A neat edge to a top down seam, a tutorial

October 12, 2020October 31, 2022 Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)12 Comments

There are occasions when you want to create a really neat join between two seamed pieces, especially when this join is at the top of the piece and so very visible. Within my patterns this occurs at the top edges of both the removable shoes (soon to be released) and some of the designs in my ‘bags, backpacks and baskets’ pattern.

Above is a picture of the top seam that you’re aiming to achieve:

And here’s a little tutorial on how to work it…

Normally when you cast off you cut the work from the ball and thread this tail through the final stitch on the needle in order to secure the cast off row and prevent it from unravelling. But that creates a little nubbin at the end of the row and can interfere with a neat join when you start to sew an attaching seam.

So instead, when you have your last stitch at the end of your cast off row, cut the work from the ball and pull on the loop of this last stitch, like so:

Keep pulling that loop until the cut tail is pulled all the way through, effectively unravelling half of this final stitch:

Then thread a tapestry needle with this cast off tail end and sew through both arms of the edge-most stitch on the opposite side of the seam:

Then sew back across the gap and down through the stitch that the tail end is emerging from:

In doing this you have replicated a cast off edge stitch to span the top of the seam between the two pieces (see image at the top)

And then you can continue seaming the two pieces together using mattress stitch ( Mattress stitch seaming tutorial can be found here)

I hope this helps you to get neat and attractive edges to the seams at the top of your removable shoes and bags, happy seaming 🙂

J x

Lions free supplement pattern

September 22, 2020September 2, 2025 Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)12 Comments

Everything seems to be taking much longer than usual at the moment and since Toby went back to school it has felt like I’ve been really busy but not actually getting anything done. I have however managed to finish off the free Lions supplement pattern and have just uploaded it to the Facebook group and Ravelry:

New Lions supplement pattern

This pattern is a free one and therefore only gives basic instructions on converting the existing 9 inch bear patterns – you’ll need either of the Boy Bear or Girl bear patterns in order to knit a complete Lion or Lioness.

If I had to guess, I expect that the boy Lion is going to be the more popular make of the two and I have had fun making a few myself during the process of working out the pattern. There should be a health warning attached though – that mane really tests the patience and is not something to tackle if you’re in a hurry 😉

As always, I hope that this pattern helps spread a little pleasure and enjoyment out there, things that seem harder than ever to find and hang on to right now. Hope you’re finding a little of each in your days. I’m finding mine out in the peace and tranquility of the quiet woods and have a few pictures to share in the next post.

‘Til next time xxx

crafts & knitting · general stuff

hello again

September 7, 2020September 16, 2025 Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)31 Comments

Hello and thanks for dropping in to visit here despite my long absence. I hope you’ve had a good few months and that life for you is finding a balance in these strange times.

The summer break here has been a little challenging at times, things have been difficult for Toby with all of the unpredictable happenings and changes due to covid 19, so we slowed things right down and just parcelled each day up and put it away, moving on to the next one with the hope that it would be a better one. We’ve had a gentle pace and a very limited routine to our days but that has helped him to settle and calm. He’s enjoyed lazy morning lie-ins with breakfast in bed and our daily walks (come sun, rain, wind or storms) have been a time of meditative contemplation. As we’ve walked quietly together along the peaceful woodland paths, I’ve matched my pace to his, stopping for minutes at a time when he’s in sensory shutdown and can’t move, and trying to keep up with him (but mostly failing) when he is overwhelmed by the desire to run. The walks have been the highlight of our days.

There’s been a lot of evening knitting time for me while he’s watched his videos and played with his books and duplo, and as a result I have a lot of pattern plans on the go. I’m currently working on a set of removable shoes for the animals (for both the regular sized patterns and the small version); the badger pattern is coming together slowly and I’m also working on small versions of all of my animal designs. I’ve been playing around with this lion idea too, and though it’s not quite right yet I hope to have this ready soonish as a free supplement to the existing bear pattern. I’ll keep you posted here of developments.

In other news,

I’m very flattered to have been nominated for Noteworthy Knitting Blog in the Crafties, 2020 which is organised by Lovecrafts. If you’d like to vote for me I’d really appreciate that, the voting link is here.
September 3rd was my 14th anniversary of starting this blog and so I’d like to hold a little celebratory giveaway, but need to get myself a little organised here first. More news of that in a later post.
The Facebook group has been a great source of pleasure for me over summer, I’ve loved seeing everyone’s projects there and at the end of August we topped 3,000 friendly members. I’m pondering how to celebrate that with an exclusive giveaway over there but haven’t yet worked it out, but that will be coming up too. If you’re on Facebook and would like to join us and share your projects, you’ll find the group here

Well, that’s all the news from me, I mainly just wanted to break the silence and say Hi. Now that Toby is back at school (for his final year) I’m hoping to be able to pop in here regularly and I’ll keep you posted on pattern writing progress and the giveaways.

Thanks as always for taking time out of your day to join me here, I really appreciate your visit 🙂

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PS: I’m sure someone will want to ask, so here’s a little info about my notebooks.

I like to write all of my patterns longhand as I’m working them out, so always have several notebooks on the go, jotting down ideas, trying things out, changing them and trying them again – it’s a long slow process 🙂 The notebooks themselves are from MD paper – the pages are in a lovely paper that takes the ink well, and I like to personalise them with stickers from the wonderfully talented Nastia Sleptsova.