Little Cotton Rabbits

January: snow, mists and mizzle

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hello again, I hope you're well.

Sorry I've not been around - I've spent most of January in virtual hibernation and am feeling better for the little holiday from my usual daily routines and self-imposed working conditions ;)

I'm grateful that Toby has been able to return to school (he attends a severe learning difficulty school and they've been wonderful at keeping the pupils safe and providing essential routines to underpin the week) and without him to constantly supervise, my January weekdays have been quiet, unhurried and peaceful. There's a feeling of stillness and sanctuary in our home and I've not really wanted to be anywhere else other than right here, which I am very grateful for since we are still in lockdown here in the UK and so cannot go anywhere anyway.

This time of year is usually melancholy, even in the best of years, but it's feeling more so this year, and like many others I've never felt such a need to keep things simple, small and peaceful and to shut out the goings on in the news as much as is possible. Here in my little sanctuary of homeliness I've been listening to music, watching films and have given in to a growing and deep sense of nostalgia and bought a copy of The Wind in the Willows. Curling up under a blanket and reading myself into a world of whimsy and delight, far away from the fear and poison-filled news feeds has been a favourite part of my January days, especially on the few days when it has snowed here.

And of course there's been knitting, though of the gentle, meandering kind rather than the focussed intensity of pattern writing. I've started projects, put them to one side and started another: lots and lots of animal heads (mostly knitted in Camarose Snefnug which is a new favourite); some mittens; a pair of socks and some crochet coasters - I pick each project up as the mood takes me and free my mind of any sense of deadline or purpose, and instead just enjoy the process of gentle making.

Toby and I are still enjoying our weekend wood walks, though we're choosing to walk at dusk as it's much quieter than earlier in the day when there are lots of famillies making noise and leaving litter and disturbing the peaceful air that we seek there. And I've been enjoying walking with my camera in the week, when I can take time to notice and observe the rhythm of nature. Most days I head out early, just after Toby goes off on the school bus and then the thought of breakfast waiting for me when I return makes me walk faster and I'm able to kid myself that this little extra speed balances out the calories in a buttermilk pancake topped with coconut yoghurt, blueberries and maple syrup :)

The woods are at their least enchanting at this time of year: the pathways clagged and clumped with mud and their margins tangled with soggy, dead bracken and mulching leaves; the overhead branches brown and bare and stark against the sky or shrouded in mists. There's little of colour to enliven the scene, but knowing that spring flowers are busy under the earth, no longer dormant, but steadily and surely pushing up shoots from fat underground bulbs is a hopeful thought and there's comfort in the wheel of the year inexorably turning.

As January draws to a close, I'm starting to focus on pattern writing again and have lots of ideas to shepherd into being. I'll be back here on a more regular basis too, though long absences do interupt the rythym so I hope you'll bear with me while I find my blogging feet again.

I hope that you're doing OK and keeping well, I'll leave you now with the quote that I've written at the start of my 2021 diary in the hope it will guide my thoughts over the coming year:

"If it's out of your hands, it deserves freedom from your mind too" Ivan Nuru

 

 

Best wishes for the festive season

 

 

This year has brought such heartbreak and hardship to so many, so here's my simple wish for you;

despite all that will not be as planned, may you find some small and peaceful pleasures in this holiday season.

xxxx

 

The badgers

 

 

 

 

Back in 2008 I knitted started playing around with some ideas for a knitted badger. I knew what sort of shaping I wanted in the head and that it would be a slightly fiddly knit because of all of the colour changes needed to get the distinctive badgery stripes. At the time I was relatively pleased with the outcome but knew there were things about it that I wasn't happy with, so it needed more work.

Since then I've gone back to the pattern notes several times and then become distracted by ideas for other animals and so the poor badger has languished at the very bottom of the work basket for all these years. I'm happy to say that I now feel they're at last ready and so today I'm releasing the patterns, as usual one with removable sweater and shorts and bare body and feet; and the other with knitted on knickers/panties and shoes and a removable dress. They both have a change of outfit, so the first has 2 sweaters and the second has 2 dresses (both with one in stranded colorwork and one textured in a single colour). They're both live now on Ravelry and will be shortly on Etsy too.

