Little Cotton Rabbits

January, beginnings

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well here we are again at the beginning of a new year, I hope it has started well for you.

We're doing quite well here, Toby coped with going back to college yesterday and the much earlier start to his days and I've been slowly but steadily ticking things off my to do list. At the moment all of my focus is on preparing for the cliff edge that we currently face at the end of June when Toby's college placement finishes. That will mark the end of his 20 years in 'education' and a humungous change for our family. I'm spending all of my available time trying to put in place support and community activities for him so that he can have some meaningful activities in his life outside of his home here and that I can continue to have time in which to work on patterns and earn a living.

We've had no support of any kind since he turned 18 and so have had to begin all over again with preliminary assessments. If you have ever gone through the process of getting a care assessment and putting in place ongoing care for a loved one you will already know about the mountainous burden of paperwork and the enormity of the continuing task, from setting up new bank accounts to manage direct payments; accounting for every penny spent; interviewing, screening via DBS checks and training personal assistants to manage his needs; researching, visiting and engaging placements for day care. It is all down to families to undertake and organise and is utterly daunting and exhausting. This week has been all about recording on paper the struggle that Toby has with every day life, and it's really laid me low to bring into sharp focus and put into words everything about his condition that limits his life and the enormous impact that has on our family.

So I am trying my hardest to just concentrate on one small step at a time, and have had to make a very conscious effort to focus on the small positives that have come my way so far this year. I'm sharing them here mostly to remind myself that often it's the small things that lift a moment from despair to delight.

• I have a new garden friend, Bob D. Robin, who flies down to the garden table each morning at dawn when I'm preparing breakfast for the chickens, he gets a pinch of sunflower seeds as a thank you for brightening the start of my day with his beautiful song, sung from the topmost branch of the old plum tree.
• Kit the fox is still visiting, very sporadically over the autumn but a little more frequently these last couple of weeks, though mostly after dark so it's been hard to get pictures of her. She looks well and has a thick and fluffy winter coat. It's coming up to mating time so it will be interesting to see if she has a litter this year and whether she visits more frequently if she falls pregnant.
• Sunrises and sunsets, closer together at this time of year with the short winter days, always have the capacity to bring joy and the vibrant colours splashed across the sky are captivating to watch. I often stand outside with a cup of tea in hand and just enjoy the unfolding spectacle.
• The weather here has been so mild, wet and windy so far this winter but the coming week sees a change to colder, brighter days so I'm hoping to get out with my camera and find the first snowdrops. The anticipation of seeing their beauty is a small joy at the moment too.
• Looking back over the pictures that I took during 2023 has brought a lot of pleasure too, the first picture above is a mosaic of a few of my favourites

I hope that you are finding some small joys in your days too and if you're fearful about impending events in your life this year, I hope that you're finding ways to move forward with a hopeful heart,

See you soon, J x

 

Autumn in the woods: part 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There's a line from a Mary Oliver poem, which resonates for me...

"If you have ever gone to the woods with me, I must love you very much"

 'How I go to the woods' from 'Swan: Poems and Prose Poems'

For only a handful of people have ever come to the woods with me, and all of them are my most loved people.

Going to the woods is usually something that I much prefer to do on my own (except for walks with Toby of course), because being alone in a wood is a wonderful sensory experience which is greatly diminished if you're chatting with someone else. 

Alone you can walk quietly, listening to the forest sounds and concentrating on noticing small details: the curl of a leaf; the glint of a toadstool in the dark of a hollowed out stump; a leaf reflected in a small pool of silvery water cupped in the cap of a toadstool; the patterns in a decaying tree.

The woods feel safely enduring and impervious to the anguish and perils of the human world, and although this is of course a fanciful illusion, I am happy to embrace that feeling for an hour or two and let the woodland peace dissolve my disquiet.

Back home knitting is proving soothing too and I have a finished pair of socks and a few scarves still on the go.

I hope that you also have fortifying activities that gently reinforce hope, optimism and joy for you in these troubled times.

 

 

Autumn in the woods: part 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Autumn has arrived here, with wet and windy weather and a sudden profusion of fungi out in the woods. I head there at every opportunity, savouring the soothing peace and quiet that flows between the trees.

It's been a good year for the hedgerow fruits of hips, haws and berries and the woodland creatures will be well provisioned this winter. Tree nuts have been abundant too - chestnuts, beech nuts, hazelnuts and acorns have covered the woodland floor, though most are now hidden away in the winter larders of squirrels and jays. And now the holly trees present their harvest and are heavy with scarlet berries. I hope to see the first waxwings, but am not lucky this time.

There is such great beauty in the natural world, but sometimes you have to get dirty knees and elbows in order to see it. Luckily for me the woods are mostly deserted on week days, so there is no-one to see me lying on my tummy in a soggy patch of moss in order to capture the close up delight of a toadstool and home is only a 10 minute trip in the car so I'm soon warming up in a hot bath after getting damp and chilled on my adventures.

Then it's back to knitting, for now just a little gentle-paced making rather than the more intense pattern writing. A pair of socks, a couple of Sophie scarves and quite a few pairs of very simple ribbed wrist-warmers are all currently on my needles and I'm enjoying just flitting between whatever takes my fancy at the time. And with each new project I begin to feel a re-kindling of my love of knitting, which I've recently felt has been ebbing away from me a little. Perhaps being so focussed on the end product, as is necessary when writing patterns, has diminished my enjoyment, and I just needed a little simple  'process knitting' time to find my joy again.

