Little Cotton Rabbits

Christmas girls

Just a quickie to let you know that the Christmas girls and cakes are finished and will be in the shop sometime later this afternoon. Thanks for all the enquiries. UPDATE: They are now in the shop. SECOND UPDATE: Sorry, Holly and Noelle have both been sold.

The one in the green dress (Holly) has two tiny holly leaves and 3 french knot holly berries on her dress. Noelle (in the red dress) has 4 snow-covered trees with silver seed bead decorations - because of the beads she may not be suitable for small children.

My first swap

Yesterday a package arrived for me and was eagerly torn open - to reveal...

this lovely needlecase and great vintage buttons - the goodies from my very first swap with the charming Jackie of Wren's Nest. I love the idea of swapping with a fellow crafter and am very lucky to score such beautiful things on my first swap. I've been gathering all my various boxes and tins of sewing stuff together and have started to put together a proper work box. I was lucky to inherit this wonderful wooden sewing box from my Great Granny but I don't know how long she had it. As a student I used it as an art box and stored all my gouache paints and brushes in it but I've not painted for years and it's been stuck in a forgotten corner of our attic. Now I have my needlecase and pincushion (from Raspberry) it seems appropriate to return the box to it's original function. It makes me feel like a proper crafter - I just need a work room now!!

And for my next trick...

...I will place 5 knitted rabbits into the magician's hat, tap 3 times with the magic wand, say the magic word 'retail therapy' and hey presto! a new skirt! Ok, it didn't happen quite like that but it does feel magical to me. Thanks to all of you lovely people out there who've been buying my work. I now have a little spending money of my own (instead of grocery money!) it's nice to have buying power again! By the way, the skirt is from White Stuff and has these lovely little hand sewn details.

WIP of a seasonal nature

I know that nobody wants to be reminded how many shopping days left until Christmas - I'm no angel and am more disorganised with my pressie buying than usual. Still even I have succumbed to the impending season of cheer and have been trying to finish off stockings, Christmas cakes and bunnies.These two girlies are in a partially dressed state but I thought I'd share them with you anyway because I like their little fat tums over the tops of their tights!

I have however found what will be on my Christmas list this year. I always take A to see Father Christmas at a nearby Garden Centre - he arrived by Helicopter this last weekend (I don't know what happened to the reindeer - not 21st century enough I s'pose). Anyway, maybe I'll sit on his knee after A and ask him nicely for Ollie because I just love him so - check him out and his brothers & sisters too at Sweet Nellie - they are so gorgeous.

A life less wonderful?

No monkeys yet I'm afraid. I've got both the kids off school today with sore throats and raging temperatures - it'll be a day of calpol, dvds and lolling in PJs. As I lay listening to them breathing last night (it was a 3-in-the-bed night) I began to wonder what my life would have been like if I'd followed my childhood dream and become a vet. Would I be roaming the Yorkshire Dales in my mud-splattered landrover, overseeing the birth of calves and the worming of sheep, a kind of female James Herriot? Would I have a sturdy, farmer husband with a check shirt and big weathered-but-gentle hands and 2 ruddy-faced kids with lambs for pets? I've always enjoyed the company of animals, adopting stray cats and puppies along the way, rescuing injured hedgehogs and birds (the picture is of Berry the Blackbird who we adopted and cared for this summer). But if I had gone down the path to becoming a vet I'd have never met my husband and soul mate or had these wonderful children.

Instead of Veterinary college I headed off to Art college where H & I met aged 18. I'd just left home, got a bedsit with my best friend Lynelle and embarked on my adult life. H tells me he fell in love with me at first sight (flattery does get him everywhere!) and by the end of the first month we were going out together. We didn't realise at the time that it would grow into the love of a lifetime and that 15 years later, on the anniversary of our first date together, I'd be giving birth to our daughter.

I'm so glad that I didn't become a vet. It's interesting when you stop to think about how you came to where you are in life. Which decisions and choices set your feet on the path to arrive here and now. So here's a thought for the weekend - What would you be doing now if you'd followed your childhood dream? What's your story?

Monkey business

 

Had a nice family weekend - woodland walks, roast chicken & apple pie - that kind of old-fashioned spending time together kind of affair. It's been wonderful to see Toby growing in confidence since he started school. A few months ago we would only take him out on walks where there was a good enough path for his special needs buggy. He's always much preferred to ride than walk and as he can be very unpredictable and has no sense of danger with roads and rivers etc, I've been happy to let him sit in the buggy - it's seemed safer. This weekend though we opted for a woodland wellie walk rather than our usual sojourn along the canal tow path and Toby did brilliantly. He seemed so grown up toddling along on his own and he was especially excited by the wind in the trees and the falling leaves.

On the knitting front I was suddenly seized by the desire to try something new. I've had a play with different animals before - sometimes with pretty disastrous results: poor old Charlie Cat - he's never been quite right!

