Little Cotton Rabbits

wildlife!

It's been quite a while since I started working on a badger to join the clan but after making a couple of heads that weren't quite right he was relegated to the bottom of the knitting bag! I think that the arrival of autumn has renewed my interest in him and over the weekend he was at last given a body, ears and a tail.

The pictures aren't great as my little camera can't handle the contrast very well but hopefully I'll get H to take some decent photos soon. Now that I have a prototype I'm happy with, I hope to be adding little cotton badgers to the shop from now on.

Talking of wildlife you may have noticed that I've been rather quiet on the hedgehog front. I've not had any news from the wildlife rescue about the 3 little ones that we found earlier in the year. It could well be that they didn't make it as they really were infested with ticks and so far I've been too much of a chicken to phone and find out! We do still have 2 adult hedgehogs, Fatty and Herbert Hogwart (possibly?), who visit the garden each night and gobble down the mix of peanuts, cat food, seeds and raisins that we put out. I'll keep you up to date with any more hoggy news!

Homegrown

The last of our homegrown tomatoes. Lovingly tended, carefully picked, gently roasted and quickly scoffed*!

Enjoy your weekend everyone!

* sorry, just to clarify we didn't jeer, mock or heap derision on them, 'scoff' is brit slang -  meaning to eat up very quickly!

smile

Every now and then something makes you smile and you know you need to have it in your life. That's how I felt about this little jar who is now sitting on my kitchen shelf, fat with sugar and ready to make me smile each time I glance in his direction (and the perfect antidote to toilet training blues!)

Unfortunately for my bank balance the little shop he came from was stuffed full of irresistible things and so I snapped up a couple of new cups too! Perfect for a nice cuppa while browsing a magazine (especially one that I get a mention in - thanks to Elizabeth for the lovely write up in October's Quick and Crafty)

If, like me you have a little birthday money left over to spend or just want to put something smile-inducing on your shelf pop over and visit Velda's lovely shop - she's just got some new stock in!

A request

Thank you all so much for all of your wise and wonderful advice about toothfairies. You've provided some very imaginative and creative suggestions and I'm so glad to see I'm not the only one who has been caught out! I'll be waiting (hopefully with my fineliner in hand) to see what happens when Amy's next wobbly tooth appears!

Every now and then an opportunity to spread a little happiness comes along and you're all such kind-hearted folk that I thought you might like to join me in this one. I had a lovely email from Colleen telling me all about her 5 year old daughter Ellie who is bravely fighting a rare and aggressive cancerous brain tumour. She's already had two operations and radiation therapy earlier this year and is currently undergoing chemotherapy.

Colleen has come up with a wonderful way to raise Ellie's spirits and that's where you and I come in. It's a simple campaign - no big donations or fundraising, just a small request to send a card or a picture to Ellie if you have time. Details of the campaign are here and there's a journal about her treatment here.

I hope that there are a few of you who will have a chance over the weekend to send off a card wishing all the best to Ellie. Maybe you'll have time to make one with your children, put one together yourself or pick one up while you're out shopping. Whatever you send it will clearly make a special little girl's difficult struggle a little easier.

Thanks for reading and enjoy the weekend x

rumbled!

Another week begins and I'm still not back into the swing of term time but meanwhile I'd love your advice. I've really dug myself a big hole - and fallen straight into it! Any tips on how to get myself out?

You see when Amy lost her very first tooth she wrote such a sweet note to the tooth fairy and her little face the next morning was so sad when there was no reply - that's how it began.

A few months later the loss of a second tooth prompted her to write another lovely note and I couldn't bear the thought of her disappointment once more so out came my finest-tipped pen and a tiny slip of paper and a reply was made.

And so it continued. Letters from Amy

and replies from Sparkle, the tooth fairy

Here's a small extract from a correspondance with a fairy:

To Spakle.

I lost my tooth in the cinimar the cineworld screen were it says star dust three seats at the back if not there look evrewere else

love Amy P.S the postcode is cm202da pleese baleeve me!! xxxxxxx

Dearest Amy,

Do not worry, of course I believe you and I will go now and find your tooth. Humans do not know this but teeth give a special ringing sound when they fall out which only us fairies can hear. It is how we know that a tooth needs collecting, so I will find it easily. Thank you for your nice note explaining everything,

your fairy friend Sparkle x

Anyway, I've been caught out! I put the letters from Amy in my underwear drawer along with a little pot containing the teeth and in a nosey moment over the school break she discovered them!  I've garbled some fluff about buying them back from the tooth fairy because I wanted to keep them but by her suspicious look she's not buying it! I'm hoping that she'll forgive me when she finally works out the truth!

Oh, what a tangled web we weave when our little ones are involved!

Wow, Oh wow!

So many wonderful comments on my anniversary post! It's at times like this that you realise the inadequacies of language - so I'll just say it again, wow, oh WOW! I've so enjoyed reading each and every comment. It's been lovely recognising familiar friends and getting to know lots of new ones.Thanks so very much to everyone who took the time to comment.

So, on to who won. Random number generator do your thing...

Which by my carefully triple checking is Debbie momoftwoboyz (in Alaska I think?).

I'm sorry that there can only be one winner, I feel I'd like to do more so I am planning another smaller giveaway soonish. I'm in the middle of writing up the pattern for my cupcakes.  When it's in pdf format we'll have a draw to give away the first couple of patterns. I hope you'll stick around and watch this space!

anniversary!

Thanks so very much for the warm welcome back. I was wondering if I'd have been forgotton in my absence and I have a warm, fuzzy glow now that you've all come to visit again.

It will take me a while to get back into the swing of things so partly to give myself a little longer to adjust to the change of pace, partly to celebrate the start of my third year of blogging, and partly to just thank all of you lovely people for visiting I thought I'd have a giveaway. If you would like to win yourself a regular-sized little cotton friend of your choosing, please leave me a comment of any sort below and I'll pick a random winner next thursday.

Thanks again for swinging by and for all of the lovely comments that you leave - they make my world a sunnier place x

Comments are now closed and I'm off to generate a random number.

Hello!

It's very nice to be back again!

If I had to pick one word to sum up our summer break it would be uneventful - which is pretty much what I was hoping for! We've mostly had a gentle-paced, quiet time at home with a few forays into more exciting activities to prevent boredom from setting in and overall it has worked out pretty well.

Of course there have been lows, the most deep of which has to be Toby's toilet training and the associated mopping up of puddles (and worse) that go along with that. Unfortunately, despite lots of hard work we've not made much progress but I'll share more of our experiences another time in the hope of helping others! Toby has also had many times of extreme frustration and upset which have been very hard to bear but the school hols are nearly over (last day today) and we'll choose to remember the good times and put the bad ones out of our minds!

The highs included moments spent with Amy, chatting, making things, watching films and just relaxing without any pressures to do anything else. We camped out in the garden together 3 times - once with our good friend Hazel and her daughter Madeleine. We had great fun just girls together, hedgehog watching, hot choccie drinking and larking about under canvas. Amy & I have also been excited to see the things that we planted growing so well. We've loved picking and eating our own lettuce, tomatoes and strawberries and we've been hatching plans to expand our weenie food patch.

I must admit though to being glad at the start of a new school term. Amy is looking forward to seeing all her friends again and joining some after school clubs. Toby desperately needs to get back into a routine and I'm looking forward to some quiet and a chance to just exist without being pulled about, fetching something, dressing someone or mopping something up! I'm also looking forward to catching up with what everyone else has been up to here in blog land. So at 9.15 tomorrow morning I'll be grabbing a cup of tea and going for a browse - see you soon!