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At the moment I can't think straight as our house is a tip. Our sun room is being gutted so is out of bounds, our dining room has disappeared under stacks of books and there are piles of homeless stuff everywhere.
I know it'll be worth it in the end though and I am very grateful to have a 'good-with-his-hands' husband - I'm just wishing we hadn't picked the school holidays to get started on this! Roll on next monday!
I find it really hard to keep both of my children entertained over the school holidays. There aren't many things that we can do all together as they both have such different needs. Today was great though as we spent a bit of time together while sorting out our art chest. Toby lined up coloured pens while Amy and I sorted through the drawer of broken crayons. For the last few years she's scorned crayons as babyish and so I thought we'd try out something that I originally saw on Rebecca's website (she has lots ideas for fun suff to do with children). Amy sorted and grouped the broken crayons
and then we gently baked them, chilled them and finally...
...yummy new crayons which almost look good enough to eat. We had great fun and recycled some cruddy crayon stubs into lovely new ones. I'm so chuffed to have found a good use for my silicone cupcake mould because the cakes I made in it did not emerge as heart-shaped - they came out in bits!
Goodness, I'm completely overwhelmed by the number of comments in the 200th post draw. It's lovely to know that the little cotton rabbits and I have so many friends out there! Thanks for all of the lovely comments that you left - I've really appreciated reading them. So, who won, who won?!!
Wellll....
I threw it open to atmospheric noise and a website that uses this to generate true random numbers.
and it gave me the number 175
So Congratulations to c. Rachel and many, many thanks again everyone for taking the time to leave a comment.
I can't believe this has come around so quickly. When I first started I wasn't sure how long I'd stick at blogging but visiting other blogs and reading all of the wonderful comments that people leave here has become a really important part of my day. Thanks so much for visiting, leaving comments and for the encouragement and support that you offer me.
To celebrate I'd like to give away a toy at random so if you'd like to win it please just leave a comment below (just say Hi if nothing else comes to mind but be sure to leave a contact email). I'll leave this post up for the next week and then use a random generator thingy to pick a winner on Wednesday March 26th. The winner can then choose what regular sized toy they'd like me to make for them.
I've been playing with mice again this week and have made another prototype head with a pointier nose and completely pink ears. I think I'm happy with it at last, so mice are now on the menu!
Anyway have a wonderful Easter - eat lots of chocolate and don't forget to leave a comment below if you'd like to enter my giveaway.
The draw is now closed.
Thanks so much for the lovely comments on the previous post. The 'Holland' piece has obviously been a source of comfort for a lot of people - I'm certainly very glad it was written. Thanks too for sticking around while I was 'off blog'. I'm up to date with my paperwork now, which is a nice feeling, however fleeting!! I even managed to squeeze in some knitting time - not toys but a pair of Eunny Jang's wonderful Endpaper mittens.
Taking this break from knitting toys has given me a bit of breathing space to consider where it has all evolved to. For the last year I've been going at the toy knitting like there's no tomorrow, but of course there is and this knitting pace is not sustainable if I want to continue to enjoy what I'm doing. For me, that is the one true aim - making the toys is my 'thing' and definitely an antidote to raising a severely autistic child.
Since starting this blog I've had so many lovely comments about the
things I make, all of which I deeply appreciate and treasure and I
guess I felt that I owe you all an explanation and an apology for the
current lack of toys. So I'm sorry that there will be no Little Cotton
Rabbits for Easter this year. Instead I'm building up a stock which
will mean that there will always be a slow and steady trickle going
into my shop even if I have a knitting break now and then.
I've also been pondering my patterns again but I'm not ready to release any yet so I've put a new link to some toy patterns from other designers - including Ysolda Teague who designs toys with the most beautiful shaping and Fuzzy Mitten who has a great range of different creatures. See the list below on the left (I'll add more in future).
It's not all bad news from here though - Edgar and his friends are waiting in their box (in fact they keep trying to break out!) and will pop into the shop in early April and I'll aim to have a new batch every 4 - 6 weeks following that (barring school holidays of course!).
Also this is my 199th post and so in keeping with tradition I'm having a giveaway in the next post - a chance for someone to win a Little Cotton Rabbit of their choice. To enter the draw please pop back and leave a comment on the next post.
Thanks for all of the kind comments about my prototype mouse - I think bigger ears and a pointier nose is the next thing to try out. I also wanted to say that if you fancy revisiting some of the fun songs from your childhood there is a great CD with lots of them on - Nellie the Elephant, The Runaway Train, The Ugly Duckling, The laughing Policeman... and many more although sadly not the Old Amsterdam song. It's called Hello Children Everywhere by EMI records.
Over the next week I need to take a wee blogging break and get some stuff sorted out for Toby. I need to read some stuff and write some stuff and get my head around some other stuff! A friend recently sent me this and I thought I'd share it here as it does sum up many of the feelings that you live with when your child has special needs...
WELCOME TO HOLLAND
by Emily Perl Kingsley
I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......
When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."
"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."
But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.
So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."
And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very, very significant loss.
But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.
c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved
I landed in 'Holland' four and a half years ago when we had a diagnosis of severe autism confirmed for our 2 year old son.
These days I have moments when I forget that I ever wanted to go to 'Italy' but most of the time I'm still struggling to get to grips with the language and different customs of 'Holland'. Sometimes it needs quite a lot of hard work and some new guide books and I'm at that point right now where I need to go find a quiet corner and read for a bit in the hope of better understanding where I find myself. I've also got lots of paperwork to fill in for his annual statement of educational needs review.
So I'm off for a little break from blogging (just a week or so) to give myself time to concentrate fully on the task in hand.
Gauw tot ziens! (see you soon in Dutch - I think!)
Hello to all of my Dutch friends (especially the lovely Martine)
"I saw a mouse,
Where?
There on the stair
Where on the stair?
Right there.
A little mouse with clogs on
Well, I declare
Going clip, clippity clop on the stair..."
Ok, so he doesn't have clogs on and he is only a prototype, but you get the idea!
Lyrics from 'A Windmill in Old Amsterdam' by Ronnie Hilton, 1965 which is one of my favourite childhood songs along with Mungo Jerry's 'Pushbike song' and Flanders & Swann's Hippopotamus Song "mud, mud, glorious mud..." Ah, memories!!
Thanks for all the good wishes for Mother's day (the UK one). I had a lovely quiet morning with breakfast in bed and some wonderful handmade cards - 2 from Amy and a sparkly one that Toby 'made' at school (I had a sneaking suspicion it was going to be sparkly when I found a load of sequins in his poo on Thursday!!)
Amy and I had great fun playing with the new Little Cotton Rabbit stamps. I just enjoyed trying them out and she made cards for her best friend and her boyfriend. Sorry, boyfriend?! I thought I'd have at least another year or two before this spectre appeared on the horizon but it seems that was wishful thinking, as her self portrait clearly shows!
And so begins the fascination with boys who only a short while ago were scorned as smelly and noisy. I think it may be largely due to the squeaky clean and wholesome male charms of Zac Efron (star of High School Musical)! Curse his dazzling smile!
On the knitting front there is still not much to report from me but if you'd like some knitted cuteness then please pop over and visit the brand new home of Oliver and Olivia where Shawn Mary is having a prize draw to celebrate the launch of her new website.
