Little Cotton Rabbits

A message from my Mum

It's now been 3 weeks since my Mum's accident. The time that that she spent in hospital was the hardest and most traumatic and I'm so impressed that she came through it with such good humour. I know that the kindnesses of family, friends and all of you who left comments here on the blog have been a great source of comfort and strength to her and kept her going. That's why she'd like to make a special appearance here in person to thank you all for your good wishes.

"I can't tell you all how touched I am by all of the kind messages that were sent my way following my accident. The early days in hospital were very hard but knowing that so many people were wishing me well really did help. I'm also thankful for the many wonderful gifts that came from family and friends. Listening to music made the sleepless nights more bearable and helped me to 'escape' what was a pretty grim reality.

It's such a relief to be home again and I'm feeling really positive. I'm looking forward to getting on with my recovery and getting things back to normal. I'm really grateful for all of the warm support I've had - thank you all so much for taking the time to wish me well".

I know that Mum will be working hard at her physiotherapy and that Dad will be at her side every step of the way. And although it might seem like a long haul while she's recovering, it won't be long before she's conquering mountains with Dad again!

Thanks from the Roses

Thanks so much to everyone who bid on Rose Bunny and who made a donation of their own to the Rose Willcocks appeal. Bidding on the bunny finished last night and I am absolutely thrilled that she has raised £400 for the appeal - an enormous Thank you to Jane who made the winning bid!

Rose's mum Esme emailed me last night and wanted me to pass on this message...

Words can't begin to describe how grateful we are. We are now one step closer to realising our dream.  We can't thank you all enough.

Esme x

happy half term hols

We're in the grip of half term break and all things considered it's going jolly well really. The best news of the week is that my Mum is now home from hospital. She's still got a long recovery ahead and will have to wear the halo brace for sometime yet but at least she can now gather her strength and mend those bones in comfort!

The children have both been content to potter and although we've been to local parks we're having a lazy week. My fingers have been busy though. As well as finishing off lots of toys I've made myself a simple moss stitch scarf. I just couldn't resist this wool - it was love at first sight! It's been fun to knit something on 10mm needles instead of 3mm and now I've switched back to toy knitting the needles feel tiny!

I've also been having a play with some pictures over on flickr and ordered myself a batch of moo's new postcards.

All in all a pretty relaxing time being had by all here! Hope your week is a goodun too!

Lessons in etiquette

As a parent you often wonder if all of your nagging is in vain - do your kids really listen when you tell them to not talk with a mouthful of food, to take their shoes off in the porch or to tidy their room? Sometimes however you get a glimpse that some of it is sinking in. I went upstairs yesterday and found this taped to Amy's door

Apparently to enter her room you now have to join a club but only if you're a girl or Daddy - no boys 'aloud'! And there are 'ruls' by which you must abide:
1. no pushing
2. no calling people names
3. no punching
4. have fun
5. no waking Amy up in the night
Meetings: sunday afternoon till evning.

Bless her!

Thanks so much for the continuing good wishes for my Mum. She is making good progress and has started physiotherapy. She's been able to get up and begin learning to walk with the Halo brace and we're hoping that she'll be able to come out of hospital later this week.

Thanks too for all of the wonderful, generous bids on Rose bunny and to everyone who dropped by Rose's website and made a donation of their own. Rose's family are touched by your kindness and are extremely grateful and I am too!

Rose Willcocks

The eagle-eyed among you may have noticed that I have a new link on the righthand sidebar (the little girl in the rose). This is a link to the website which is raising funds for a very special and unique little girl. Rose is the only person in the world known to suffer from her particular genetic abnormality and is also diagnosed with Severe Learning Difficulties, Developmental Delay & Autism. Rose's parents are aiming to raise £15,000 in order to send her to a specialised treatment centre in the USA. Hopefully through her treatment she will come a little closer to being able to unlock her voice and speak to her parents for the first time.You can read more about Rose and her family on this site.

Anyway, if you've recently won the lottery, aren't quite sure that you need 5 bentleys and 3 swimming pools and are thinking of doing something more fulfilling and worthwhile with the dosh or even if you just have a pound or two to spare and would like to donate it to a very worthy cause please pop over and visit with Rose and her family. Alternatively you could bid on a very special bunny that I'd like to auction for Rose.

