Category: crafts & knitting

crafts & knitting · food and Drink · foxes in my garden · general stuff · wildlife

Home comforts

Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)14 Comments

It was the school half term break here last week and we had a fun time keeping Toby active and busy: lots of wood walks, tandem trike rides, swimming and rides on the mini steam train that he loves. Alongside our outdoor adventures there was also a little time for some indoor comforts: a couple of lazy lie-ins with knitting and tea in bed, quiet evenings by the fire and some baking of raspberry and white chocolate muffins – just the thing to come home to when you’ve had an afternoon in the breezy autumn woods 🙂

The shawl above is being knitted from Elizabeth Doherty’s ‘Rose Gold’ pattern in sublimely soft ‘Nomad’ Yak DK yarn from The Wool Barn I’m hoping to finish off the lovely and unusual side-joined border this week and then it will need blocking (my least favourite part of handknitting) but with any luck I’ll have it snuggled around my neck for our next wood walk, as woolly armour against those cool and intrusive autumn breezes.

I’m also busy with pattern writing, but more of that another time – for now I’ll leave you with some of the pictures I’ve taken over the last 2 months of the fox that has been regularly visiting our garden since early spring, we’ve nicknamed her Kit (from kitsune) …

crafts & knitting · new patterns

Doughnuts!

Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)18 Comments

A new free pattern for tiny doughnuts 🙂 link to download is here.

The original idea for this doughnut pattern was to make something small enough to fit into the pocket of my dungarees pattern, and although it is a little tight, it does just fit. I tried so many prototypes, trying to reduce the size further but they didn’t work out as circular, so this was as small as I could go and therefore the pattern is recommended to be worked with very thin needles 2.25mm (US 1) in order that the doughnut made fits into the dungaree pocket.

If you prefer you can use the doughnut as a stand-alone item, size is then less important and you can knit it in DK weight yarn with 3mm needles to give a larger size.

I hope you have fun with the pattern, it knits up quickly and infact the thing that took the most time and patience was sewing those tiny, fiddly, easy-to-drop-and-stab-your-finger-with-the-needle beads on! If you give it a go please come and share your project pictures over in our Ravelry group so everyone can admire them – I’m looking forward to seeing what you make.

See you soon x

 

 

countryside · crafts & knitting · garden stuff · general stuff · wildlife

Scenes of Summer

Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)17 Comments

Hello! And sorry it’s been so long. I just wanted to pop in briefly and say I am still here – it’s just that here the school summer break is full on Toby time, and he remains my focus until school starts up again on September 4th. Even so I have had my camera handy and have captured some favourite moments from the last month…

  • countryside walking – finding breathtakingly fabulous fields of jewel-bright poppies;
  • sky watching – for clouds, techni-colour sunsets, vintage planes and the red kites that have recently moved into the area;
  • bug finding – newly emerged ladybirds, hoverflies and swallow-tail moths;
  • knitting – mostly socks because they are undemanding, but there are a few more things on my needles that I’ll share soon;
  • pic-nicing with Amy, revisiting Hatfield house (after our first visit this time last year) for a lovely day together;

Today it’s pouring with much needed rain, so Toby and I are having a lazy day – he’s watching cbeebies shows on tv and I’m writing this. If the weather is better tomorrow we’ll be off on a welly-boot woodland adventure – it’s good to get him out and about but overall he’s coping pretty well with the lack of routine. I do think though that we’ll both be ready for when school starts up again 3 weeks and once he’s back into routines I’ll have time to call mine again so I’ll see you then with some updates on what I’ve been working on. Hope the rest of August is good for you xxx