Year: 2019

countryside · in the woods

A time of greening

Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)23 Comments

It’s amazing how quickly the countryside changes as Spring takes hold. A slight rise in temperature, a sprinkling of spring rain and suddenly there are bright green leaves everywhere. It is a time of blossoming too – Spring brings many beautiful floral colours but my favourites are the frothy white blossoms that so many plants both big and small have at this time of year; hawthorn (May blossom), horse chestnut, wild cherry, apples and pears, white nettle, cow parsley, daisies and ramsons all are looking their beautiful best right now.

I headed to Hobby horse wood near Hertford Heath in search of woodland anemones, but was too late to see them at their best – I shall have to visit earlier next year. But at the orchard nature reserve in nearby Tewin the woods were carpeted with wild garlic and the fruit trees were in full blossom and buzzing with bees and trilling with bird song – I managed to get a picture of the elusive tree-creeper, though his head is out of focus because he never seems to keep still as he spirals up trunks in search of small insects.

Spring is in full glory out there and as I’ve been wandering and enjoying the white blossoms on my walks, I’ve been hearing the words of this poem and appreciating its sentiment,

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.
Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.
And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.
A. E. Houseman, A Shropshire Lad 2
crafts & knitting

Catching up

Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)19 Comments

Hello and sorry to have been absent for so long.

The school break times are a little bit of a challenge in our household – as always Toby finds the change in routine very unsettling and having him around 24/7, though lovely, is demanding, so not much else gets done. For most of April Amy was back from uni too, so I wanted to spend as much time with her as possible and we went off for a couple of lovely country walks together, just like the old days 🙂

I’ve got lots of beautiful blossomy pictures from our walks, but I’ll show you those another time. Today I just wanted to pop in briefly, say hello, and post the pictures that I had planned to post a few weeks ago in order to wish you all a happy Easter. I had also planned to let you know that I’ve updated my free pattern for the Easter eggs to include an extra flower design and also to provide the pattern in a new pdf file. I know it’s now too late for this year, but if you fancy knitting some Easter eggs for next year then you can download the free pattern here.

Because I liked the new spring flower design so much I’ve also popped it on a free dress supplement. You can download a free copy here. Please note that you’ll need use it with one of my animal patterns that has a dress included or the seasonal dresses pattern, in order to have the instructions for the cast on and bodice (my entire range of patterns are here) – I like to share the free pattern supplements as a little thank you to those who are kind enough to support my work.

Well, I’m off to quietly knit a little this afternoon. I’m working on a batch of blue dressed animals (the first 3 of them are in the picture at the top of this post) which I hope to have ready to sell before the summer arrives properly. I’ll share some progress updates here as the rest of them start coming together.

Hope to pop back again more regularly now that the school break is over and I have time to call my own again, see you soon x

crafts & knitting · new patterns

mini bunnies and bears, two new patterns

Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)41 Comments

Earlier this year I started playing around with the idea of a mini version of my knitted bunnies. I wanted a pattern that was a little simpler to knit and construct than my regular sized animals (they are shown in the picture above for comparison), and I also wanted the little toy to be suitable for a baby or small child, so the clothes are all knitted on with no removable parts or buttons.

The pattern started out as a boy and girl version of a bunny but as I was working on it I thought it might also be fun to also have an option for an unclothed version and once I’d fiddled around with that it also occurred to me that it might be nice to do a bear as well. So what I have finally ended up with is two new mix and match type patterns:

  • There’s a girl version with instructions to make a bunny and a bear, with an attached dress and striped stockings but also has an option for a completely naked toy.
  • Then there’s the same for a boy version, again with instructions for a bunny and bear and options for a naked version or a version wearing attached jumper and shorts.

The mini animals work out at 14cm/51/2 inches tall if knitted with DK yarn on 2.75mm/US 2 needles, but you can make a smaller version with 4ply yarn and 2.5mm needles, or a larger version with worsted weight yarn and 3mm needles.

They are listed on Ravelry or on Etsy and the regular discount of 15% applies if you add 2 or more of my patterns to your basket.

With Easter coming up at the end of the month I though it might be good to share these patterns now as these little bunnies might make sweet Easter gifts. If you do use the patterns please come and share your projects on the ravelry group, I love seeing what people are making from my patterns and there are lots of friendly makers there who like admiring each other’s projects.

Well that’s it from me today. It’s the start of the school break here and Amy is back with us for Easter so I’ll not have much time to pop in here over the next few weeks, but I do want to share some other Spring things I’ve been knitting, so I hope to be back here next week with some pictures, ’til then have a lovely weekend x

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PS: There is a chart for the little heart on the dress in the foreground over on my post about duplicate stitch and at the bottom of that same blog post I’ve also added a chart for the rose pattern that I’ve used previously on some animal dresses.