Little Cotton Rabbits

We have a winner

How beautiful!
Posted by: Dawn | March 06, 2009 at 12:06 AM

Congratulations Dawn - I hope you enjoy them.

Thanks so much to everyone who took the time to comment on Kerry's gorgeous needles. I think a few of us might have succumbed to what Ali called 'the wanties' and got ourselves some anyway!

I've been out in the garden a lot over the last couple of weeks so there's been more digging than knitting going on here but I do hope to have something knitted to show next week. For now I'll leave you with a picture from the nearly finished egg cosy pattern - more details to follow shortly.

Enjoy the rest of your week, Jx

Hello again

Well, another school break has come and gone. This was quite a good one for us as I took the children to stay with my Mum and Dad. We really enjoyed the change of scenery and Amy loved playing with her cousins. It was really great to have a bit of warmer, drier weather which meant lots of fun trips to the park for Toby. He made the most of being able to run around outside again after a long winter of being cooped up!

Talking of being cooped up the chickens are doing well and are still poohing mountains! We've had to buy a second compost bin to cope with the amount they produce - all good for the veggies that we'll be planting soon. They're laying really well too - we're now getting at least 2 eggs a day and they're getting bigger too.

To celebrate the egg fest (and with Easter not far around the corner) I've been making a few egg cosies again. I've not made any since 2007 (and this one here belongs to the Tobster) but I'm having fun tweaking the pattern again and hope to have some available to buy soon(ish!)

 

Lastly, thanks so much to everyone who entered Trash's lovely raffle to raise funds for the Red Cross Bushfire appeal. Altogether she raised $2,040! I'm really pleased to be sending Annabelle off to her new owner Kelly and it seems very apt that she's in Australia.

Bushfire Appeal

I expect everyone knows about the awful situation in Australia at the moment with the raging bushfires and devastation that has so far cost over 180 lives and left thousands homeless. The Red Cross have launched an appeal and many people are doing what they can to help. If you're able to help by making a donation then please pop over and visit Trashcan who has spent the week collecting together a host of gorgeous goodies as prizes in her raffle. All you need to do is go and make a donation at the red cross website and then email Trash and she'll enter your name in the draw (1 entry for each Australian dollar that you donate). Go take a look at the prizes (I have my eye on the gorgeous little chair by moogsmum and the beautiful cot quilt from I'm a ginger monkey). There's even a little cotton rabbit who is glowing with pride as she's the poster girl!

Please give what you can to help. Many thanks x

PS: there are more wonderful things being sold and auctioned to raise funds here on Handmade help.

snow

Inspect...

compare notes...

...go for it!

Chickens don't like snow much but 9 year old girls do, especially when it means a few days off school and building snowmen instead!

Hope the weather is good with you but if you've got snow too, keep warm and safe!

New year planning

I really like all of the planning and speculation that comes along with the start of a new year - 365 clean, bright squares on the calendar expectantly waiting to be filled with exciting things! The start of a new year feels like a good time to try and put your own little world to rights and I suppose that's why so many of us make new years resolutions. I did OK with mine last year although I never did get around to sewing very much and my email inbox is even more stuffed now than it was back then. On the positive side though, I did manage to spend some extra much needed time with Amy while my husband had Toby. That's something that needs to happen a bit more this year, but we'll take it step by step and hopefully balance out what both children need a little more evenly! I also did really well on the food front - I did end up making virtually all of our own bread, cakes and biscuits and relying far, far less on supermarket food for meals. The plan is to take that a step further this year and produce more of our own food. Which is why I am so happy with our joint christmas pressie this year...

 

...a chicken house! It's ready for residents but H is currently busy clearing the area where it's going and building a run. Once it's all in place we'll be going to collect our 3 chickens and hopefully not too long after we'll be enjoying some fresh eggs! Amy and I are so excited and she's already got a shortlist of names for them!

H and I have also been busy in the garden setting up raised beds ready for veggie growing. I can already tell that 2009 is going to be a more outdoorsy kind of year though hopefully I'll still have a little energy at the end of the day for a spot of bunny knitting!