August: Autumn comes early

September 1, 2025April 29, 2026 Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)86 Comments

Hello there, this is the first blog post from my new blogging home over on wordpress (all previous posts are copies from my former typepad blog), so if you are a subscriber and receiving it by email I have my fingers crossed that this reaches you, and finds you well.

At the beginning of August we had a return to hot and dry conditions here and that has once again had a big impact on the woods and countryside, accelerating season change. As Toby and I walk through the woods now, great drifts of leaves are loosened from the trees at the slightest breath of breeze. But they are not like the leaves that normally fall in autumn, instead they are baked brown, sun-shrivelled and dry as paper. Each footfall sounds a crisp crunch and there is no hope of us surprising any unsuspecting wildlife for a brief encounter, as they hear us coming a mile away.

Autumn come so soon, leaves me feeling a little melancholy. Summer has been harsh this year, and so tough on the trees and wildlife. Everything has been hanging on, rather than flourishing.

One of the nice things though about late summer wood walks is finding feathers, pine cones and other discarded treasures from the forest floor. This year I’ve added to my feather collection with a host of spotted woodpecker feathers, all found together from a kill, most likely a sparrowhawk; a couple of pheasant feathers; a long green woodpecker feather; and lots of tawny owl feathers. I also found a beautifully speckled moorhen egg along the riverbank. And already there are a lot of fungi appearing in the woods, some of them like the ‘chicken of the woods’ sulphur polypore are rather spectacular, you don’t get a sense of scale in the photo above but it was easily 2ft across. I’m hoping it will be a good season for fungi as I get quite excited to see all the different types that appear in the woods around us.

Back at home I’ve been knitting lots again: socks and a little neckerchief scarf in autumny colours; and I’ve also been making some animals to photograph for new front covers of my earlier patterns: the rabbits, elephants, foxes and mice. I’ll keep you posted about progress and updates to the existing patterns.

My main focus at the moment though is getting my images permanently imported into the old blog posts in this new blog home (as images will otherwise disappear at the end of september when typepad shut down)

So far I am making good progress, all of my tutorial posts now have secured images, and every single post from July 2025 to January 2023 also now have permanent images. Next I will be prioritising posts about knitting and patterns and then my nature and wildlife posts (you can find all of these categories and more on the sidebar of my blog page). I will be working backwards chronologically and will not stop until the majority of my blog posts have permanent images. I am pretty sure I now have all of the images saved in order to be able to achieve that.

If you have any favourite posts of mine that you would also like me to prioritise please do let me know in the comments above (scroll to the top of the post or reply to the emailed version of this blog post to leave a comment). I will do my best to accommodate any requests.

Well, I’ll be back later in the month, I still have a pending post about knitted decreases, the companion piece to my knitting increases post earlier this year, I hope to finish that soon and I will be pattern writing again, though dividing my time between that and blog reconstruction will mean it is a slow process.

Very best wishes and thank you as always for accompanying me on my blogging journey here in my new home, J xx

countryside · crafts & knitting · foxes in my garden · garden stuff · in the woods · summer · wildlife

July: High Summer

July 30, 2025April 29, 2026 Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)4 Comments

The beginning of July was so very hot and dry here, too hot to sleep comfortably or to knit in the daytime, and so dry that the countryside was soon looking very parched. The cows knew something though (cows lying down is supposedly a sign that rain is imminent) and by the middle of the month the welcome rain did sweep in, bringing freshness and quenching the countryside back to a lush green again. Toby and I have enjoyed our regular walks so much more in the welcome cooler temperatures, and he has slept better too – he is so restless on very hot nights and often up wondering around the house, meaning that one of us needs to be up with him too, so it’s been nice to have some unbroken rest again.

Since launching the squirrels patterns at the beginning of the month I’ve been taking things slowly; starting my quiet days with breakfast in bed and some simple sock knitting; tidying and organising the kitchen a little; pottering around without much of an aim and generally enjoying nothing much on my to do list other than taking care of Toby.