Rose Bunny is available now on my shop and will go to the person who bids the most by 10pm on October 28th.

knitting away the worry!

Whenever I'm worried about something I find sinking my needles into a large ball of wool to be the best way of keeping my mind off the worrying thing. So this last week, what with Mum in hospital, there has been a lot of knitting going on!!

I'm finishing off some toys for Mahar Drygoods, a batch for my own shop and a the rose jumper is for a big bunny that I'm hoping to auction off to raise money for a special little girl who needs some specialised treatment in America - more of that by the end of the week.

Moving uncomfortably slow...

I visited my Mum on Sunday. She's adapting well to a very different existence and remains pretty positive considering the situation. She even managed to joke with the surgeon who fitted the halo brace and it's good to see her fighting and winning against the panic that any of us would feel in the same position. She's slowly being elevated and tried sitting up yesterday for the first time but fainted fairly quickly - this is something to do with changed blood pressure as she's being lying flat for nearly a week. She'll be trying again though and now that she's been told that she can come home once she's up and about I know that there will be no stopping her!

On the journey home from my visit I was listening to a new CD Hand Built by Robots by Newton Faulkner and one track had some very apt words to sum up what the last week must have been like for my mum...

"Don't take my photograph. I don't want to know how it looks to feel like this. As cars and people pass it feels like standing still but I know, I'm just moving uncomfortably slow..."

Well Mum, the pace is quickening so hold on to your hat!!

what a week!

I won't be sad to see the back of this week, which has been a much wilder rollercoaster ride than usual. We've had the highs of little people's birthdays and the lows of terrible accidents. Just quickly to mention my Mum has now had an operation to fit a 'halo' (I always knew she was an angel!) which is a metal frame anchored to her skull and going all the way down to the small of her back to prevent her from moving her head at all. Hopefully with this in place she should be able to start sitting up from early next week and start the long, slow and painful process of recovery.

This week has left me feeling a bit weary but my spirits have been lifted by all of the wonderful supportive comments that you've left both here and on private emails - it means a lot to know that there are people out there sending good thoughts to my poor wonderful Mum. Thanks too for all of the birthday wishes for both of the children. Toby had fun with some helium balloons yesterday (his favourite pressie) and of course he enjoyed cake!

The week is ending on a high note though. Now that the postal strike has finished I've had some lovely mail.

I've been enjoying all of the treats and delights that arrived in this package from Kat at Secrets of a Butterfly. She sent such a pretty bone china cup saucer and plate (I added the tea and muffin!) and some much appreciated cath kidston goodies but my favourites are the beautiful and intricate cards which she makes.

Then this wonderful and thoughtful surprise arrived yesterday with a very beautifully worded and apt note all the way from Kim in Australia. It's such a perfect handcrafted bag for keeping my 'work in progress' bunnies in and I know they'll dream happier thoughts of what exciting lives await them while they nestle together in here...

Lastly in the post today came a brand new, just launched magazine - Let's Knit which I couldn't wait to open because not only is it stuffed full of patterns, features and yarn reviews but I'm in it too!! If you squint at this picture you can just make out my smiling face (I'm too shy to show it bigger!) and 2 of my toys.

It's a really nice article about me and my work and it's great timing as I'll take a copy to show Mum when I visit over the weekend.

So, I'm going into the weekend with a smile on my face, thanks so much for your friendship and support in a difficult week xxx

Happy birthday to my little chap...

"In that book which is my memory, on the first page of the chapter that is the day when I first met you, appear the words, 'Here begins a new life'."

Dante Alighieri, La Vita Nuova

Another quick update...

Been to visit my mum today. Unfortunately it's a 130 mile round trip - it's at times like this that I wish we lived closer! Anyway despite the initial shock of seeing her strapped to the bed in a full neck brace Dad and I were pleased to find her in relatively good spirits. She's not allowed to move her head at all and we're still waiting to hear if she needs to have an operation - there are 3 fractured vertebrae in her back and 1 (the most seriously damaged) in her neck. She also has a fractured sternum and lots of deep bruising. It appears that it will be a long recovery period but considering she fell 2 storeys it could have been a lot worse. My mum is a real fighter and I know that she'll have the right mindset to get back on her feet as soon as she's able. Thanks again for all of your good wishes x

Update on my Mum

Thank you so much for all the good wishes for my mum. She's in hospital and from the initial x-rays it appears that she has 3 fractured vertebrae in her kneck. We're waiting on results of further scans. The good news is that she regained conciousness quickly and is alert, talking and can move all of her limbs. Considering she fell around 12 ft that's pretty good going. I'll write more when we have more details. Thanks again for all the good wishes - I'll be passing them on to her.

