Our beloved Ev will bite knitting needles no more (this was one of her not-so-likeable habits). She died suddenly last Saturday which was a terrible shock, but she was happy to the end and just died of old age we think. She certainly wasn’t ill or in pain at all. (We know she was happy as her last action in this world was to whiffle 3 carrot biscuits at speed). Looking back I think she had been slowing down for a week or two, but so gradually we didn’t really notice.

We miss her dreadfully, but if there is any afterlife at all I am sure she is lounging in a field full of coriander, dill and parsley and stuffing her face. She had an amazing capacity to convert herbs into fur which she then shed all over the house.

“What?  Are you talking about me?  I’m not blue.  Although I don’t know what mizu is.”

No, Ev, the cushion.

Actually until I got that photo of Madame on top of the cushion I was going to introduce it all with New Order and Blue Monday, but Ev won the day.  Oh, wotthehellarchi, have New Order as well (on Top of the Pops, obviously):

Not their greatest performance ever, but TOTP was something special.  Enough rambling!  Mizu is knitted in that most fabulous of fabulous yarns, Rowan (or Elann) Denim, and also requires a bit of DIY fun with some bleach to get the wavy colour in the lighter triangles (although you could chicken out and do it in a ready space-dyed yarn along with a solid in a similar colour).  The point about the denim, though, as opposed to any other yarn is that it is so tough as a yarn it’s really going to stand up to being on the floor and abused a bit, and the more wear it gets the better it’ll look.  Even the sort of wear a not-so-small rabbit can produce. There was lots of jumping on and off of the cushion in the name of being difficult, and attempted poking of nose into camera lens:

Next up – a fully-loaded-with-pics tutorial as to how to bleach the denim. Just in case you need convincing.

Find Mizu here.

Gosh, bit of a break there whilst work got in the way.  Anyway, onward!

‘Charleston, charleston, dum di dum di dum di dee charleston…’ no, not Flapper Girls and the roaring 20s but zig-zaggy cushions!  I suspect the powers that be at The Knitter named these for the Charleston beloved of some of the Bloomsbury Set rather than the dance.  (I can thoroughly recommend a trip to Charleston if you are ever in the area, by the way).

These are knitted in Lang Yarns Jawoll Superwash, a sock yarn, and so are practical as well as pretty.  It comes in (I think) 60 colours so there’s no reason why you couldn’t knit them to match your own living room decor / settee and they are a great way to practise short-rows and fairisle without being too big to be offputting.  The backs are stripy on the square cushions and the main body of the bolster is striped whilst the ends are the short-row bit.  The ends of the bolster here are finished with some really lovely Czech glass buttons from the 1950s that I found at Loop, but I’m not sure they have any left now, but you could make a nice fat tassel or find a couple of equally lovely buttons.

Whilst trying to get some photos of the cushions I thought I’d see if Ev would pose with them.  I give you:

Which is Ev telling me that she is not a performing rabbit, and then:

When she was feeling a little more amenable.  But not much.

Find Charleston Cushions here.

Belinda

This is Ev, or Heather.  She rules the house.  She can bite bamboo knitting needles in half in one swift chomp.

We didn’t mean to have her, but she’d been dumped at our local vets in an appalling condition, the worst case of ear mites he’d ever seen and a hideously infected back leg caused, we think, by being left sitting on dirty, wee-sodden bedding which had caused a sore and then become infected.  Her hock joint had been destroyed by the resulting abscess and a rabbit specialist had told our vet ‘either put her down or take her leg off – nothing else to do’.

So he took her leg off, and she came to us as a stray just to recuperate for a few days.  Nearly 3 years ago now.  Brian the vet is not daft.

Missing a leg doesn’t really bother her, sometimes she has to have her ear scratched for her and she can’t sit up to wash her nose and ears like other rabbits do but she is a happy, healthy, naughty housebun.  Who has no idea she’s a rabbit and thinks she’s a dog, but that’s another story.

Belinda