Little Cotton Rabbits

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!