On being outdoors

June 16, 2017 Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)16 Comments

Summer mitts

Summer mittens

This week has been all about being outside. Summer is really here now and it's been so lovely to throw all of the doors and windows wide open and let the breeze blow through the house. It's meant a bit more housework as it's blown lots of little dust bunnies out from their hiding places under sofas and chairs but I suppose that having more fluffy dust than most people is an occupational hazard for a knitter!

Yesterday Toby had his school sports day and surprised everyone by how fast he ran. He would have won his races easily if he understood the concept of competition and the purpose of the running, but true to form he ran when it felt good to him and stopped when it did not, so his races were a series of spurts of speed and dead stops with everyone then shouting 'keep running Toby'. He seemed to cope better this year with the event and all of the waiting around between races and after enjoying some evening chill out time in the garden he slept better than usual, not all night through but not far off!

Toby sportsday

Run Toby

I'm enjoying knitting in the garden and have all sorts on the go at the moment; my WIPs (works in progress) include 2 pairs of socks, 3 shawls, 2 crochet blankets and the pair of mittens above that I'll be hopefully finishing off over the weekend. The pattern is a free one; Small Flower Mitts by Pinneguri and I'm knitting them with Ysolda's Blend No.1 and Jamiesons Shetland Spindrift - you can see project details here.

Well, that's it from me today and I'm heading back out into the garden for a little more knitting time. Just wanted to wish all of the Dads out there a very happy Father's day this Sunday, especially my own lovely Dad and Father-in-Law who is very poorly at the moment and is in our thoughts all of the time.

Until next time I'll leave you with some views of the sky over our garden which this week has been full of lots of varieties of beautiful clouds – mostly the high wispy kinds of ice crystal cirrus clouds which look like wonderful great brush strokes painted across the sky. See if you can spot the angels wing in one of them…

Paintedsky

Whisps

Angels wing

Strokes

Sunset

autism · countryside · general stuff · in the woods

June catch-up

June 5, 2017 Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)36 Comments

Chives

Well, here we are at the start of the school summer term. Happily it's a long 7 week one so I'm really hoping to get a lot of things ticked off my to-do list before the summer break starts.

The half term hols went well here with lots of warm sunny days for Toby to enjoy bouncing and bubbles in the garden. I also tried to get him to help with a spot of gardening but it didn't go to well – too much goes in his mouth for him to be a good gardener! But nevertheless our little patch is looking good with all the herbs, beetroot, kale, rocket, beans and spinach all growing well.

Seedlings

Chive

Herbs

Herb bed

I'm trying wherever possible to involve Toby a bit more in household chores, though it is very difficult for him to grasp the purpose of such tasks. We have one eye on the future here as it is our hope to continue caring for him at home once he leaves school – something that is fast approaching and is a really daunting prospect so we are trying to take small steps now towards a meaningful, enjoyable and busy weekly schedule for him. Over the school break l've involved him in pegging out washing on the line which, as long as the items are small, he is getting quite good at, though he has yet to understand the need to stretch things out and to use 2 pegs for some things. We're not doing quite so well with clearing the table after dinner. He has a very strongly defined sense of order and is good at knowing where things belong; cutlery in the draw, glasses in the cupboard, plates on the shelf etc. but he has yet to understand the concept of clean and dirty and so will tidy away any dirty spoons or plates that he comes across. We are working on the idea that dirty things go in the dishwasher or by the sink and hopefully he will eventually start to understand and be able to do some of these household tasks semi-independently with just some verbal prompts and simple supervision. Later this year he will turn 16 and so begins the transition over to adult support services. There is so much paperwork involved that I already feel exhausted and we've not really started, it will be a case of a day at a time and hopefully things will fall into place.

In knitting news I am currently finishing off a small batch of animals so will pop back with an update when they are done. For now I'll leave you with the pictures I took a month ago (and have been meaning to post ever since) from a visit to a local orchard nature reserve. It's a wonderful place full of ancient apple trees buzzing with busy bees who are based in the hives on site. There is a flock of very grumpy geese who hiss and posture as you walk past their enclosure and up in the woods there is a large badger sett – I hope to go and visit one evening as there is a viewing hide where you can see them quite clearly from.

Thanks as always for taking the time to visit my blog, I appreciate you stopping by and so enjoy reading your comments x

Apple blossom

Applebl

Bloss

Lichen

Frothy

Bee

Whitebloss

Orchard path

Geese2

Picnic

Green

Sheep7

Sheep9

Forgetmenots

Tewin Orchard, Early May 2017

crafts & knitting · new patterns

A little flock

May 19, 2017September 5, 2025 Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)57 Comments

So as you can see I have been busy and at last have finished my new patterns. Wooohooo! It’s such a nice feeling of relief! There has been a lot of tweaking and trying out different arrangements of stitches and shaping and I have gone slightly stir crazy knitting sheep heads (over 40 to date). So now I am really looking forward to knitting something different – maybe I will reward myself with a bit of scarf or sock knitting and as soon as I’ve finished this post I’m popping over to Loop’s website for a little restorative yarn shopping 🙂

There are two sheep patterns; a boy ram and a girl lamb. They both include options for 2 types of horns; a big curly pair and a narrower pointy pair. They also both have lots of suggestions for yarn colourways and although the animal pattern is written for knitting in 2 colours (one for the woolly part of the head and body and another for the smoother face, arms, legs, ears and tail) it can be knitted in a single colour if preferred.

The girl lamb pattern has plain coloured tights and knitted on shoes and comes with 2 dress patterns; one is worked in 2 colours with a Fair Isle/stranded technique and the other is knitted in a single colour with an arrangement of knit and purl stitches which give a textured pattern. Both are based on a honeycomb design (see below: the first 2 dresses are made from the Fair Isle pattern, one has the lighter colour as the accent colour defining the pattern and the other is reversed; the third lamb is wearing a dress from the textured pattern and has the pointy horns).

The boy ram pattern comes with a pattern for shorts and a sweater that uses a slipped stitch pattern to give an interesting nubby texture. The sweater is written for knitting in 2 colours but these are never used at the same time across the same row, instead it’s worked in alternate 2 row stripes with the slipped stitches giving the appearance of a more complex pattern. If preferred it can be worked in a single colour (see below: the first sheep with no horns is wearing the sweater made in a single colour, the other two are wearing sweaters knitted in 2 colours).

Both patterns are now available as instant downloads on Ravelry and my website. Buying any two of my animal patterns together gives an automatic discount of £1.25 (to apply the discount you’ll need to use the ‘add to basket’ rather than buying one at a time)

If you give either of them a go, I really hope that you enjoy them. As always I’m here to answer any questions that arise and there will be a knit along over on the Little Cotton Rabbits Ravelry group so that’s a really good place to pop in and leave a message if you need help with any aspect.

Thanks x