New small sized clothing patterns

July 6, 2020September 5, 2025 Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)17 Comments

Hello there, it’s been a while and I hope you’re well.

It feels like I’ve been working on these patterns for a very long time indeed and they have to be the most stressful set of patterns that I’ve ever worked on – though not because the patterns are in any way complicated or difficult but because of the circumstances that they have been written under. For the last 4 months we’ve been in lockdown here, without the usual support of respite or school for Toby, and that has meant that his 24 hour constant care and supervision has been soley down to us. This has meant that I’ve had to grab small snippets of time to pattern write whenever they presented themselves to me and it’s not the way I like to work at all, nor the most effective way of maintaining focus and concentration.

Anyway, Toby was invited back to school 10 days ago and after a bit of a wobbly start he’s started to settle into the new routines. His school day is shorter than usual, but it has meant that I have had 4 hours and 30 minutes of uninterrupted concentration time with which to work on finalising these patterns and it’s been such a relief to be able to achieve something again and finally get the patterns finished.

So here they are. They are all designed to fit the small 7 inch rabbit pattern (not the larger 9 inch animals),

A dresses pattern with 20 different designs for the skirt and 3 options for the neckline;
A sweaters pattern with a cabled Aran sweater; a top down cardi with a yoke; 3 top down raglan sweaters: a T shirt, a long-sleeved sweater and a cardigan; and a simple sweater with 10 designs to duplicate stitch on to the front;
A dungarees and pinafore dress pattern.

I’ve decided to launch them altogether so that if anyone wants to purchase 2 or more at the same time they’ll automatically get the 15% multi pattern discount. They are currently available via Ravelry or Etsy (the discount will apply as soon as you add at least 2 patterns to your basket)

Sorry that there are not more pictures of the small animals wearing these outfits, time has not allowed that yet but I am hoping to take some more pictures over these next 2 weeks, which is the only time that is left to get anything done before the 7 week school sumer break begins. I’m hoping that I’ll also have a chance to finalise another pattern that I’ve been working on but it will depend on whether time is on my side 🙂

I’m looking forward to September when all being well, I’ll have a few more free hours to call my own and I can get out and about with my camera and write a little more here on the blog, I miss that. Until then stay safe and well where you are, with love and best wishes from me xxx

A free supplement pattern

May 22, 2020September 5, 2025 Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)11 Comments

Hello and happy Friday,

Just a quick post today to let you know that I’ve uploaded a free downloadable supplement that shows you how to turn the T-shirt (or the long sleeved sweater) from my ‘Trio of top down sweaters‘ pattern into a dress. You’ll need to use the trio of sweaters pattern to make the top part and then use the free supplement to knit on a skirt – it’s very simple and quite quick and gives a little extra choice in the Little Cotton Rabbits wardrobe 🙂

You can download the free pdf file either from Ravelry

or from my new Facebook group (it’s in the ‘files’ section on the left-hand side of the screen along with the files for my other free patterns)

I hope you enjoy it and as always I’m looking forward to seeing your projects.

Best wishes for the weekend, I hope it’s a good one for you xxx

crafts & knitting · new patterns

new year, new pattern :)

January 9, 2020September 5, 2025 Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)22 Comments

Hello and a belated happy New Year! I do hope that this new year has been kind and gentle to you so far.

I’m still getting back into the swing of things after the wildly out-of-routine Christmas break and I have some pictures to show you of the knitting that I did manage to work on in the quiet moments. But first I want to tick something off my New Year’s resolution list, something that I had hoped to have ready during November (in time for Christmas present knitting), but missed my self-imposed deadline. So here it is now, nice and early for a little Easter bunny knitting instead. Introducing Little Cotton Rabbits small rabbit pattern.

This little pattern was prompted by all of the messages that I received last spring following the release of the mini bunny and bear pattern when I was inundated with requests for removeable clothes for the minis and so I set to work making some scaled down versions of the regular sized clothing. I’d also received a lot of requests for mini versions of all my other animal designs and so at the same time I started working on those too. As I worked I began thinking that instead of adapting the minis for the other animal designs, it might instead be more fun to have small scaled down versions of my regular sized animals to wear the clothing. I’d made a small version of the bunnies back in 2007 when I was playing around with ideas for different sized animals and so I hunted through all my old notebooks for the notes that I made back then, and used those as a start point for a scaling down the little cotton rabbits design.

I’ve really enjoyed working on these small versions, they knit up more quickly than the regular sized bunnies and are a nice size for little hands to hold – they come out at around 8 inches (20cm) tall compared to the regular sized bunnies which are around 10^1/2 inches (27cms). Paired with the regular sized bunnies they make a sweet family group too. The yarns I’ve used are exactly the same yarns and needle sizes as I would knit the regular sized animals in – using a worsted weight yarn for the bunny, with the clothing in 4ply weight yarn (unlike the mini patterns, that are made completely in DK yarn on 2.75mm needles), so it’s easy to make a regular sized bunny and a matching little version too, all from the same balls of yarn. I can’t wait to see little cotton rabbit families appearing 🙂

Just as with my regular sized bunny patterns, I’ve included different designs for the head – a plain coloured bunny head, one with an eye patch and a Dutch bunny head with a blaze down it’s nose. Within the pattern there are also 2 options for knitting the body, a plain naked body and a body with knitted on underpants. Included are 3 items of clothing to fit the small rabbits (though they will also fit the mini bunny and bear patterns too), there’s a dotty dress, a striped sweater and a pair of short trousers all included. I’ve decided not to make these small versions with mary jane shoes at the moment but I plan to play around with options and will most likely work on a ‘small ones’ shoe pattern to also include sneakers and so on, just like the optional extra shoes for the regular sized animals. There will be lots more clothing to come too, I am bursting with ideas, all I need now is the time to turn those into pattern form.

As always I’m brimming with excitement to see what you make from my patterns, so if you do give this new one a go please come and share your project photos over in the Ravelry group.

Right, I’m off to keep working on some small versions of my other animal designs and the clothing too. I’ll let you know how I’m getting on soon.

The picture below shows all 3 sizes of Little Cotton Rabbits now available. The largest is the boy bunny in a striped sweater (original sized rabbit) which is 27cms/10^1/2 inches tall, the middle sized is the new ‘small rabbit’ pattern which is 20cms /8 inches tall, and the smallest is the ‘mini bunny and bear pattern’ knitted in 4ply yarn on 2.5mm (US 1.5) needles and 14cms/ 5^1/2 inches small.