january blues

January 22, 2010 Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)45 Comments

Toby has been quite poorly over the last week and a half. He's gone for days without eating and has not been sleeping much but it's been hard to know what is wrong – no temperature, no sickness – just lethargy, paleness etc. Of course he can't tell me how he feels but it's been clear he's not the little chap we are accustomed too. Still he seems to be on the mend now – he's now eating a little and hopefully the sleep will follow soon!

Anyway, this coupled with the murky, dull weather that has followed the snow melt has left me feeling a little blue and so to cheer myself up I'm making myself a cardi.

It's been over a decade since I knitted anything for myself other than scarves or mittens and I'm quite excited at the thought of wearing it. The pattern is Shalom – a generous freebie from Meghan McFarlane and is a quick and simple knit made with nice chunky needles and knitted from the top down. I'm also pleased as I was able to use up some of my attic stash – a bag of Annabel Fox Chunky Donegal, vintage 1993!

crafts & knitting

just in time mittens

December 11, 2009 Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)20 Comments

The weather here has yet to turn really cold but it has been a bit wet and wintry over the last few weeks and so I'm really pleased to have finished one of my pairs of mittens at last! I love this pattern and made these in Rowan Scottish tweed (not the softest of yarns but lovely and tweedy and warm). They've been keeping my hands snug when I nip out first thing in the morning to collect the eggs – the chickens seem to admire them too!

crafts & knitting

finishing off some bits…

November 19, 2009 Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)42 Comments

This week has been a bit manic as I've tried to finish off some of those projects I have on the go. I have managed to finish a couple of hedgehogs that have been hanging around for a while. I thought it might be a nice touch to sell a few as ready made pincushions and it seemed appropriate to make some little leaf toppers for the pins.

If you fancy giving them a go here's what I did: used a couple of frosted shrinkle sheets and hand drew some leaves, coloured them with pencils and punched a hole in them. Then I shrank them in the oven and shaped them with a slight curl before they cooled and hardened. I've threaded a ball-topped pin through each hole to hopefully look like berries – I can't decide just yet whether to glue the leaves and pins together.

I've also been making more hedgie families by knitting my hedgehog pattern with different yarns – chunky for the largest on 4.5mm needles, DK yarn on 3mm needles for the middlesized one and 4ply yarn on 2.25mm needles for the tiniest.