Dapper Jackalope Pattern available now!

Isn't he sweet, this dapper Jackalope? As I mentioned recently: it's my first pattern since last October so it really *was* time for a new one. I'm really happy with it and I hope you all like it too! The pattern includes colour and stitch suggestions and is now available as instant download (so you can start stitching tonight!) in my shop.

Jackalope Pattern in Progress

There's much going on behind the scenes here at Follow the White Bunny HQ (which is really just my house) so you have to excuse the not so great photo I nicked from my own Instagram account. I thought I'd share a peek of my new pattern with you and I am touched by the kind comments I got on IG so far. It's kind of a big deal for me as this pattern is the first new pattern (besides the ones in books and magazines) since last October.

Pattern design doesn't always (read: rarely) come easy to me and I rejected many designs before I decided on this one. And then I made some changes while I was stitching the pattern too. I think it's really important to stitch a pattern before you release it to find out what works and what doesn't. So in the process I left out some elements and added others. Obviously the Jackalope was there from the beginning, as were the poppies (my mother's favourite flower). I'm doing my best to have the Jackalope in the shop early next week!

Tiny Jackalope

This weekend I spent rather a lot of time with this tiny fella. He's based on this free pattern of mine from a couple of years back and over the weekend he magically evolved from a white bunny into a brown Jackalope. I had a lot of fun stitching the flowers and leaves around him and I definitely think these will return in a future pattern or two! Some of those were inspired by this pattern I recently shared and some of the inspiration probably came from the Stitched in Scandinavia book I reviewed last week.

I used some of my favourite shades of blue from the DMC six stranded flosses for the flowers: no 3810 and 775. And probably about eight different colours of brown, beige and cream shades for the Jackalope.  Everything was stitched with just one strand of floss and sometimes I even wished there was such a thing as half a strand of floss for the tiniest details!

Apple pie recipe & Jackalope in progress

This afternoon I thought it was about time I made another Dutch Apple Pie. Last time I made one was quite a while ago! Besides apples there are raisins and walnuts in there too.  It's really quite easy to make and absolutely yummy!

To make a Dutch Apple Pie you need: 300 gr self raising flour, 150 gr + 50 gr white sugar, a couple of teaspoons vanilla sugar, 175 cold butter (of good quality) in dice, 1 lightly beaten egg, 1 kg of hard (sour) apples peeled and chopped, 50 gr raisins, 50 gr chopped walnuts, 3 teaspoons cinnamon and one squeeze of a lemon.

Mix the flour, 150 gr of the white sugar, vanilla sugar, butter and most of the egg and knead until the dough is soft. Grease a spring form pan and cover the inside evenly with 3/4 of the dough. I always put it in the form in patches. Mix the apple, raisins, walnuts, 50 gr of sugar, cinnamon and a squeeze of lemon juice and put it in the spring form. Put the rest of the dough in a checked pattern on top of the Apple mix. and some of the beaten egg on the checked pattern. Bake on 175 degrees in a pre-heated oven for 75 minutes. I always eat my Apple Pie with whipped cream. :)

So, now on to my Jackalope embroidery! I'm rather pleased with how it's turning out. When you stitch something without a proper pattern it's hard to decide where and when to stop. I don't think I will add much more to it now. Obviously I will fill the empty patches on the Jackalope and add a little more detail to it's fur in a dfferent colour.