Little Cotton Rabbits

Autumn colours

 

 

 

 

 

Spending time in the woods has really influenced my knitting this month. I've been drawn to all of the russets, rusts and reds that are the colours of autumn leaves. And the urge to knit small cosy cabled sweaters has been too strong to resist. As a result I've got quite a collection now, I just need to knit a few more bunnies to wear them!

Sweater colours are shades of Quince and Co Finch and Brooklyn Tweed Peerie , both 4ply American woollen yarns and both knit cables with beautiful definition.

The bunny is knitted in CamaRose Snefnug which makes wonderfully fluffy cuddly bunnies.

I'm off to knit him some friends - because curled up with knitting is a good place to be on this rainy November afternoon. Hope you're cosy and comfy where you are x

Autumn walks

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's that time of year again, when the autumn woods are calling me, and this year more than ever I've been craving the peace they hold beneath their branches. Throughout October I've wandered their pathways many times, ambling along at my own pace, scouting for interesting fungi, listening to the wind in the tops of the tall trees and the song of small birds hidden in the thickets and each time I can feel the accumulated tension seep from my body, down through my boot soles and away into the damp and springy earth below.

At other times of the year these walks would take me 45 minutes or so but in autumn, with so much to see, they can easily take me a couple of hours and inevitably end with me having wet muddy knees. As always I'm stumped by the names of many of these amazing fungi but then appreciating their magical beauty doesn't require an understanding of their taxonomy. They're each wonderfully unique and I'm always thrilled to discover and photograph each of them as I make my way through the wood. I hope you enjoy them too and that you're finding your own small ways to navigate these anxious times that we find ourselves in xx

These pictures were taken across many walks in October 2020 at Broxbourne Common, Cowheath wood, Danemead, Brambles wood and Broad Riding wood.

 

Playing

 

 

 

 

Next week it's the half term break here so Toby will be the centre of my attention, but this week I've been free to have fun playing with some of my knitted friends and making scenes to share. When I was small I loved little things and I still do - I seem to have acquired quite a collection of small props (mostly from Maileg) and it's been lovely to get them out and take these pictures to show some of the newest patterns (the removable shoes, the sundress supplement/camisole top and the bags).

I hope you enjoy these pictures as much as I have enjoyed making them :)

 

Removable shoes, new patterns

 

Regular sized to fit any of the 9 inch tall animals

(rabbits, bears, mice, foxes, monkeys, pigs, cats, elephants, sheep, deer and lions)

 

Small sized, to fit the 7 inch rabbits pattern

 

 

 

 

 

 

When my daughter was little she was quite good a loosing little bits of toys (sorry to tell tales on you Amy), and I spent lots of time hunting for lost things under sofas, down the back of seat cushions and poking through the contents of the vacuum cleaner cylinder. So when I designed the little cotton rabbits I chose to knit the shoes as part of the feet and so avoid having to spend time hunting down or re-knitting lost shoes. It's become apparent though that some people who knit my animal patterns would like to have shoes that do come off and so can be changed to match an outfit, so over the last few months I've been working on these patterns for removable shoes.

There's a pattern to fit the regular (9 inch sized animals) and one for the smaller 7 inch rabbits (please check you have the right one in your basket before you check out).

Both patterns contain 5 pairs of shoes: 3 pairs of Mary-Jane style with a functional buttoning strap; a pair of laced up trainers and a mules- style slipper. There are also options for knitting feet and legs with knitted on socks, either with a simple garter stitch cuff or a folded over ribbed cuff.

I've designed the shoes and trainers to be close fitting and to be shaped around the foot with some short-rows and decreases and the slippers, whilst easy to take on and off are held in place on the foot by a knitted on trim. Hopefully they'll fit your animals foot well and you'll not need to be knitting replacements for any lost shoes anytime soon :)

You can find the patterns in the usual places, either on Ravelry or on Etsy

If you give either pattern a go please come and share your projects over on Ravelry or on the facebook group, it gives me so much pleasure to see what you make from my patterns.

Happy knitting, J xx

 

A neat edge to a top down seam, a tutorial

 

 

There are occassions when you want to create a really neat join between two seamed pieces, especially when this join is at the top of the piece and so very visible. Within my patterns this occurs at the top edges of both the removable shoes (soon to be released) and some of the designs in my 'bags, backpacks and baskets' pattern.

Above is a picture of the top seam that you're aiming to achieve:

And here's a little tutorial on how to work it...

 

Normally when you cast off you cut the work from the ball and thread this tail through the final stitch on the needle in order to secure the cast off row and prevent it from unravelling. But that creates a little nubbin at the end of the row and can interfere with a neat join when you start to sew an attaching seam.

So instead, when you have your last stitch at the end of your cast off row, cut the work from the ball and pull on the loop of this last stitch, like so:

 

 

Keep pulling that loop until the cut tail is pulled all the way through, effectively unravelling half of this final stitch:

 

Then thread a tapestry needle with this cast off tail end and sew through both arms of the edgemost stitch on the opposite side of the seam:

 

Then sew back across the gap and down through the stitch that the tail end is emerging from:

 

In doing this you have replicated a cast off edge stitch to span the top of the seam between the two pieces (see image at the top)

And then you can continue seaming the two pieces together using mattress stitch ( Mattress stitch seaming tutorial can be found here)

 

I hope this helps you to get neat and attractive edges to the seams at the top of your removable shoes and bags, happy seaming :)

J x