Category: new patterns

crafts & knitting · new patterns

Miaow

Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)93 Comments

Working on this new pattern on and off over the last year has been an exciting and slightly novel thing for me. It’s the first time I’ve made a pattern from scratch with the intention of it being a pattern, if you see what I mean. All of the other animal patterns have come about because I wanted to knit them as finished items rather than with the original intention of sharing them in pattern form and so for most of them I had years of tweaking and lots of knittings before arriving at the final patterns.

This time I started off with a basic idea sketched out and then knitted up some trial runs (the earliest of which did not go well). But I’ve persevered and after lots of rejected test samples I arrived at one that I was pretty happy with. Then it was just down to playing around with ear placement, head length, tail tip and a few more little bits of fiddling and tweaking. Anyway, I’m satisfied enough to now release the patterns, so here is my little cat boy and girl, both clad in plaid 🙂

It was hard to decide exactly what sort of cat should be in the pattern – after all there are so many different breeds, from refined pure-bred Persians to lowly but loveable moggies. So because I couldn’t decide I’ve included in the pattern 4 extra head designs which are interchangeable, so you can make either a plain coloured cat, or a cat with a white blaze, a cat with an eye patch, a Siamese cat or a tabby. There are little bits that you can combine from these different designs to make your own unique looking cat, a bit like a selection box (sorry I couldn’t resist taking this photo – hope it’s not too creepy!)

Here are some of the heads I’ve made so far from the pattern (all instructions and details of yarns used for these are included with both patterns)…

As usual with a new pattern release I’m on tenterhooks, waiting for the first projects to appear on Ravelry. It’s so exciting to see what other people have made from the patterns so please come and add yours to the group if you give any of the patterns a try.

The new patterns are now live on both Ravelry and Etsy . I so hope that if you give any of them a go you have fun knitting from them x

 

crafts & knitting · new patterns

monkey business

Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)44 Comments

They’ve been a while coming, but at last I’ve finished working on the monkey patterns and they’re now available on Ravelry.

As usual there is a boy and girl version of the pattern.

The boy has shorts and two options for making a houndstooth patterned sweater – one that is worked in stranded technique using two colours on each row (shown in bottom of 3rd picture) and the other which is worked in single colour stripes and uses slipped stitches to create the pattern (shown in top of 3rd picture). I’ve included both because I know that not everyone likes working with 2 colours at once, so the second sweater is easier from this respect.

The girl pattern also has 2 clothing options – one dress that is worked in stranded technique with two colours on some rows and the second that has a textured dot pattern knitted in a single colour. There are also instructions for making a bow decoration and for adding decoration to her shoes.

Hopefully anyone who uses the pattern will have fun making their own little monkey and I’m really looking forward to seeing the first finished monkeys popping up in the Ravelry group.

We’re having a very quiet weekend here without the usual music that comes constantly from Amys room – she’s away for the weekend doing her Duke of Edinburgh Award practice expedition. She left yesterday morning in her walking boots and waterproofs with a rucksack almost the same size as her strapped to her back! She’s walking around 10 miles with a small team from her school and they then have to pitch camp, cook their own food, spend the night, pack everything away again (this will probably be the hardest part for Amy!) and walk the 10 miles back. Typically after weeks of dry weather this weekend has had a lot of rain so I’m expecting a very damp and tired daughter back at 5ish!

Hope you’re having a good weekend where you are, see you soon x

 

crafts & knitting · new patterns

squeak!

Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)58 Comments

Firstly, thank you so much to everyone who entered the giveaway in the previous post. I so enjoyed reading all the comments, by turns funny, warm, moving and altogether a lovely reminder that it’s so often the little things that make us all happy. I’ve drawn the winners and posted them at the bottom of the giveaway post.

The last few weeks I’ve mostly been sat here at my computer working on the patterns for the mice and yesterday I decided it was high time to call them finished (it’s all too easy to become just a little obsessive with infinite tweaks to wording and layouts). So I’ve uploaded them to Ravelry and Etsy where they are now available.

Today is the last day of school before the start of the half term break so next week will be full of wet and windy woodwalks for Toby and me and Amy will be having fun performing in a musical version of the Adams Family with her theatre group. I’ll be back after the break as I want to tell you a little more about the making of the mouse pattern but until then I’ll wish you a good week and say thanks for dropping by x