Category: crafts & knitting

crafts & knitting · new patterns

knitting and catching up

Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)76 Comments

Thanks so very much for all of the comments on my giveaway post. I’ve really enjoyed reading all of the different ways in which we each take pleasure in our free time. I’ve left the choice of winners to the random number generator (see bottom of post) which has come up with…

359 Far From Harm Farm

178 Thistle

Sorry that the chance of winning was a slim one, I’d have liked to give something to everyone who regularly visits here and hopefully the knitters amongst you can make use of the cupcake dress design – I do hope to write up some more free supplements for the animal clothing in future too.

Last week I did manage to finish off the fox patterns which are available now.

The Patterns are on Ravelry though an account is not needed if you want to purchase. The patterns are also on Etsy for anyone who prefers to purchase that way.

Generally though I’m not very well organised on the knitting front at the moment (or on any other front for that matter) and I can’t seem to decide whether to knit and finish more animals or press on with more pattern writing.

I have been enjoying playing around with designs and comparing stranded knitting with Swiss darning / duplicate stitch. I definitely prefer duplicate stitch when working in 5 colours for these dresses.

And I have a lot of animals on the go, mostly heads though as I’m flitting between working on the elephant, monkey and mouse patterns and still have a lot of bodiless fox and bunny heads, poor things!

These are just the stuffed heads I have knitted, I have a lot more empty ones – a bit like my head at the moment!

Anyway, the result of my indecision is that both pattern writing and animal making are getting done but neither one very quickly. Hopefully I shall settle into a more structured way of working once we are fully back in our term time routines. Toby has started back at school in a new class (he’s now in the senior part of the school rather than juniors) and though he seems to be coping OK on the whole he is more unsettled than usual which is putting us all a little on edge. Things will calm down once the new becomes the familiar 🙂

Thanks again for taking the time to leave comments on my giveaway, I really appreciate you stopping by x

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Competition random numbers:

crafts & knitting · general stuff · Giveaways

7 years

Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)1,083 Comments

Hello again. It's nice to be back now that the children are at school again. It's been longer than I planned since I popped in here and I had intended to write another couple of blog posts over the school summer hols but circumstances conspired to keep me away from the computer. I will write up a post soon about my summer knitting exploits but today is a special day as it is my blog anniversary – it was exactly seven years ago today that I first dipped my toe into bloggy waters.

Candycoco

At the time I didn't have any long term plans for the blog. All I wanted was a distraction from worrying about Toby (who was having his very first day of school), a way of connecting with other people who like to make things (because it appears that none of them live very near me) and maybe a way of selling a few knitted things so that I had an excuse to keep making them. I count myself extremely lucky to have had all 3 of those wishes come true and so much more besides. I've made real life friends through this little blog, built a small business which does indeed allow me to justify buying lots of yarn and knitting each and every day and I have a lovely place to come to escape from some of the worries about Toby's future.

But all this would not have been possible without you – all you lovely visitors who pop in and say Hi, offer encouragement, support and generally just make me feel happy and part of a like-minded community.

As a small thank you I am giving away the two bunnies above (called Candy and Coco). To be in with a chance of winning one of them just leave me a comment below and tell me something you like to do with your free-time. I'll pick 2 winners using a random number generator a week today (Tuesday 10th September)

I'm also giving away a free supplement to my bunny girl/seasonal dresses knitting patterns. This is for the dress design on the bunnies above and includes charted and written instructions (please note that you will need one of my patterns as the supplement is just the design notes rather than the full instructions for the dress construction). If you'd like a copy you can download it for free here.

Thanks again for continuing to visit with me and for all of your lovely comments over the last 7 years, I hope you'll stick around for a while longer x

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As always after the long summer holidays I am woefully behind with replying to emails. I hope to catch up over the next week, sorry if you are waiting to hear back from me.

 

autism · crafts & knitting · general stuff

summer days

Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)39 Comments

Summer has arrived here in this little corner of England. The last few days have been wonderful weather-wise and over the weekend our whole family has been outside  – the sunshine even coaxed Amy out of the teenage stereotype of preferring bedroom living 🙂

I've been sitting in the shade at the end of the garden and working on some end of term presents for Toby's teachers. I plan to pair each strawberry bookmark with a pretty note book and pencil and wrap them up nicely.

 

Strawberrymaking

Free pattern from Pezdiva (with a few adaptations).

 

Strawbs

Toby has of course been enjoying bouncing, swinging and paddling

 

Paddling pool

even the chicken has been enjoying the hot weather with a paddle in her own pool

 

Paddling

Poor H has been the only one not relaxing or keeping cool – he's still been hard at work building paths and paving around the garden room.

 

Garden work

I am also working on a little batch of knitted animals. It's been a while since I offered any for sale so I hope to have them finished soon, I'll post some pictures when they're ready.

Talking of knitting, thanks so much to Love Knitting for featuring little cotton rabbits as their blog of the week last week.

Thanks too to all of the people who sent me emails and messages about the book of the week on radio 4. 'The reason I jump' is written by Naoki Higashida an autistic boy living in Japan and takes the form of questions put to him and his answers. It is a fascinating and thought-provoking insight into the world seen from an autistic perspective. My copy arrived yesterday and I'm already halfway through (and scribbling notes to myself as I go). The introduction by David Mitchell is brilliant and any parent of an autistic child will be nodding in agreement and probably like me welling up with tears at reading things that so often go unsaid.

 

Book2

The book itself is revelatory and has again made me tearful many times, both in recognition of the huge implications it could have in the way that others perceive those with autism and because current state schooling often deeply underestimates and mis-interprets many autistic children. My head is literally buzzing and I'm trying to think where we go from here in order to give Toby a way of communicating all that is in his head (rather than just his basic wants), because there is a lot more going on in there than most people give him credit for. I'd urge anyone involved with any aspect of caring for autistic people to read this book, it is an eye-opener and has the potential to change lives.

Thanks as always for popping in to visit. See you again soon