knitting constancy

July 3, 2016 Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)47 Comments

Throughout all the ups and downs that life can bring, knitting is always there as a comforting part of my days. Though I might have temporarily misplaced my blog voice I can always find something knitted to share with you, so I thought I'd pop in and show you what has been occupying my needles lately.

Bunnypair

As always there have been bunnies. This pair are mostly knitted from a discontinued ball of Rowan Scottish Tweed in 'porridge' that I had stashed. I love the little brown neps peppered throughout and am feeling rather sad that this is now all used up. Here I paired it with a strand of cream Rowan Kidsilk Haze for fuzziness and used a brown alpaca yarn for contrast.

Yarns do come and go and it's always a bit disappointing when a favourite is discontinued. My favourite yarn for knitting animal clothing has always been Rowan 4ply cotton (which was discontinued years ago) and although I still have a fair amount of it stashed I have been hunting around for a good replacement ever since. Happily I've now found it in BC Garn's Alba. This is a soft, matt, organic cotton yarn (not mercerised) and comes in a beautiful range of colours, some and bright and jewel-like and some muted, subtle tones (which are the ones I like the best). The knitted fabric drapes beautifully and I'm having fun playing with ideas for new dresses in this lovely palette of colours (the blue swatch below is a discontinued Rowan 4ply).

Bcgarn

I bought the colours above from Loop and Love knitting stock some of the colour range.

Clothes

There's also been excitement recently at the arrival of the morning post which in the last two weeks has brought me two wonderful magazines kindly mentioning my work. The first was the June edition of Australian Homespun which had a lovely write up about the cat patterns and the sweaters.

Magazine articles

The second is the current Issue 148 of Simply Knitting which has an interesting article on blogging, featuring interviews with 4 knitting bloggers (of which I was one). It's always a lovely feeling (and a little surreal) to see yourself in print and I'm hugely flattered to have been included in both of these publications.

Well, I'm off to make some breakfast and rouse the rest of the family, who are all still snoozing. See you soon and until then best wishes for a very happy 4th July to all my friends in the USA x

June days

June 17, 2016 Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)52 Comments

Wetgarden

Garden

Chive

Seedling

Pyra

There's been a fair bit of wet and stormy weather around lately but that's been good news for the garden where everything now has that early summer vibrancy and is growing vigorously. In some cases a little to vigorously as my little veg patch is getting swamped by the herb edging. This year I'm growing beetroot, broccoli, kale, french beans, peas, courgettes and lettuce and I'm looking forward to a green feast in another month or so.

Happily we've had a taste of summer too with a few days that have been warm and sunny enough to sit outside. There's something so very calming and relaxing about an afternoon outside with something nice to eat and drink, a little knitting and a good book (Knitlandia by Clara Parkes is a great read if you are a knitter, though my copy has already lost it's pretty dust-jacket to Toby's paper tearing obsession). Hopefully there are more sun-filled summer days to come.

My knitting has been very influenced by the colours of a summer garden too. I was so thrilled when I managed to buy this wonderful skein from Maya at The Wool Barn. Her yarns are exquisitely hand dyed so it's not surprising that they sell out so very quickly. This colour-way is called Rose Garden and I'm knitting a crescent shawl from it, Helen Stewart's Spindrift Shawl. I'm almost finished now and just need to choose between pink and green for the edge, as I fancy a contrasting border.

There have been some happy days working on this in the summer sunshine and it's been lovely to escape some of the stresses of exam time (Amy's GCSE's have spanned most of the last month) with a little gentle and undemanding knitting. We're all looking forward to next Tuesday when Amy has her last exam. She will be so relieved and it will be nice to have a more relaxed atmosphere here. It's been a bit exhausting trying to keep Toby quiet in his middle-of-the-night-awake periods but essential in order to make sure that Amy has had the sleep she needs to do well in her exams.

Woolbarnyarn

Rosegarden

Garden knit

Rosegardenshawl

Sorry that I've not been around much recently, I've not felt like I've had much of interest to say or to share. Life has been full of ordinary family stuff with it's ups and downs and we live day to day, which is the best way to approach life with Toby, but so often the day seems to whizz by without much getting done. I do try to take photos when something interesting presents itself (like this wonderfully tender swan family encountered on a walk a few weeks back), but I seem to have lost my blog voice a little. Hopefully I'm just a little hoarse rather than completely voice-less and I'll be back soon with more words. 'Til then thanks for visiting x

Swans

crafts & knitting

may makings

May 20, 2016 Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)34 Comments

Thanks so very much for the warm reception you've given my newest patterns. It's lovely to see so many finished projects popping up on Ravelry and to know that people are having fun making little bears. If you've made one please come and share pictures on the Ravelry group as we love admiring new projects.

Since the patterns were released I've been enjoying the freedom of knitting as the mood takes me, roaming through my basket of unfinished projects on a whim and starting off a few new ones too.

Gloves

These recently finished mitts are my new favourite pair, though with the weather warming up now I will have to tuck them away until the autumn (there's another of my favourite things in this picture – a new mug made by Sam Andrew).

The mitts started out as a skein of Ysolda's wonderfully soft and sheepy Blend No. 1. This yarn is really beautiful with an interesting tonal depth, gentle halo and lovely stitch definition and happily there's plenty left for another project.

Blend1

The pattern is Alicia Plummer's Antiquity, which is simple to work and beautifully textured. I wanted a longer cuff so this is double the length suggested in the pattern. My notes are on my Ravelry project page.

Mitts

I couldn't post this picture without mentioning the beautiful bud vase made by Pip Wilcox. Unsurprisingly whenever she updates her shop everything sells out very quickly, so I was over the moon when I managed to bag one and it is now sat on my bedside table, ready to make me smile when the alarm goes off in the mornings.

Blend gloves

There are many other projects in my basket at the moment but I'll show you more of those next week, when I've sorted out the tangled mess. Until then I'll leave you with the two little kitties I'm knitting from Cascade 220 Superwash Effects, with the varying tones it's perfectly suited for tabby cat knitting.

Cats