Hope you find a little joy somewhere in your week, J x

 

PS: it's been wonderful to see so many cows appearing on the facebook group and on ravelry, thanks so much for sharing pictures of your lovely projects :)

 

Early Autumn

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It still feels like Autumn is waiting in the wings here, poised but not quite ready to make the dramatic entrance that the season is so loved for. There are inklings though of what will come; whisperings in the treetops, rustlings in the hedgerows, glimmerings in the undergrowth. The leaves are losing their vibrant summer green and are becoming dry and brittle. Each breath of wind sets free a flurry of seeds that twist and dance on the breeze until feathering gently to the woodland floor. The birds are gathering too, preparing for long migratory journeys, skeins of geese honking over the house in the first light of morning and flocks of finches that come looping and twittering into the garden, 30 or more at a time, and empty the bird feeders in a matter of minutes.

I've been out to the woods a few times on my own, hunting for photogenic fungi. As yet I have found very little, but I have enjoyed the quiet peace under the canopy and visiting the friendly red poll cattle that graze the woodland and a sweet, scruffy pony that lives in the field at the edge of the wood. And I came home with pocketfuls of beautifully fat and glossy chestnuts, I'll be sharing some with the friendly squirrel that visits our garden and roasting the rest later. Our other friendly visitor has been here frequently too, beautiful Kit the fox.

Here we are still settling in to term-time routines, it always takes a while for Toby to adjust and we have had a few wobbles, which have resulted in him being home a little more than expected or planned for. And the older I get the longer it seems to take me to settle in to concentrating properly. There's been a lot of knitting of course. I made a little rabbit for my friend to auction off at a charity masked ball that she organised to raise funds for the wonderful, inclusive playscheme that our sons both attended when they were younger. There has also been some simple weekend and evening sock knitting, as a welcome contrast to working on the patterns, which is at times fiddly, frustrating and takes a well-rested morning brain to tackle properly. I'm planning more simple wristwarmers and socks with the lovely autumnal coloured yarns bought from The Knitting Shed (I might be just a wee bit obsessed with their yarn at the moment).

My 'work-day' knitting is still all about my cow pattern, and I will show you more of how I'm getting on with that soon, but above are a couple of Highland cattle that will be making an appearance.

I've also spent a few months updating some of my existing patterns and have hopefully now sent out notifications of these changes to all Ravelry buyers. Below is a list of which patterns have been updated and in what way. If you use Etsy and you'd like a new revised copy of any of these patterns you'll need to message me via your Etsy account, as Etsy does not provide me with a way of sending you an automatic update in the way that Ravelry do. It's a very good reason to buy via Ravelry if you are able to, as I am planning a few future updates and extras to some of my other patterns. I've also added revision notes to the bottom of every pattern page on Ravelry so that you can quickly check when each pattern was last updated and what the errata/revisions were.

• Small 7 inch mouse pattern: Correction to Page 15, row 12, there was an extra P1 at the start of the 3rd line, which has now been removed
• Both 9 inch Horse patterns: Page 21, rows 9, 11 & 13, Ktog should read K2tog
• 9 inch 'boy' patterns for fox, elephant, mouse, monkey, bear, cat, and sheep: All now have a revised version of the shorts that includes a ribbed waistband.

 

Well, that's all from me for now, but see you soon, J x

 

Summer days

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, we're half way through the long summer break here and have settled into a comfortable daily routine. Mornings are calm and quiet as happily Toby enjoys quite long lie-ins, so I usually have a couple of gentle hours to call my own, either reading or knitting and sometimes having breakfast in bed when the mood takes me. Once he is up we head out for a walk, usually walking around 3 miles and stopping for a picnic snack along the way. Toby is good company as a walking buddy, he so enjoys the peace and quiet of the countryside and looks all around him as we go along. He's still not keen on me stopping to take photos of things but is getting gradually more tolerant, just as long as I'm quick.

It's a wonderful thing to be able to share a love of nature and the outdoors with him, and our walks together are often the best part of the day. We've seen so much wildlife: lots of muntjac deer, a stoat, rabbits, buzzards, red kites, kestrels, storks, egrets and so very many insects, bees, dragonflies and butterflies, it's been a great year for them and I've seen such a variety. It looks like being a good year for blackberries and hazelnuts too, with a bumper crop ripening in the hedgerows and we've seen a lot of early fungi too, doubtless sprouting well because of all of the rain we've had recently. Not that I'm complaining in any way, I'm so grateful this year for the cooler temperatures and wetter weather and so is the greenly verdant countryside.

There's not much progress on anything knitting related at the moment. I've been knitting quite a few scarves from the 'Sophie Scarf' pattern by Petiteknit as it's a beautifully simple and uncomplicated knit, perfect for picking up whenever I get the chance for a few rows and putting down again when Toby needs something. As far as my own pattern writing goes I do now have a cow pattern finalised, though still in the form of scribbled notes which need a lot of work once the next college term starts in September.

I hope you've had a good month and that August is kind to you, J x