But at the end of last week I was inspired and thought monkey! I'm still working on tweaking the pattern and may have to make a few more prototypes but it's getting there I think. Looking at it now this photo is a little gruesome looking - a row of decapitated heads! Sorry! I'll be working on bodies and hopefully will have a finished monkey template by the end of the week.

who am I again?

Isn't it funny that when we have kids we loose our identity? To many people out there I am 'Amy's mum' - that's my name as far as they're concerned. I don't mind, I'll answer to just about anything these days. It does make you think though about the monumental change occurs when you become a parent.

Back in the days when my name was Julie I had a job. I woke up with the alarm clock, showered, ate breakfast sitting at the table, dressed in freshly ironed and co-ordinated clothes, and went into London to work. At work I was a marketing manager of an international company, responsible for all ad campaigns, promotional literature and press liaison. I controlled large budgets in 7 different currencies, flew round the world on business, headed conferences and generally behaved as a professional business woman (when I wasn't too sloshed from having one too many glasses of wine at a business lunch!).

Today things are a little different. I wake up when one of my children jumps on me, stick my head under the tap if my hair needs a wash, eat a bit of toast with a cooling cup of tea whilst wandering round the house packing school bags, throw on any clothing (I draw the line at mixing lime green with magenta but otherwise anything goes) and rush out of the door with Amy in tow for a quick march to school. My day consists of washing clothes, knitting, tidying up toys, knitting, hoovering, making gluten-free bread, knitting, a bit of blogging and more knitting.

And yet I couldn't be happier. I wouldn't swap back to how things were for all the wine in Italy. Blogging has been especially rewarding and it makes my day to log on and see that someone has left me a comment. Thanks so much everyone for your compliments about my work - it means a great deal. Love Amy's mum xxx

PS. I am not bald - although I look it in Amy's picture above - I must have been having a bad hair day!!

Bunny Slippers

Just a quick post today as Toby is off sick from school with a bad cough and cold.  Thanks to everyone for your comments on sleepy bunny. A couple of people suggested slippers and I just couldn't resist having a go. Somehow bunny slippers seemed the most appropriate! Thanks by the way to everyone who has emailed me recently. I am trying to reply as soon as possible but it may be a few days.

Sleepy bunny

A term which could apply equally to me but at the moment I'm meaning this sleepy bunny

I was mulling over ideas for new rabbits and wanted to explore trousers (don't we all?!). Then in the middle of the night earlier this week something Rebecca said about her girls taking their little cotton rabbits to bed pinged into my mind (anyone else get weird revelatory ideas in the middle of the night?) the answer was PYJAMAS!!! I'm not sure if these say jammies or whether the top needs to be stripey too but I'm hoping you'll all give me your feedback. If the consensus is that jammies work then I'll make some more, otherwise it's back to the drawing board!

Thanks so much for all of your supportive comments over my copyright hassles. Hopefully it's all resolved now. I don't think most people who copy other people's designs really think about the implications. Maybe it's easier to justify when they know nothing about the person who originated the design or maybe they genuinely believe they are not doing anything wrong. Creating something handcrafted is a very personal thing - we're not companies mass producing goods and so copyright infringement affects us personally. Legalities aside I think it's more of a moral issue really - you just have to ask yourself "how would I feel if someone did it to me". Anyway, enough said, climbing down off soapbox now, have a great weekend all!

Playing catch-up

Well here I am again. Peace reigns and I'm back in the driving seat. During school holidays everything gets turned upside down and I do my best to be 'good mummy' organising activities, constantly conjuring up delicious food and drinks, looking for lost things and trying to ignore the general mess that ensues. Apart from snuffles and colds this half-term passed pretty well. T & A enjoyed 2 visits to our indoor playarea (I was suprised how quiet in was), we did badge-making, cake-baking, leaf-finding, face-painting, disco-dancing (of course), woods-walking, halloween-partying, bed-bouncing and A's favourite - lots of drawing. She's always got ink stains on her fingers (the sign of a true berol pen addict!) and she created some great art for my kitchen walls.This is a pic from her Rosie Flo book - her drawings always make me smile.

Earlier in the week our lovely neighbour Joan popped along with a big bag of cooking apples from their tree - looks like they had a bumper crop. They were so scrummy looking that I immediately donned my apron and made an apple pie - something I've not done for ages. There is something so satisfying about cooking (or creating anything from scratch) and apple pie is so simple but so satisfying, especially with a large dollop of clotted cream ice-cream! Cheers Joan & Alan!

I've been a bit down recently, having had a few copyright issues. There seem to be lots of them cropping up - Hillary Lang wrote her thoughts recently and Joy Bucket has had issues too. Maybe I'm naive but I always expect everyone to behave like "Mrs Do-As-You-Would-Be-Done-By from The Waterbabes (my fave book as a child) and unfortunately life just isn't like that.

Still, I'm heartened by the contact that I have with all the new people I've met through this blog. The more we stick together and support each other, the better chance we have of not being taken advantage of and as Hillary said in her post there are some really kind people out there policing the internet on our behalf. I can just see a new pressure group emerging - the sisters of the righteous needles!