Little Cotton Rabbits

October ramblings

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the end of last week I went walking in a local nature reserve at Broxbourne woods where I was delighted to come across a slow worm sunbathing on the path. Although he looks very snake-like and does have a forked tongue he is actually a legless lizard (apparently his ability to blink and shed his tail make him not a snake). He was so blissed out in the patch of sunlight that I had to step over him and even though I took lots of photos of him he didn't seem bothered by me. He'll probably be starting his winter hibernation in the next month so I expect he's extra bold on these last sunny, warm afternoons while he tops up his tan!

I also met a group of lovely ladies. These beautiful Red Poll cattle have been introduced to the pasture in a habitat conservation project involving legacy grazing. The Red Poll breed is native to the East of England and they certainly looked very at home and were completely relaxed about me walking through their field.

Whilst out and about I've been enjoying the cosy warmth of the void shawl (pattern and yarn details in link on my Ravelry project page). The yarn is really soft and comfortable to wear and the shawl is pretty flexible, looped twice or three times depending on how cold the breeze is. The pom-poms are still in place despite Toby's attentions and I'm hoping he'll be able to help me to make him some pom-poms of his own to play with as a distraction from playing with mine.

Back at home I've been finishing off patterns, starting new socks and getting winter woollies out of storage ready for wearing. I've also been enjoying the October issue 79 of Knit Now magazine which has an interview with me as part of the Knitter of the year awards that I won a prize in earlier in the year. The awards nominations for 2017 have just opened so if you'd like to nominate someone then head over to their page for more details.

Well, I'm off to continue with pattern writing, won't be long now I promise - hopefully I'll be back with news in the next post, til then keep well - there seem to be coughs and colds everywhere at the moment so fingers crossed you avoid them x

 

 

knitting constancy

Throughout all the ups and downs that life can bring, knitting is always there as a comforting part of my days. Though I might have temporarily misplaced my blog voice I can always find something knitted to share with you, so I thought I'd pop in and show you what has been occupying my needles lately.

 

 

As always there have been bunnies. This pair are mostly knitted from a discontinued ball of Rowan Scottish Tweed in 'porridge' that I had stashed. I love the little brown neps peppered throughout and am feeling rather sad that this is now all used up. Here I paired it with a strand of cream Rowan Kidsilk Haze for fuzziness and used a brown alpaca yarn for contrast.

Yarns do come and go and it's always a bit disappointing when a favourite is discontinued. My favourite yarn for knitting animal clothing has always been Rowan 4ply cotton (which was discontinued years ago) and although I still have a fair amount of it stashed I have been hunting around for a good replacement ever since. Happily I've now found it in BC Garn's Alba. This is a soft, matt, organic cotton yarn (not mercerised) and comes in a beautiful range of colours, some and bright and jewel-like and some muted, subtle tones (which are the ones I like the best). The knitted fabric drapes beautifully and I'm having fun playing with ideas for new dresses in this lovely palette of colours (the blue swatch below is a discontinued Rowan 4ply).

 

 

I bought the colours above from Loop and Love knitting stock some of the colour range.

 

 

There's also been excitement recently at the arrival of the morning post which in the last two weeks has brought me two wonderful magazines kindly mentioning my work. The first was the June edition of Australian Homespun which had a lovely write up about the cat patterns and the sweaters.

 

 

The second is the current Issue 148 of Simply Knitting which has an interesting article on blogging, featuring interviews with 4 knitting bloggers (of which I was one). It's always a lovely feeling (and a little surreal) to see yourself in print and I'm hugely flattered to have been included in both of these publications.

Well, I'm off to make some breakfast and rouse the rest of the family, who are all still snoozing. See you soon and until then best wishes for a very happy 4th July to all my friends in the USA x

 

magazines and a cuppa

It's rather dingy, wet and windy here today, so the best option is to snuggle up with some knitting, a hot cup of tea and some nice magazines.

 

 

And these magazines are particularly nice for me to flick through because I'm in them :)

Many thanks to Lizzie at Simply Knitting for the interview in issue 128 and to Danielle at the beautiful Artful Blogging for featuring my blog header in their 'banners we love' section of the Nov/Dec/Jan 2015 issue.

 

 

The gloves I'm making are  Vagabond fingerless mittens by Misa Erder and I'm enjoying trying out the magic loop technique for the main part of them. It looks complicated but once you get used to it, it is quite straight forward. The pattern itself is lovely, I particularly like the construction of the thumb.

Ok I'm off to knit a bit more before Toby gets home. Wishing you a good weekend and hopefully a relaxing one - though it's so often a manic time of year isn't it?

 

in my knitting bag

I don't know where the days have gone recently. It seems such a short while since the children went back to school and yet here we are in October already.  All of those long and wonderfully warm sunny days are gone for this year and though autumn is always a favourite time for me I do feel rather melancholy at the moment.

Still there have been plenty of cheery things in the last month and October brings two special birthdays - Amy has turned 14 and Toby's 12th birthday is this friday. And I've of course have been knitting, which always brings pleasure and peace. I was also really pleased to be asked about the contents of my knitting bag by Jennifer at Let's get Crafting magazine. I do love collecting knitting bits and trying out new yarns so I had plenty of things for a show and tell. The article is just out in the October issue (no 55). I did have to tidy up my knitting bag first though because as you can see in the picture below it is not usually terribly tidy. I even found some notes and drawings from Amy in the pockets which must date back at least 5 years!

 

 

Here is the shot for the magazine, when it looked tidier.

The Little Grey Sheep Stein Fine yarn snuggled in the corner of the bag there is my current favourite. It is beautiful in every way from the label to the multi-tonal hand-dyeing. It's worth popping over to their website for a visit to see all of the wonderful colourways and reading about how the yarn comes into being. I love that it is a completely homegrown British yarn, shorn by Susie from the sheep living on Well Manor Farm in Hampshire, washed in Yorkshire, spun in the West Country and then hand-dyed back on the farm by Emma. It is proper wool.

 

Inspired by my friends Elaine and Esther I've started on a shawl (South Bay Shawlette) with the bluest colourway at the top which is called 'Cresswell Quay' and I really like the way it is working up. I expect I'll work in the other colourways too as I would like quite a big snuggly shawl.

 

There is always a little bunny knitting going on here too but in truth I need a little break from pattern writing so I'm enjoying playing around with other woolly things for a while. I'm still working on the projects in the previous post and almost have the mittens finished. This week they were featured on the lovely Knitted Bliss blog's Modification Monday post, thanks so much to Julie for the lovely write up.

Well, I'm off to make some oat cookies because another recent happy thing is that Toby has started loving my home baking instead of those hugely sugary custard creams. Though he is loving the oat cookies a little too much and getting quite portly so I will be hiding most of this batch before he gets home and rationing them!

Thanks as always for popping in, J x

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PS: This is not a sponsored post, I don't do those. I just write about the things that I like :)

In print

Thanks so much for all of the feedback on the pouch pattern. I've drawn the two winners and have posted the details at the end of the previous post. As promised I am planning another little giveaway (of a knitted animal) to celebrate the start of my 7th year of blogging but I've not quite finished the batch that I'm working on, so they're not quite ready for their close-ups yet.

 

I'm really hoping to finish them next week, so I'll post about the giveaway then.

In the meantime I am sitting here feeling rather happy because I have the latest copy of Crafts Beautiful next to my cup of tea and it has a feature about my knitting in it (thanks to Natalie for the lovely write up). It's the Christmas special issue and it's full of great ideas and some fab freebies too, so I'm off to have a read in the last hour of peace before the start of a busy weekend.

 

Hope you have a great weekend, see you next week with news of that giveaway.