Well, there’s not much else to report from here really. Summer is my least favourite season but even so there are always things to delight in, I’ve detailed some of them below in my monthly nature notes.

I hope that you’re comfortable and content where you are,

J x

Nature notes from July:

Week 1: So hot and dry, uncomfortably so at daytime temps of 32 degrees and night time above 20 degrees
Week 2: An amazing sight on the evening of July 10th when a cloud of ladybirds flew over, many thousands by the look of it, many settled on the hawthorn hedging where there were quite a lot of aphids to feed on. I have never seen so many at one time, the air was thick with them for around half an hour
Week 3: Rain and cooler temperatures arrive, so very welcome and Toby and I happily walk in the light rain
Week 4: All of the branches of the plum tree in our garden are weighed down under the enormous weight of a bumper crop this year. I’ve also noticed that the wild plum trees are also bowed over by the abundance of their fruit. Other things that I’ve noticed many more of this year than usual are insects and butterflies, especially the Ringlet (most years I only see a handful but they have been most numerous this year). It must be down to the hot and dry conditions throughout spring, favouring certain species and bringing about a greater number than usual.

crafts & knitting · new patterns

New Patterns: The Squirrels

July 7, 2025September 6, 2025 Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)3 Comments

It makes me very happy today to pop in here with news that my latest 9 inch animal pattern is ready to share. This is a pattern for a squirrel, which you can either make as a red squirrel with little tufty ears, or a grey squirrel without tufts.

As usual with my patterns there are 2 options: one for a squirrel in a removable dress with knitted on shoes and tights; and one for a squirrel in a removable sweater and shorts.

The squirrel in a dress pattern comes with these 3 dress options:

There is one that is worked in a single colour and has an openwork textured design, reminiscent of acorns. And two colour-work dresses, one with a bold acorn and oakleaf design that wraps around the lower skirt and the other that has a contrast coloured border dotted with small acorns.

The squirrel in a sweater pattern comes with these 3 sweater options.

There’s a plain stocking stitch sweater, knitted in a single colour and then a large acorn colour-work design is added in duplicate stitch afterwards. There is a chart for this in the pattern, and if you prefer you could choose to follow this and use the intarsia method to knit in the acorn design as you go.

There are also two textured sweaters, one a very simple knit and purl textured pattern, and the other a little more complex and with a bolder texture created by a combination of double increases and decreases.

Also included are a pair of shorts that have a functional button closure at the waist in order to accommodate the large tail.

Both patterns are now live on Ravelry and Etsy and because I recently had a small price increase (the first in 12 years) I’ve also increased the discount for buying any 2 or more LCR patterns in the same transaction to a 20% discount on the basket total. Mentioning it in case you wanted to get any of my other patterns at the same time in order to get the 20% off.

As always I am really excited to see what other people make with these new patterns, so if you do give either of them a go please do consider sharing a picture on social media or on either the Little Cotton Rabbits Facebook Group or the Ravelry group, I’d love to see what you’ve made.

Well I’m off to finish a couple of grey squirrels, because only their heads made it in to the pattern so I’m feeling a bit sorry for them, ’til next time keep well and happy, J x

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A little note on purchasing:

Ravelry have a really efficient and easy to use email delivery system of the download links and it is very rare that customers have any issues, (the vast majority of the issues that do occur are down to buyer input errors of email addresses).

If you choose to purchase via Ravelry I will actually get to keep a little more of the money that you pay for the pattern (Etsy seller fees are much higher than ravelry and I have to pay them at least a quarter every single sale, and almost double that if you click on an Etsy ad for my shop on google or pinterest, as they will then also charge me an advertising fee on anything you purchase from my Etsy shop anytime in the next month, even if you are an existing customer of mine).

If you do choose to use Etsy then please, please, please don’t check out as a guest, because if you do not receive the emailed link that they automatically send it is almost impossible for me to help you. Instead log in to an Etsy account first, and that way it is very easy for me to help if you have any problems as the files will be stored forever for you in your Etsy purchase history. And remember that Etsy do not allow you to download any digital purchases via the app, so you will need to log into your account via your browser to access files.