A perfect Sunday

March 4, 2019November 5, 2025 Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)14 Comments

The perfect Sunday morning. What would yours be like?

Mine would look exactly like the top picture and I was lucky enough for that to be part of my Sunday yesterday.

My idea of the perfect Sunday is

:: waking up when you’ve had enough sleep, rather than to the sound of an alarm clock;

:: padding downstairs in cosy socks and PJs to pop the kettle on;

:: taking a tray laden with brewing breakfast tea and a warm cinnamon bun back to a still-warm bed;

:: reading and knitting the morning away in bed with chill radio playing until everyone else is up and wanting some lunch;

:: pottering in the garden after lunch, tidying up the vegetable beds and enjoying the golden light from the setting sun blushing the spring blossoms on the tree;

:: making a roast dinner for family and curling up together for wine and cuddles by the fire afterwards.

It’s not often that everything is in alignment for a perfect Sunday, but I’m hoping for a re-run next weekend 🙂

My knitting projects above are:

‘Out of winter shawl’ by Tamy Gore, knitted in simply stunning ‘Owl Feather’ Grenouille sock yarn

A pair of simple ribbed wintery wristwarmers that I’ve improvised in order to let this beautiful hand-dyed neppy yarn take centre stage. The the rich earthy tones and light neps of the yarn remind me of a ploughed field in winter, so ribbing seemed appropriate. The yarn is ‘Need for tweed’ BFL/Donegal nep from Ocean By The Sea (the making notes on the wristwarmers are on my ravelry project page)

Reading: The Peregrine by J. A. Baker – beautiful written, evocative prose for quiet Sunday morning

snowdrop walk

February 19, 2019November 5, 2025 Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)15 Comments

It’s the school half term break this week so Toby and I are sat here at the moment watching Cbeebies together (teletubbies is still one of his absolute favourites). We’re still getting over the colds, which seem to be lingering on as sniffles and coughs, so we’ll be taking things slow and easy this week. On Sunday Toby went for a day of respite and, since it was a beautiful day and I was feeling the need for some fresh air, I bundled up in warm woollies and set off to the woods for some snowdrop spotting. We have a great choice of different woods carpeted with snowdrops but I think my favourite is in a tiny place called Westmill near Ware which has great clumps of them scattered throughout the wooded banks alongside a quarry.

It was a peaceful, quiet walk, the woods were full of birdsong and breezes and the dappled sunlight shone to spotlight the beauty of these delicate bell shaped flowers. I’m so grateful to have these small wonders on my doorstep and I came home again feeling calm and refreshed.

Hope you have a good week and that you get the chance to find some small, natural marvels near you. x

crafts & knitting · foxes in my garden · garden stuff · general stuff · wildlife

February blues

February 6, 2019November 5, 2025 Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)31 Comments

February might be the shortest month but it always feels to me like time runs much more slowly in February than in any other month. To be honest I’m tired of grey, dreary, overcast days and I’m so looking forward to feeling the days lengthen out and seeing brighter colours emerging in the countryside. I’ll be off on a snowdrop hunt sometime later this week because those delicate little bell shaped flowers are always the first signal of a change in the seasons. In the meantime I’m cosying indoors and knitting February away. For some reason I seem to have been mostly knitting in blue for the last few months. Do you find that you get drawn to a particular colour at a particular time? I was knitting mostly in warm tones of gold, pink and mustard throughout last year but blue seems to be the colour of the moment for me, though I think I might be hitting saturation point as I have been finding myself looking at lots of lovely brown speckley yarns on Etsy.

Anyway, two pairs of socks have been finished, the top ones are Fair Isle Flower Sock by Candice DeWitt knitted mostly in Eden Cottage Hayton ‘tarn’ and below are a pair knitted from Helen Stewart’s Fragment sock pattern in Madeline Tosh twist light yarn ‘well water’ (I’ve added both as projects to ravelry if you wanted links to yarns etc.)

The pair I’m currently making are from the Kia sock pattern by Dawn Henderson. It’s a lovely rhythmic and relaxing pattern, perfect for knitting when you just want something undemanding to occupy your hands and soothe your mind from a busy day, and it’s generously shared for free (though if you use the pattern you could buy Dawn a ko-fi to thank her).

In other news I’ve had some interesting visitors in the garden. With the weather being colder last week, and there being less food out in the countryside towards this end of winter, we’ve had flocks of finches swooping in to the bird feeders (mostly gold and green finches); the squirrel has been doing his best acrobatics in his attempts to loot some of the bounty and we’ve also had a few rather exotic visitors moving into the area from London. This is a ring necked parakeet – and she’s not alone as one morning a flock of 12 or so flew over and I’m now regularly hearing their raucous calls echoing around the neighbourhood. My favourite garden visitor though has been this cheeky fox. I always know when he’s around (usually appearing in the hour before sunset) as the chickens go berserk with squawking and when I look out there he is running up and down outside of the run trying to get in. As soon as I go out he runs down the side of our house and leaps through a narrow gap in the fence to our neighbours garden and there he stays in the hope I’ll go back inside, every now and then popping his head through the gap to check if I’m still there. I’m very happy to have him in come and visit because he’s beautiful and such a character but I’m not sure my chickens are as pleased the have him around!