Bunnies for Birthdays, Among Other Activities

Just popping in to show-and-tell you what I’ve been up to lately . . .

The designer responsible for all those wee creatures I‘ve knit over the past few years (you know, the mice, bears, raccoons, turtles, mole, sheep who’ve shown up here from time to time) released a new pattern a few months ago, and I tried for a while, but truly, Resistance Was Futile.

I mean, was leftover sock yarn (bunny on the right) ever deployed more charmingly?

And since the Nibbles Siblings (that’s the name of Cinthia Vallet’s irresistible pattern) are small and work up quickly (admittedly, you need to be a reasonably experienced knitter — knitting in the round on small needles; short rows; picking up stitches — but it’s all stocking stitch and the instructions are brilliantly clear). . . and since I have three grandchildren with birthdays in March and April . . . .

You can find out more about Cinthea’s little (5 inches — so cute!) bunnies (and their clothes! oh, they have delightful wardrobes — next on my list) on Substack, where she’s posted a newsletter about them, complete with a plethora of photos. (This is not an ad, but so many times after I’ve posted about the little guys I knit, I get asked for the pattern — so, in anticipation, I’m sending you to the source 😉 Plus the photos and the little background stories Cinthea writes about her little creatures are so charming.)

And should you head over to Substack, you could stop by my place where I’ve posted an account of the planning that went into my extended travels of last summer and fall (or the lack of planning, some might say).

Here’s an excerpt from that Substack Post

For a while, we even considering buying a small cottage in a quaint village conveniently supplied with train service to Rome . . . or maybe a neat little apartment . . . if Covid hadn’t stopped all plans for nearly two years, maybe that would have happened. But so many complications, predictable bureaucratic and legal hassles that we’ve let that idea fade away (lit up, occasionally, by an Instagram post about “affordable dream homes in Italy”).

But I’d started thinking about experiencing ex-pat life on a temporary basis. My Italian is pretty decent after years of Saturday-morning classes, and Paul’s got the basics via Coffee Break Italian and Duolingo. As well, we’d been thinking of doing something special to mark our 50th anniversary, and an extended stay in Italy? That would definitely qualify.

So when the owner of a B&B we stayed in a couple of years ago suggested that we might be interested in renting her two-bedroom apartment in Rome for a few months, we bit. Her B&B is about 90 minutes by train from Rome; the apartment (10-minute walk from Borghese Gardens) was her home (with husband and now-grown daughter) for years. She didn’t want to rent to someone who would want to live in it for years in case that daughter might move back to Rome at some point. Neither did she want a continual series of short-term renters she would have to vet.

But of course, it was never going to be that easy . . . you’ll have to pop over to Substack to read the rest, but honestly, that’s easy to do and while I’d be happy to have you subscribe (it’s free, and that way, you won’t miss future posts), you can read without doing so.

Meanwhile, Bunnies and I will be here. They’ll be growing, perhaps discovering new friends, maybe acquiring some clothes. . . I will be knitting, and I’m also working on my Annual Book List. Plus I’ve been snapping some What I Wore posts of me in winter gear, indoors and outdoors, so Books will be followed by OOTDs and perhaps there’s a sketchbook opening its pages there as well . . .

Lots of rabbit holes to pop down, always. . .

Now, what say you?

xo,

f