My Mum

I've just had a call from my brother to say that my mum has had a serious accident and has been rushed into hospital. She fell from the attic through the stairwell and landed on her back near the bottom of the stairs. I'm sick with worry as we don't yet know how badly injured she is. I'll be away from the blog for a day or so while I go down to visit tomorrow. Please keep your collective fingers crossed for my wonderful mum and bear with me as I won't be replying to emails for a short while.

Amy's creations

Just thought I'd show you a picture of some of the things Amy made at the sleepover:

On the top row are the shrinkles - sheets of plastic that you draw on, colour in, cut out and bake so that they shrink down to about a seventh of their original size. We had some pre-printed flower fairy sheets and some plain sheets that the girls used to design their own fairies (my favourites). Below are the Bindeez - little plastic beads that you lay out on a tray and spray with water to make them stick together. Amy made a pig and a girl to her own design. Being plastic neither are particularly eco-friendly but they are great fun and quite magical to 8 year olds!

sleepover success!

The girls and I had great fun on saturday night / sunday morning. We had take-away pizza and ice-cream sundaes with all the trimmings, put on make-up, sang and danced along to high school musical, did some crafts (bindeez and shrinkles), they had a posh bath with bath fizzers and it was topped off with scarey stories and a lot of giggles very late into the night (I think I fell asleep at 12.30 and they were still whispering and giggling!). I thought they'd have a lie-in but there they were, bright as buttons at quarter to 7 in the morning. After a full english breakfast they dressed up and played the morning away and then at lunchtime the party sleepover was over. Needless to say we had a quiet afternoon and an early night yesterday.

I'm really glad that Amy enjoyed it so much but it will be a while before we do it again - it's definitely the kind of thing that you need to psyche yourself up for and have a couple of quiet days for recovery on the otherside! Thank goodness for monday mornings and knitting!

Pigs ear scarf

I'm a great one for impulsive yarn buying - I see something I like and have to get it without having any idea of how I'm going to use it (don't tell H!). Sometime last year I spied some gorgeously soft Debbie Bliss Cashmeriono Astrakhan in a beautiful smokey duck eggy kind of colour and I just knew I had to have some. You'd think I'd stand there, check the yardage and ponder over how many balls but no, I grabbed 2 and they were mine!

So when I finally get out my needles (a year or so later) and start knitting up a simple scarf all seems fine - until I run out of wool and end up with a scarf that is way too short to be worn how I like (folded in half with the ends pushed through the loop). So some serious thinking was needed to save this scarf from being consigned to the bottom of the wardrobe and then a inspiration struck in the form of a button!

With a little bit of gathering and the attaching of a big antique mother of pearl jobbie I'm now happy to wear it (and it goes perfectly with my gorgeous Kirstencan corsage). And the morale of the story - plan your project before you buy your yarn (yeah, like that's going to happen!). Happy weekend all!

Pheww!

Amy would like to say thank you everyone for the lovely birthday wishes

The tea party was fun. The girls were all well behaved and played games, although the living room is now in a shambles and the cake is demolished, but the birthday girl is happy and now playing on a new Nintendo DS (thanks Gran and Grandad) and at last I'm going to sit down for the first time today - knitting bag here I come!

Happy Birthday to my Princess

She's 8 today - my, didn't that go quick! I still clearly remember when she was a snuggly little bundle!

Luckily for me she wants a simple birthday party (far from last year's nightmare party with 7 year old girls-with-attitude who scorned my party games, jewellry making and trinket box crafts in favour of running around the house screaming!) This year will hopefully be more refined (and give me less grey hairs). Today we're having a little party tea and then at the weekend she's having a sleepover with just one friend. I'm putting together a little sleepover kits with lipgloss, nibbles and crafty bits and we've got the high school musical dvd ready to go so we're all set for a girlie night of mayhem and fun (Toby and H are escaping to the Grandparents).

I am really looking forward to some special time with my special girl.