Little Cotton Rabbits

Summer holiday prep

Well, here we are again, on the cusp of the long, long, long summer break. Surely it wasn't a year since the last one - it certainly doesn't seem like it!

We're staying at home again for the duration, as a holiday away with Toby is just out of the question. So poor old Amy is feeling a bit hard done by, as all of her friends are chatting about holidays abroad. I've been making plans to keep the children occupied, Toby will be content with a new box of lego (he chews it and then gets cross that it doesn't fit together properly so some new bits will make him a happy boy) and some dry weather so he can play in the garden. It's a little harder trying to keep Amy busy but, like last year I've put together a summer holiday kit with colouring books, a dvd and a new game for the Wii and some summer holiday vouchers for activities that we can do together.

 

I've filled out my vouchers with a cinema trip, shopping trip with some spending money, a day at Legoland, strawberry picking & jam making, a camp-out in the garden, lunch at a restaurant, a trip to a London Museum (probably the Science Museum), a picnic at the park, a sweetie making session and a fish & chip supper.

Hopefully the holiday kit will make up a little for not going away and we can have some fun days and make her some happy memories. If you wanted to print out some summer holiday vouchers for your children I've uploaded a pdf file. This year I've designed a blank version so that you can write in your own ideas for treats. Download Vouchers

I'm feeling rather unprepared for the school break - not helped by the fact the camera broke this morning (which is why I have no pictures to share today). Anyway, I'll pop in here from time to time when I have the chance but it may not be very frequently so for now, here's wishing you and yours a good summer!

paper for knitting projects

Thanks for all the get well wishes - they worked and I'm feeling a lot better. The only downside of feeling more chipper is the backlog of housework waiting for me and not much of an excuse to ignore it any longer!

When I was scribbling out notes for the bunny trainers recently, it occurred to me that I should have a better system for keeping my notes (I usually jot stuff down in a variety of notebooks and I've lost stuff before). So I had a play and designed some note paper which I've printed out and will keep in a box file ready to do my jottings on.

It occurred to me that this might be useful for others so if you'd like some you can download a pdf of 4 pages here. Download All knitting notes

If anyone thinks of any extra pages that might come in useful please let me know and I'll see if I can help.

Here's wishing you a good weekend (it's going to be a hot one here - too hot for housework obviously!)

sick day

Why is it that mummies aren't entitled to sick leave? Luckily for me I don't get ill too often but when I do all I want is to take to my bed which (as I'm sure everyone else knows from personal experience) just isn't possible when you're a mum. Still, I'm rebelling and after getting the children off to school yesterday I put my jammies back on, made a cup of tea and spent the rest of the day in bed watching dvd's of Northern Exposure and fiddling about with yarn.

I did have quite a productive day in bed - the headless bunny is headless no more, I've finished the first crochet cushion (cheating by just using it as a panel to reface an old, plain cream cushion) and I do feel a bit better. I reckon I need a few more lazy days with no housework in order to build up my strength ready for the school summer break - you'll back me up won't you?

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by the way - it's only a summer cold - nothing serious! thanks x

friday afternoon knitting

Thanks for the kind comments recently about poor Toffee and Amy's ballet performance and the garden. I don't get as much time as I'd like to reply to everyone but I wanted to say here how much I appreciate you taking the time to leave me a message.

A couple of people asked about bunny knitting - there's certainly a lot of it still going on here (although I'm still quite enamoured with crochet too!) and I should have some animals ready in the next week to list over on Etsy (will email the advance mailing list with details as soon as they're ready). I've been playing with ideas for boy's shoes and have just about worked out a new design for trainers, so hope to have a couple of those ready soon.

I'm off to make the most of the last quiet hour before the weekend and start on a head for that poor head-less bunny. Have a happy weekend where you are.

in the garden again

Forgive me for banging on about my veg patch again but it really amazes me how quickly things grow at this time of year. I took these pictures a month apart and the difference is huge (the left-hand ones are from May and the right-hand were taken yesterday)

I do get quite excited by the first picking of our fruit and veg. I love these translucent mangetout and they're all ready to be snapped off and lightly steamed - yum!

Later this week we'll be able to pick the first of the courgettes and french beans and the strawberries are still going strong.

There are flowers too - I do so love this time of year in the garden!

seaside

Summer has really arrived here - it's turned hot and sunny and Amy and I couldn't pass up the opportunity that came our way last week for a girls only weekend at the seaside. We set off at the crack of dawn on Saturday and arrived with our friends in Walton on the Naze for breakfast.

The day at the beach was perfect and we topped it off with a visit to the pier, fish and chips and an evening at the kids club. It was so nice to get away and relax but lovely to come home again yesterday and see our menfolk who had pottered around the garden all weekend. Although we were only away for 18 hours it felt like a much longer break and I feel very relaxed this morning - hope that feeling lasts a little longer!

and then there were two

Thanks so much for the good wishes for both Amy's ballet performance and for poorly Toffee. Amy had a wonderful time and really enjoyed performing on such a big stage. We were really proud to see her up there giving it her all.

Unfortunately Toffee did not have such a good weekend. I inspected her foot and leg and thoroughly bathed it but there was no sign of cuts, bruises, breaks, nibbles (although  there's no way any rodents could get into our run) and she still had movement in the toes and could just about weight bear on the leg. Unfortunately though she stopped eating the regular chicken food on Saturday and so I put her on the rickets diet that I'd read about - she seemed to enjoy this but was still only eating a little. She wasn't showing other signs of illness so we made her a comfy woodshavings bed and waited to see if rest would help.

Sadly though she died during Sunday night. I'm hoping that the absence of other symptoms means that she didn't have an infectious disease that the others might get but to play safe we've thoroughly cleaned everything and are dosing Mrs Black and Butterscotch up with vitamins. We're so sad to have lost Toffee but it feels a little better knowing that she had a good life here with lots of treats, a comfy home and a little love which is much more than most of her commercially bred cousins can dream of.

poorly little red hen

Poor Toffee has hurt her foot.

No-one is very sure how it happened but it seems most likely that she caught a toe when coming down the ramp one morning. She is limping and unable to scratch around as chickens like to do so is spending much of her day sitting.

 

Hopefully it's just a sprain and will start to get better soon but for now we're all taking care of her and the other two chickens are spending a lot of time sitting with her which is quite touching. I'm at a bit of a loss to know what to do but will see how she is after the weekend - I'm hoping she'll be OK. Apart from chicken nursing, we'll be spending the weekend preparing for Amy's ballet show on Sunday and I'm sure I'll have lots of pictures to show off afterwards! Enjoy your weekend where you are.

weekend stuff

We had a busy weekend with a lot of ballet rehersals for Amy. There's only a week to go before her ballet school perform Cinderella at the local theatre and Amy is Cinderella's shadow (as you might imagine she's very excited!) So that meant a lot of sitting around for me - not too bad when you've got a bag full of crochet to keep you busy! I'm working on lots of different bits at the moment which I hope will one day become a collection of cushions!

There was also a little garden time. Everything is growing like mad and there are loads of strawberries ripening.

We learnt our lesson from last year and picked them quick before the birds or the slugs could tuck into them.

They tasted good!

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PS: the crochet cushions above are all based on the summer garden granny square pattern from Attic24's blog

the loveliness and the not so

Thanks to a generous voucher from a friend I have treated myself to some gorgeous new yarn for a cosy autumn scarf (bought from first4yarns). It's really soft and beautifully marled.

but on the not-so-lovely side is this...

Luckily for Toby it has fixed easily with a dab of superglue or he'd be in the doghouse for sure!