Little Cotton Rabbits

Treats

Toby had a good birthday on tuesday - unlimited Green & Blacks chocolate ice-cream softened in the microwave, lots of cuddles and tickles, a few cards and presents (which he's not so fussed about) and a dry afternoon for bouncing and bubbles after school - all the ingredients for happiness in Toby's book!

I'm feeling a little more positive too, thanks to a few indulgencies. When you're a little down there's nothing like treating yourself to something a little special. At least that's my thinking and my justification for buying some gorgeous new yarn for animal knitting.

 

It's Misti Alpaca's new and wonderfully soft 'best of nature' baby alpaca yarn hand-painted with natural dyes. I think it will make some beautiful bunnies and fabulous foxes (After I finish the batch that I'm still working on of course!)

 

I didn't stop there on the treats though! I've been admiring the beautiful and unique jewellery in Silverpebble's shop since she opened and when she listed her latest collection inspired by nature I fell in love with her viburnum berries necklace, so now it is mine!

 

I love that it's unique and naturally inspired but the thing that I love most is that it has 3 berries, because for me they'll symbolise the 3 people most precious to me; H, Amy and Toby.

Wow, an actual sleep over!

Thanks so much for all the good wishes for Amy's birthday and for sending me your spare good luck for her birthday sleepover. It went really well, we all had a lot of fun (me included) and the girls surprised me no end by all being asleep by midnight - which meant I had a better night's sleep than I usually get with Toby (who had gone off with his Dad to spend the night at Nana & Grandpa's).

 

Whilst the girls were giving each other makeovers, eating pizza and watching dance movies I was left alone quietly crocheting up in my bedroom and so I now have 15 squares in 'me old china' blanket.

 

I am so much happier with the more subdued colour scheme - not everyone's taste for sure, but most definitely what I had in mind for this project.

All in all a happy weekend at the Williams house!

 

back on track

Thanks for all of the comments and suggestions on the colours I've chosen for my blanket, what a lot of diverse opinions! Good job I only have to worry about pleasing myself ;)

I like Sarah's view about colour - it is all about how colours make us feel and that's a wonderfully subjective thing. Previously I felt jangly when I was looking at what I'd made, but now the citron has gone from the colour scheme I feel calmness. Whilst I liked the citron on it's own, I felt it had a strong influence on the surrounding colours and it changed the overall feel, so it's being replaced with a shade of blue-ish grey called 'clear' that I had bought for elephant knitting. I was too impatient to ponder any longer so I took the re-usable blocks and after spending yesterday's knitting time crocheting instead I now have this...

 

'Me old china' won't be a bright and colourful summer's day blanket (which is how I feel about my flowers in the snow) but more something to snuggle in on a cold and wet thursday afternoon in October when you're feeling a little melancholy, while listening to something like this.

I am not sad to unpick the blocks with citron in because I know that the result will be worth it for me. I'm lucky that although I'd woven in the ends I'd not got around to trimming them off so each round of yarn that I unpick is completely re-usable and I'm bagging them up in round order so that re-using them is easy.

 

Now I feel comfortable again with making my 'one square a day' each evening. But by day I'll be working hard to get this lot finished.

 

Yes, all the little headless animals are gradually each getting a body and clothes - it's just a bit of a jigsaw puzzle working out which outfit goes best with which head!

 

where is the love?

I know there's not really any such thing as a crochet crisis, but if there was I would be having one right now because (deep breath)...

...I am just not feeling the love for 'me old china' blanket  :(

 

 
Something about the colours feels wrong to me and I have a feeling it's that yellowy green "citron". I think it's too bright for my taste and the overall effect is too colourful and chaotic and just isn't what I was after. It's often the way isn't it, that something looks good on paper but in practice doesn't quite work out as planned.

 

What to do about it though? Unpick all my hard work or press on regardless and not be happy with it when it's finished? I will be having a crochet pause while I ponder, and turning to my knitting for solace which is good news for all of those body-less animal heads!

colours

Thanks for all of the kind comments on my new blanket. A couple of people asked what yarns and colours I'm using, so here's a sample...

 

Because I wanted very specific colours I'm mixing 3 different yarns - Rowan Wool Cotton (50% merino, 50% cotton), Rowan Belle Organic (50% organic merino, 50% organic cotton) and Rowan Classic Cashsoft DK (57% extra fine merino, 33% microfibre, 10% cashmere). Despite having slightly different finishes and thicknesses they all seem to be working well together so far.

I'm using the celandon as the main background colour and random selections of the other colours in the granny squares - I'll post some more pictures when it's a bit bigger!