Category: general stuff

countryside · crafts & knitting · general stuff · wildlife

snapshots from summer

Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)31 Comments

Hello again, it’s been too long. The mid summer months are mostly taken up with family time here and I’ve been busy keeping Toby occupied and helping Amy get organised and moved back in here with us after finishing her degree. Above are a few snapshots of my summer: enjoying the warm sun; peaceful sky watching; finding different garden visitors; watching dramatic storms and grateful to be inside, and delighting in the the lovely Hertfordshire countryside.

There has been also a little time for knitting shoe-horned in too, as you’ll see in the first picture above, and since finishing the dogs pattern back in May I’ve been having fun gradually developing this new ‘little Cotton Rabbits’ character, (hopefully you can tell it’s a Koala). The pattern is all written up but until Toby is settled in his new placement at college I’ll not have the chance to take all the pattern photos. It is coming along nicely though so I’ll keep you posted when it’s ready to share.

With Toby starting at college on Monday I’m a bit anxious and occupied with trying to make that go as smoothly as possible, but I’ll be popping back as soon as the dust settles with knitting news and a celebratory giveaway because today is my 15th anniversary of starting this blog!

See you again soon xx

crafts & knitting · foxes in my garden · garden stuff · general stuff

December light

Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)30 Comments

Though we’re not yet at the Winter Solstice the days now feel very short here. When I wake at just after 7am the sun has not yet risen and by 4pm it’s almost dark. And though daylight might be in short supply, one of the things I love about this time of year is watching the sunrises and sunsets. We’ve had some beautiful skies at these times of day, sometimes all aflame and dramatic and sometimes beautifully subtle like the colours in a mother-of-pearl shell. Some days before I go to wake up sleepy Toby, I take my early morning cuppa and go out into the garden in my coat and PJs to watch the subtle shifts in the cloud colours as the sun comes up. Even at midday the sun only rises now to 16% above the horizon and on bright days this low light slants through the windows casting angled shadows across the surfaces. We’ve had a lot of foggy mornings and a few frosts, both leaving everything damp and dewy and the water droplets that collect on every surface (even a ladybird shell) are illuminated by this low light, so they sometimes appear like silvered glass. All small delightful things that are particular to this time of year.

Kit the fox is still a regular garden visitor and despite the fact that H removed the thick growth of cushiony ivy when he put up new fencing, she still uses the heavy duty netting on the top of the chicken run as a hammock for daytime naps. She has grown her thick winter coat now and curls herself up, tucking her nose under her tail like a duvet to keep out the cold wind.

Here inside I’ve been cosy with my knitting. I’ve been playing around with different textures for a small set of toy scarves. I’ve got the pattern written up but need to knit it through and check it, then will share it as a free pattern with the hope that you might still have a little time to use it for some of your Christmas animal makes. I am also hoping to get the last pictures for the badger pattern I’ve been working on done later today, much later than planned but I’ll be back with news of that soon (ish!).

I’m behind with almost everything on my to-do list but I’m sure I’m not alone in that, it’s been a tough year so we’re all a little frazzled I think, and maybe if some things we had planned to do don’t get done it doesn’t really matter, leastways that seems to be the best way to think at the moment.

I hope you’re getting most of what you need to do done at the moment and that you then get to have some calm and relaxing time coming up over the holiday period, J x

 

crafts & knitting · general stuff

hello again

Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)31 Comments

Hello and thanks for dropping in to visit here despite my long absence. I hope you’ve had a good few months and that life for you is finding a balance in these strange times.

The summer break here has been a little challenging at times, things have been difficult for Toby with all of the unpredictable happenings and changes due to covid 19, so we slowed things right down and just parcelled each day up and put it away, moving on to the next one with the hope that it would be a better one. We’ve had a gentle pace and a very limited routine to our days but that has helped him to settle and calm. He’s enjoyed lazy morning lie-ins with breakfast in bed and our daily walks (come sun, rain, wind or storms) have been a time of meditative contemplation. As we’ve walked quietly together along the peaceful woodland paths, I’ve matched my pace to his, stopping for minutes at a time when he’s in sensory shutdown and can’t move, and trying to keep up with him (but mostly failing) when he is overwhelmed by the desire to run. The walks have been the highlight of our days.

There’s been a lot of evening knitting time for me while he’s watched his videos and played with his books and duplo, and as a result I have a lot of pattern plans on the go. I’m currently working on a set of removable shoes for the animals (for both the regular sized patterns and the small version); the badger pattern is coming together slowly and I’m also working on small versions of all of my animal designs. I’ve been playing around with this lion idea too, and though it’s not quite right yet I hope to have this ready soonish as a free supplement to the existing bear pattern. I’ll keep you posted here of developments.

In other news,

  • I’m very flattered to have been nominated for Noteworthy Knitting Blog in the Crafties, 2020 which is organised by Lovecrafts. If you’d like to vote for me I’d really appreciate that, the voting link is here.
  • September 3rd was my 14th anniversary of starting this blog and so I’d like to hold a little celebratory giveaway, but need to get myself a little organised here first. More news of that in a later post.
  • The Facebook group has been a great source of pleasure for me over summer, I’ve loved seeing everyone’s projects there and at the end of August we topped 3,000 friendly members. I’m pondering how to celebrate that with an exclusive giveaway over there but haven’t yet worked it out, but that will be coming up too. If you’re on Facebook and would like to join us and share your projects, you’ll find the group here

Well, that’s all the news from me, I mainly just wanted to break the silence and say Hi. Now that Toby is back at school (for his final year) I’m hoping to be able to pop in here regularly and I’ll keep you posted on pattern writing progress and the giveaways.

Thanks as always for taking time out of your day to join me here, I really appreciate your visit 🙂

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PS: I’m sure someone will want to ask, so here’s a little info about my notebooks.

I like to write all of my patterns longhand as I’m working them out, so always have several notebooks on the go, jotting down ideas, trying things out, changing them and trying them again – it’s a long slow process 🙂 The notebooks themselves are from MD paper – the pages are in a lovely paper that takes the ink well, and I like to personalise them with stickers from the wonderfully talented Nastia Sleptsova.