings I love this picture below because you can see that lovely spiralled proboscis

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There must be a feast of nectar up there because there have also been loads of bees buzzing around the thousands of blossoms that are open on the tree at the moment.

Snowyblossom

Snowtree

It’s so nice to have warm, bright days here again and to be able to be outside without getting soaked or shivering! Everything feels more manageable when the sun is shining 🙂

I’ve also taken advantage of the brighter weather to take some pictures of my finished Dream Stripes shawl (details of pattern and yarn here).

Shawl4

Shawl6

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I’m really pleased with how it has turned out and with how blocking really accentuates those lovely points – I’ve never actually been bothered to wet block anything before – a quick steam block under a damp cloth is usually the best my projects can expect, but that wasn’t going to cut the mustard here so I’m glad I took the time to wet block this time.

Shawl2 - Copy

Now I just have to work out how to wear it – Amy tells me I look like a granny with the way I’m currently wearing it (you can always rely on a teenager for brutal honesty, thanks my lovely for your kind words). So, any tips on cool shawl wearing would be gratefully received!