Little Cotton Rabbits

Finishing touches

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you again for all of the amazing, inspiring, smile-evoking, heartwarming and generally all round lovely comments on the giveaway post. It's been such a joy to read them and to hear about all of the things, whether big and momentous or small and personal, that make you happy. Thanks for taking the time to share, I think I'll be dipping back in to read those comments whenever I'm feeling blue as they certainly lift my spirits.

I've now updated the giveaway post to include the 2 winners and I've been in touch with both Nina and Linda and have had lovely excited replies from them both. I'm looking forward to seeing which of these animals they're going to choose. Once they've chosen their prizes I'll be finishing off all the rest of those above, who at the moment are each needing some finishing touches like buttons or tails and then (along with one more poor left-out girl lamb who is waiting to be sewn together) I'll be listing them for sale. As next week is half term break here I'll not get much work done but as soon as they are ready to list I will send out an email to my mailing list with specifics on times etc. There's a sign up sheet over on the right there if you'd like to be notified.

Well, thank you again for taking the time to enter my anniversary giveaway and for your interest in my makes, I still love knitting them after all of these years and I have lots of ideas for the future too, so will be making them for a long while yet :)

 

Time for a giveaway

 

 

 

Back on September 3rd it was my 12th anniversary of starting this blog, and in keeping with tradition (which admittedly lapsed a bit last year) I'm going to celebrate (a little belatedly) with a giveaway.

In this crate are fourteen little animals that have been patiently waiting for me to finish them for most of this year and I am now nearing the point of completing them all. I will be putting them up for sale soon, but before I do I'm going to pick 2 comments at random from any comments left on this blog post, and those 2 people can each pick their favourite one as their prize. The draw is open to anyone and I'm happy to post for free anywhere in the world. If you'd like to be included just leave a comment below. You can write anything you like, it really doesn't matter, but if you have time I'd love for you to tell me about anything that has made you happy this week.

Please can I just ask:

A. Just one comment per person, and

B. Make sure you fill out you email address in the space provided (not in the actual comment field as there it will be displayed for all to see) so that I can contact you if yours is the comment picked.

This post will be open for comments until 12 noon on Friday 26th October (a week from now). At that point I will close the comments and use an online random number generator to pick 2 comments, the first drawn will have 1st choice of the available animals and the second drawn will have 2nd choice. Oh, and please don't leave a comment on bloglovin or any other blog following service, as those will not be counted - only comments left right here on this post will be eligible for the draw.

Thanks so much for following me here, I know some of you have been popping in almost since the beginning of my adventures in blog land and some of you are new visitors. Whoever and wherever you are, please know that I really appreciate you taking time out of your day to stop by and I love reading your comments when you have time to leave them. This blog is such a source of support and friendship to me and I hope to keep it going for a long time yet. I hope you'll continue to join me when you can,

J x

 

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Thanks so much to everyone who has taken the time to leave a comment here, together all of the comments are a wonderful collection of diverse, heartwarming, moving and personal accounts of what happiness can be. Thanks for sharing xxx

Here are the winners:

The first number that has been generated is 498, which is Nina Chester

498

Nina Chester said...

Please put me in your fabulous hat x

October 19, 2018 at 05:34 PM

And second number picked is 1624, which is Linda from Boston

 

1624

Linda from Boston said...

Congratulations on 12 years!! I've been with you from the beginning. Throw my name into the contest pool!!!

October 22, 2018 at 11:02 PM

Thanks again to all who entered, J xxx

A proper autumn walk

 

Well, yesterday looked like being the very best day of the week weather-wise, so I decided to go adventuring in the woods with my camera (and this time with my walking boots too). These woods are very local, being part of Goldingtons nature reserve, only a 5 minute drive away at Hertford Heath. There a network of paths criss-cross mixed wood and heathland and with the sun reaching through the trees to warm earth drenched by heavy rain from the day before, there was a rising mist that held the sunlight in magical golden shafts. 

Wandering through the trees I found fungi, insects, butterflies and lots of busy squirrels and noisy jays, both hiding stashes of nuts ready for the colder months ahead. In a field bordering the wood I made friends with 3 sleepy ponies and a little further on a dog called Bella came bounding up to say hello and seemed to want to follow me instead of her owner. I skirted a pond decorated with a carpet of thick green algae and headed deeper into the woods along an ancient path flanked by raised banks from which twisted coppiced hornbeams stretch their tortured trunks. I even found trees with faces. Because of the earlier rain there was a wonderful damp earth, decaying leaf smell and the air was busy with the calls of many small birds. It was a full sensory experience, as all good wood walks should be. The only thing missing was a snack, but that was soon sorted once I was home again.

Today I am knuckling down to lots of seaming and tail attaching for that long overdue bunch of bunnies. I plan to pop back on Friday with news of a little giveaway, so please come and visit again then if you'd like to join in. 'Til then enjoy your midweek days x

cosying on a windy day

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our 'new normal' is beginning to feel familiar now, with returns to comfortable routines for the three of us here and Amy settling in well and having a great time away at Uni.

For most of the last week I've been sorting my tangled mess of knitting projects and tidying the house, but on Thursday I headed off for a peaceful autumn walk. The leaves have yet to fully change colour, so the woods are not yet at their most photogenic and I forgot to take my waking boots (yet another indication of my lack of concentration skills right now) so I didn't end up walking as far as planned. I had hoped to find lots of fungi, but it's been so dry that there was very little around and what I did find was shrivelled and sad looking.

Friday was really windy here, so although I had actually remembered to put my walking boots back in the car, I decided to stay home. Happily I was browsing Ravelry and saw Alicia Plummer's newly released ParkTrail sock pattern, so I snuggled up, cast on and enjoyed a little quiet and cosy knitting time in the warm afternoon sunlight shimmering through the wind-whipped trees outside the window. The notes on the yarn I'm using etc. are on my Ravelry project page.

My list of things to do this coming week includes finally finishing off the batch of animals that I started earlier this year. I'll pop back with some pictures in a few days or so and hopefully will have some news of when they'll be available for those interested soon. Maybe we'll have a little giveaway too - it was my 12th blogging anniversary at the beginning of September, so I think a giveaway would be in order.

Hope you're enjoying the weekend where you are. I'm off to knit more rows of my socks - they're going to make great walking socks for more autumn walks. See you soon, J x