Category: crafts & knitting

crafts & knitting · wildlife

Where are you Spring?

Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)20 Comments


When spring suddenly seems a distant dream, thanks to the arrival of bitterly cold winds and drifting snow, the best option is to snuggle and I’m doing just that. Knitting in more of these pretty spring colours helps too and I’m slowly working my way towards a little batch of spring dressed bunnies and lambs.

It has been really beautiful outside though. Unusually the snow has come in very localised showers and at times we’ve had bright sun light shining through the flurrying snow as it whispers it’s way to the ground. Thanks to the sub-zero temperatures it’s been that dry fluffy kind of snow rather than the slushy wet stuff that is more usual here and that’s created the perfect canvas for stories to be written across – stories written by the fox that trotted up the driveway in the night on silent and slender paws, circling around the car and searching for some supper, and stories from the birds who are up at dawn to begin the busy task of breakfasting, leaving a delicate trace of their dartings here and there. Finding these tracks in the morning when I go out to let the chickens out of the coop is one of my favourite things about freshly fallen snow.

Well, hope you’re keeping warm where you are and enjoying what the seasons are bringing your way. I’m off to do some more knitting and snuggling 🙂

 

crafts & knitting

pretty and sparkly

Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)35 Comments

It was the school half term break here last week and it ended up being a longer one than it should have been when Toby came down with a virus and had to stay off school on the last day of term. Inevitably we all caught it in turn and spent most of last week feeling sorry for ourselves, staying huddled up in the warm, sniffling into tissues and drinking honey and lemon tea. When I’m feeling rough there’s nothing like a little yarn therapy to lift my spirits so I dived into my growing collection of mini skeins. Such pretty colours and some with the added sparkle of silver lurex did the trick and helped me feel much better.

These are a mixture of mini skeins from The Wool Barn and the sparkly ones are the new Nateby yarn from Eden Cottage. They’re all rather good for knitting bunny cardigans from 🙂

The other thing that lifted everyone’s spirits here was Amy getting an unconditional offer of a place at the university that is her top choice. We went for an applicant day visit on Saturday which confirmed how much she wants to go there and the first thing she did when we arrived back home was to log in and accept the offer. So come September she’ll be off to uni! Eeeek!

With Toby now back at school I’m knuckling down and working on finishing off a batch of finished animals. I’ll keep you updated with progress, til then have a good week x

 

crafts & knitting · new patterns

revised boy and girl bunny patterns

Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)20 Comments

Just a quick note to mention that on February 9th at 9.15am UK time I published an update to both my boy and girl bunny patterns (if you’ve purchased since then you will already have an updated copy).

The original patterns are still perfectly usable (there are no pattern errors) and in fact the majority of changes I have made are only cosmetic and to do with the layout and look of the pages rather than the actual pattern instructions.

However I have added two new designs to the head and tweaked the shaping at the back of the head (all row and stitch counts are exactly the same but I’ve changed it in line with the shaping on all of the other animal patterns). No other patterns have been updated.

Hopefully if you’ve previously bought either of the bunny patterns from Ravelry or my website you will already have received an email with a link to download the new file/s from. If you previously purchased a copy of the pattern/s and have not received an email notice about the update but would like a new copy of the pattern please follow the instructions below.

Please note that I decided I’d like to do this update for free rather than at an additional cost for you. Updates are not normally included in the cost of my patterns but at entirely at my discretion, so please bear that in mind before you get antsy with me and email me in annoyance if you’ve not received an update 🙂

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If you have not already received an email about the update/s please follow these instructions carefully as I will not be able to search through all of my back-orders to find yours and if you do not supply me with the information that I need, then I’ll be unable to send you an update. 

 

1. Ravelry Purchases (from a Ravelry account):

If you have bought through your Ravelry account it is very easy to check for updates. If you have added the purchased patterns to your library there will be an ‘update available’ sticker on the pattern picture and clicking on that will allow you to download the new file. If you are a Ravelry user then adding all patterns that you’ve purchased to your library is worth doing for this reason alone.

If you are a Ravelry user and don’t use the fantastic library function then you can still download new/updated copies of patterns by going to your purchase history (see image below).

 

Here’s an article detailing 5 ways of downloading a new/updated copy of a pattern you’ve bought via Ravelry.

There is a useful tutorial about the menu options of your notebook on Ravelry here

(please don’t email me to ask how Ravelry works, I’m just a Ravelry user like you and they have all the info you’ll need over on their site)

 

2. Purchases via Ravelry or my website (without a Ravelry account)

Please send me an email (link over in the column on the right – towards the top). I don’t need to know the date that you purchased but I do need to know the email address that you used (this will be your paypal email address). If I cannot verify your purchase (because you’ve supplied an incorrect email address) I will not be able to forward you an updated pattern.

 

3. Purchases via Etsy

Unfortunately Etsy have no way for me to automatically give you access to any pattern updates (if you are a Ravelry user it is worth buying patterns via ravelry rather than Etsy so that you do automatically receive any future updates).

So if you’d like a copy of the update/s please

  • log into your Etsy account,
  • go to the little cotton rabbits shop page and
  • click ‘contact shop owner’

This will bring up a message window and you can type me a message letting me know that you’d like an updated copy of the pattern. Because you are messaging me from within your account I will then be able to see your previous purchases (from my shop only) and I can then verify and email you an update.

 

4. Purchases via Loveknitting

If you’ve bought on Loveknitting then they tell me that you should be able to download an update from your purchase history on your account there. If you have any difficulty you will need to contact them as I cannot assist with purchases that are not made direct from me.

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If you do contact me by any of the above methods to request an update please be patient with me as it may take me a day or two to process. As long as you’ve supplied the required information you will receive a reply from me. I am not able to enter into correspondence about the updates or give you any personal instructions other than what is written above.

I really hope that you enjoy the updated patterns. Happy knitting x