old mossy wall shawl, finished

May 13, 2012 Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)32 Comments

I have finished the old mossy wall shawl.

Omwshawl

Although those lovely ripples make a beautiful pattern and I do love the mossy, woodland tones of the yarns, I don't feel quite right in it.

Omws3

Omws

Maybe I'm not a shawl wearing kind of girl afterall. I think I'll be wrapping this one around and wearing it like a scarf and that will probably be the end of my shawl knitting days.

Omws2

Omwshawl2

Still, now it's finished I'm free to take up my crochet hook again for a spot of evening time 'one a day' grannying because after saying that I was all blanketed out, something has caught my eye. In fact it's been a bit of an obsession over the last two weeks and I've been trawling the yarn shops looking for the right yarns. Now I have my cast of yarns gathered and I'm ready to start but I will tell you all about it next time!

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PS: I didn't use both the tones of Koigu as I had originally planned. I felt the dark green one didn't work, so I substituted some Madeline Tosh sock yarn that I had left over from some gloves. Details are on ravelry if you're interested x

crafts & knitting

back to knitting

May 3, 2012 Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)55 Comments

Well, after braving Sunday's weather on the 10k walk I'm not feeling at all guilty to be curling up with my knitting (and truth be told I was aching just a little bit at the beginning of the week!) I have lots of animals to finish off, so at the moment I'm trying hard to resist casting on a couple of new ones in these gorgeous yarns…

New yarn

Shilasdair's Luxury DK (10% Cashmere, 10% Baby Camel, 40% Angora and 40% British Merino Lambswool) is produced on the Isle of Skye and dyed with natural dyes like madder and onion skins. I'm also finding the thought of trying out a few bunny dresses in the Quince & Co 'sparrow' (100% organic linen) rather tempting. I will resist (for now) and press on with finishing off because there are lots of spring dresses to sew up

Clothes

and lots of heads and limbs to be attached to fat-tummied bodies!

Legs2

Enjoy the rest of your week and if you have any excess sunshine with you please could you send a little this way – the constant heavy rain here is getting a bit repetitive!

seeds

April 27, 2012 Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)34 Comments

My goodness it's been a wet and windy week here. I had planned to get out in the garden and plant my broad bean and carrot seeds direct into the beds but I'm really not a wet weather person and knitting on the sofa has held a much stronger appeal! Those seeds that I planted back in march and early april are growing into strong little plants and I'm looking forward to getting them into the raised beds in the next few weeks.

Seeds3

I love watching seedlings grow from a shrivelled brown dot into a big green plant – it's truly magical. These broccoli, cabbage and lettuce seedlings have a lot more growing to do but when they're fully grown and tended with care I'm hoping they'll reward me with a tasty summer feast!

On the subject of seeds, I was planning to send a friend some seeds that I collected from my garden last year but the little brown packets that I put them into looked so ordinary and plain and I had wanted them to be more of a gift. So I sat down with a few left over bits of yarn and fiddled about on ideas for a little pouch to hold seed packets. After a few prototypes of different sizes I finally settled on a design which can also hold an i-phone or similar sized gadget.

Pouch 2

I thought I'd write it up as a little pattern, so give me a few days or so and I'll hopefully have it ready to share with you.

Hopefully the wind and rain will abate a little on Sunday as it's the big day for Amy and me and the others talking part in the sponsored walk for CHIPs. The forecast is not looking good though, we'll be looking forward to cups of tea, hot chocolate and cake at the finish line, and coming home to a hot bath!

Stay warm and dry wherever you are this weekend x