The timing for a pattern release is daft I know, everyone is far to busy over the next week to be sitting knitting badgers and I'm sorry it's taken me longer than the autumn release that I had planned. Maybe there will be the chance for a little badger knitting in the lull of the new year and if you do give either of the patterns a go, I hope that you have fun with them - as usual I am excited at the prospect of seeing the first projects emerge over on the Little Cotton Rabbits facebook group and on Ravelry :)

I hope the next week is a good one for you, despite the rapidly wosening situations we all seem to be finding ourselves in again. I'll pop back with a proper seasonal greeting next week, 'til then stay safe and well xx

 

Winter knits

 

 

 

 

With the arrival of colder weather I've been cosying up with my knitting.

Last Sunday morning, as Toby enjoyed his long lie-in, I picked up a pair of mittens that I started last winter and resumed where I left off. I may even get them finished in time for January's frosty days. They are the 'Persephone' mittens from Emily Foden's 'Knits About Winter' and I'm knitting them in soft and lovely Ysolda's Blend no. 1 that has sadly now been discontinued.

I'm also still playing around with ideas for patterns and exploring different textures and yarns, there are just so many possibilities. I've just uploaded the free pattern for a little selection of toy scarves that you can download if you'd like to.

And there's good news on the badger patterns I've been promising, they're all written up and have gone out for testing, I'll keep you posted with news once they've been properly error checked.

Once the badgers are done I'm going to award myself a short break from pattern writing. I find it quite an intense process - writing notes, knitting them through, tweaking bits, knitting through again, knitting them through yet again to test out different yarns (you can tell how many times I've done this from all those heads there). It takes me a lot of time and concentration and I know that a lot of the enjoyment is quashed for me by getting far too anxious in striving for perfection. I've spent most of this year knitting for pattern writing purposes and have produced more patterns this year than any previous years and to be honest I am currently missing the simple joy of knitting just for the pure pleasure of it.

So for the rest of December and January I'm just going to go with my whims and knit a little of what I fancy. I have such a glorious collection of yarn calling me so I think I'll dip into it and see where it takes me. There will definitely be more Little Cotton Rabbit patterns to come, but first I need to shake off this pattern writers fatigue that has crept up on me:)

I'll be back soon with a badgery update, til then keep well xxx

 

December light

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Though we're not yet at the Winter Solstice the days now feel very short here. When I wake at just after 7am the sun has not yet risen and by 4pm it's almost dark. And though daylight might be in short supply, one of the things I love about this time of year is watching the sunrises and sunsets. We've had some beautiful skies at these times of day, sometimes all aflame and dramatic and sometimes beautifully subtle like the colours in a mother-of-pearl shell. Some days before I go to wake up sleepy Toby, I take my early morning cuppa and go out into the garden in my coat and PJs to watch the subtle shifts in the cloud colours as the sun comes up. Even at midday the sun only rises now to 16% above the horizon and on bright days this low light slants through the windows casting angled shadows across the surfaces. We've had a lot of foggy mornings and a few frosts, both leaving everything damp and dewy and the water droplets that collect on every surface (even a ladybird shell) are illuminated by this low light, so they sometimes appear like silvered glass. All small delightful things that are particular to this time of year.

Kit the fox is still a regular garden visitor and despite the fact that H removed the thick growth of cushiony ivy when he put up new fencing, she still uses the heavy duty netting on the top of the chicken run as a hammock for daytime naps. She has grown her thick winter coat now and curls herself up, tucking her nose under her tail like a duvet to keep out the cold wind.

Here inside I've been cosy with my knitting. I've been playing around with different textures for a small set of toy scarves. I've got the pattern written up but need to knit it through and check it, then will share it as a free pattern with the hope that you might still have a little time to use it for some of your Christmas animal makes. I am also hoping to get the last pictures for the badger pattern I've been working on done later today, much later than planned but I'll be back with news of that soon (ish!).

I'm behind with almost everything on my to-do list but I'm sure I'm not alone in that, it's been a tough year so we're all a little frazzled I think, and maybe if some things we had planned to do don't get done it doesn't really matter, leastways that seems to be the best way to think at the moment. 

I hope you're getting most of what you need to do done at the moment and that you then get to have some calm and relaxing time coming up over the holiday period, J x