Category: crafts & knitting

crafts & knitting

Yarn shop day

Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)8 Comments

I do love days which are designated as national woolly celebration days and happily we have a lovely one coming up later this week. It's part of the 'Love Your Yarn Shop' campaign from Let's Knit and Let's Get Crafting magazines.

 

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Yarn Shop Day is on Saturday May 3rd and up and down the country a multitude of local yarn shops are putting on lots of different events. You can find out more on the Let's Knit website where there is a map of yarn shops that have signed up. Lots of designers are involved too, popping into their local yarn shops to do demos and workshops. I'm thrilled to have been asked to be an ambassador and I'm going to be celebrating yarn shop day in my local – The Creative Sanctuary in Hertford (see above, this is the fabric side but there's plenty of yarn too) where I'll be demonstrating mattress stitch from 1pm – 3pm. I'll have lots of knitted bits that people can practice on and I'll also have some bunnies, foxes and elephants with me (the 'stars' of my patterns) so you can prod and poke them to see how they're stuffed and sewn and I'm happy to give advice on any aspect of my patterns or general tips on neatly finishing off knitted projects. If you're able to, do pop along and say Hello.

Whilst I've got you thinking woolly thoughts I'll also mention the Deramores Blog awards 2014 which is open until May 14th. There are 2 awards, one for the best undiscovered crochet blogger and one for the best undiscovered knitting blogger and there's a great array of prizes to be handed out by the talented panel of judges.

 

Deramores

 

Here is what you need to do in words from the Deramores website

"Wherever you are, you’re eligible to enter. Taking part is easy! Be yourself and write a blog post that teaches a knitting or crochet related skill, or shares a top knitting or crochet related crafting tip to meet the theme of the awards; ‘Pass it on’. So if you have a skill, share it, and if you swear by a particular way of doing things, pass on that knowledge through your blog."

If you have time pop over and take a look at the entries already submitted, there are some great posts to read through and some lovely tips (I especially like the idea from Kate at Just pootling and I now have luggage labels on my shopping list).

I'm really flattered to be included in Deramores list of blogs they love, especially as I'm in such estimable company.

 

Wishing you a happy yarn shop day on Saturday, I hope you have the chance to support your local yarn shop as we need to preserve our high street woolly treasures as well as enjoying the range that larger online suppliers can offer x

 

crafts & knitting · new patterns

Elephants

Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)65 Comments

Hello and sorry to have been away for so long.

There has been rather a lot going on here recently in between the day-to-dayness of family life. Of course I’ve been knitting lots and have finished off a few animals which I’m hoping I have time to re-home before Easter. But I’ve also been busy writing, tweaking and compiling patterns and at last have 2 elephant patterns to share – a girl in a frondy frock and a boy in a textured sweater.

I’ve uploaded them to both Etsy and Ravelry if you are interested.

Whilst on the subject of patterns I’ve also published a new  free supplement to the existing animal patterns – this time for a little peter pan collar which you can attach to any of the dresses. It’s my plan to release plenty of free supplements to my patterns, so if you’ve bought any it’s worth taking a look on Ravelry to see what else there is to download. At present there are 2 extra dress designs and the collar but more will be coming.

It’s the school Easter break here at the moment, so I don’t have much time to chat but after Easter I’ll be back properly and now that the latest pattern writing is out of the way I hope to have some more regular posts.

I hope all is well in your corner of the world, see you soon x

crafts & knitting · general stuff

definitely spring

Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)52 Comments

Yep, Spring has definitely arrived, hooray!

We have spent the whole weekend out in the garden, sorting out the lawn (which is now mostly mud thanks to the very wet winter), tidying the beds ready for veg planting and just soaking up the wonderful warmth of the sun. It seems that we aren’t the only ones sunbathing either as the plum tree is a magnet for Peacock butterflies emerging from hibernation. We often find them hibernating in the wood pile – they make the most alarming sound with their wings when disturbed and we’re always careful to rebuild a shelter for them when we take wood away to burn on the stove. At one point this morning I counted six of them fluttering around and feeding from the tree blossom (which must be one of the earliest and most abundant food sources available to them), it was a truly magical sight.

 

Butterfly3

Despite the closed wings I love this picture below because you can see that lovely spiralled proboscis

 

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There must be a feast of nectar up there because there have also been loads of bees buzzing around the thousands of blossoms that are open on the tree at the moment.

 

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It’s so nice to have warm, bright days here again and to be able to be outside without getting soaked or shivering! Everything feels more manageable when the sun is shining 🙂

I’ve also taken advantage of the brighter weather to take some pictures of my finished Dream Stripes shawl (details of pattern and yarn here).

 

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I’m really pleased with how it has turned out and with how blocking really accentuates those lovely points – I’ve never actually been bothered to wet block anything before – a quick steam block under a damp cloth is usually the best my projects can expect, but that wasn’t going to cut the mustard here so I’m glad I took the time to wet block this time.

 

Shawl2 - Copy

 

Now I just have to work out how to wear it – Amy tells me I look like a granny with the way I’m currently wearing it (you can always rely on a teenager for brutal honesty, thanks my lovely for your kind words). So, any tips on cool shawl wearing would be gratefully received!