variations on a theme

July 1, 2012 Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)28 Comments

Sometimes the urge to knit something is like an itch and you just have to scratch it. After really enjoying making my first pair of welted fingerless gloves I am now planning pairs in green, blue and red.

Quince&

Afterall, you can’t really be properly dressed in winter without mittens to match your favourite scarf can you?

And I do have 3 favourite scarves 🙂

And I have found the perfect colours to make matching mittens, with Quince & Co. Lark in split pea, bird’s egg and winesap,

And the Quince & Co. yarn is so smooshy and lovely to knit with,

So, all in all I do feel completely justified in making more mittens (though H may not agree, he thinks that I have too many already)

Quinceco

It would have been a shame not to use this pattern again, it really is very appealing, not least because it knits up so quickly and takes only 1 skein per pair. And perhaps if I keep knitting winter woollies the sun might stay out for a bit, it does seem to have a rather perverse nature this year!

………………..

Moss stitch scarves from my improvised ‘pattern’ (notes here), green and red are in Rowan Big Wool and the blue is Misti Alpacas hand paint chunky.

crafts & knitting

Midsummers day mittens

June 25, 2012 Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)33 Comments

The fact that I'm just finishing off my second pair of mittens this month must be a measure of what a rubbish summer we're having so far. My hands really feel the cold, so popping on a pair of mittens for pottering around the garden in the late evening has been necessary of late and somehow the butterfly mittens that I finished last week are a little too pretty to wear for picking snails off of my cabbages, so I thought I'd make a more utilitarian pair.

Midsummer mittens

Luckily these mittens are really snuggly and they knitted up really quickly. I only started them on friday evening and this morning I'm just sewing on the finishing touch buttons.

Midsummers

The pattern is Welted Fingerless Gloves from Churchmouse Yarns and Teas and I've knitted it with 3.75mm needles and Cascade 220 wool in 'pear' (full details on ravelry). I originally choose this yarn as one of the colours for the misty afghan but it somehow didn't fit and I'm glad now because I think this is my new favourite colour and I'm pondering what else to make in it.

Despite the fact that I'm very pleased with my new mittens, I really hope that I'll not need them this week – it would be really nice to actually have a summer before the autumn comes around!

knitting time again

June 12, 2012 Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)37 Comments

Sorry to have stayed away for so long. Unfortunately blogging is one of the first things to fall by the wayside when things get busy, and things have been far too busy for my liking recently. First there was Toby's school play week (which was an upheaval for Toby and a tough time for us but happily in the past now) and then there was the half term break, which again Toby found difficult because of the change in routine. He and I went to stay with my Mum and Dad for a few days and playing with his cousin Zoe really helped him get through the week.

Happily we are now settling back into the term-time routine which is nicely predictable for Toby and brings me a calmer pace with some lovely knitting time. To celebrate my reunion with my pointy sticks and yarn I have cast on a new project…

Bmit

I'm using an ancient ball of stashed yarn that has no ball band but I think it's Jaeger and the pattern is the lovely 'catching butterflies' by Tiny Owl Knits.

B mit

I think these will be the perfect mittens for wearing on a cool summer evening, or even the cold summer days that we've been having rather a lot of recently.

Bmitt

There are also bunnies and foxes slowly emerging from my knitting bag and I'm still plodding along on my one-a-day misty afghan which is now getting big enough to sit under as I work on it – a bonus at the moment due to this cold, wet and windy start to June.

Hopefully the sun will rediscover our little patch soon. The newly-fledged birds would certainly benefit from better weather – like this little blue-tit who came out of the nest last week with a big chunk of it caught around his leg and wasn't able to fly. I carefully caught him and managed to cut it off – thank goodness for the tiny points on embroidery scissors. He fluttered off into the shrubs and hopefully he's doing fine now.

Chick