Monthly Archives: February 2013

Feeling Blue…and Grey.

This is a post in two halves because I’ve had a few days where my usual Pollyanna disposition has been conspicuous by it’s absence. I’ve been in two minds too, as to whether to even write the post but in the end I felt that appearing relentlessly upbeat is probably a tad annoying and maybe letting on about the down times is a good thing (occasionally)

It’s not been helped by the weather. Not just the cold, but the unrelenting gloom. I don’t function well under sullen grey skies and feel like I’m carrying the weight of them around balanced on the top of my head. I know this means I’m feeling blue but I love blue, and grey, well not so much.

Add to this an M.E. flare up, my other half being in the middle of the North Sea and the boys heading off back home to the South Coast it’s been a bit grim round here, I’ve definitely been Mrs Grumpy.

But today there was sunshine.

The aches and pains have subsided a little so I could enjoy my walk with Higgins properly and I could almost see the flowers in the garden opening…

Apparently the Met Office consider March 1st as the first day of Spring, so the end is in sight. Lets hope it sweeps the grey away!

I celebrated the sunshine by announcing an upcoming Facebook Giveaway which will happen when I reach the 2000 ‘likes’ milestone so if you’d like the join in the link is here.

…and I also indulged in some silliness with a little sheep. I retired the sheep I’d had on my keyring for some years when I changed my car and swapped it for a crochet heart keyring, but despite looking a little battered and tired I couldn’t bear to part with her.

So after a quick wizz around in the washing machine she has now been spruced up and given another car based role. Together with her knitting she’s going back in the car to sit on the dashboard to bring a spot of Planet Penny colour to what is alas, a grey car!

Next step, a crochet cushion or two!

Back soon …x

Half Term and a Harty Crochet Hook

Not a lot of creativity of the crocheting kind has been happening on Planet Penny over the past week. It’s been half term and Higgins and I have been visited by our favourite little boys. (And a big one and we like him too, but he’s slightly less noisy!) In the middle of it all I was sent a lovely present and if you are wondering what a Harty crochet hook is, all will be revealed presently.

It’s been sooo cold and grey, and now they’ve all gone home Higgins is sulky and I’m feeling grumpy. Spring cannot come soon enough…

Higgins had such a lovely time having someone around who can do running. I have my good points as far they go from a doggy perspective, but I’m rubbish at running…

Boys also do interesting things with sticks…

…and dogs like that.

And the Harty hook? Well I had a message from the lovely Nicola via the Planet Penny Facebook Page saying she would like to give me one of her beautiful Harty crochet hooks, I just had to choose the style and size. That was the most difficult bit, there’s such a lovely selection which you can see on the Fleabubs Website.

I eventually chose this one…

And I had enough quiet moments to crochet up some little flowers…

…and finish the edging on my baby blanket to test it out. (Not a moment to soon as my new great-niece arrived a few days ago! )

I’ve not used a hook with a handle before and I really recommend it. Very much more comfortable to hold, especially if you are using a small hook as you don’t have to grip so hard. Thanks you so much Nicola!

I’ll leave you now so I can get back to the fire, the flowers and the hook but not before I leave you with a link to Handmade Harbour for Handmade Monday Linky. Do call in and see what everyone else has been up to.

See you again soon…

Mollie Makes and a Little Down Time

This was the week that I finally decided I wasn’t going to beat the bugs on my own and headed off to the doctor. So, with a large box of antibiotics and some concern from the doc that I’ve been overdoing things I’ve tried very hard to keep myself confined to the sofa. This was helped by Higgins’ favourite Post Lady arriving with my copy of Mollie Makes with a crochet project which looked right up my street.

I’ve been very focused lately on creating my own original ideas so it was nice to relax and enjoy someone else’s pattern! This garland has been devised exclusively for Mollie Makes by Emma Lamb and is very easy, and oh so pretty. I love Emma’s colour palette, very delicate and pretty and very much in the Mollie Makes style.

But I have lots of odds and ends of Planet Penny cotton in the Planet Penny palette so I’ve made my own interpretation of Emma’s garland…

Nothing delicate about this colour palette!

I thought it might be fun to try a little Mollie Makes styling for the photos…

I don’t know whether all that was strictly restful, but I am definitely on the mend now!

This is a perfect project for using up yarn from other projects, and I found the Planet Penny Cotton ideal. I’ve just been looking on line for approximate yarn prices and found that Debbie Bliss Cotton, 50g /84m is around £3.30 a ball and Rowan Cotton Glace 50g/115m is around £4.95 per ball. The Planet Penny Cotton packs are £36.50 per pack of 14 50g/125m balls making them just £2.60 per ball. I like it more than ever!

Spring is trying hard to arrive here in Norfolk, it was very nearly mild yesterday, and taking my camera out when Higgins and I go walking is essential. Otherwise I’d miss recording little sights like this…

…and yesterday’s evening sky…

And finally, I know some of you feel deprived if you don’t get your Higgins fix and he has been working very hard at being cute this week. (He needs to, he’s eaten the corners off yet another cushion!)

I’m joining in as usual with Handmade Monday over on Handmade Harbour which starts on this evening. I’m off to walk Higgins while the sun shines and I’ll be back soon….x

Keeping Mobile!

If last week’s post was all about the Hearts and Flowers Mobile, this week has just been about keeping mobile, full stop! Last Monday morning I was proceeding blamelessly down the road in my little car, an old faithful which has been in the family for years, and an elderly man pulled out of a side road straight into me. He confessed that he just didn’t see me. Neither of us was hurt, just shaken, and I thought I had got off lightly with a damaged bumper. Alas, an inspection at the garage discovered that all sorts of things had happened under the bonnet (you can tell I’m not terribly sure what happens under the bonnet!) and my car was deemed beyond economical repair.

I’ve forgotten which insurance company used to trumpet that they don’t make a drama out of a crisis, but it certainly wasn’t ours! I won’t bore you with the tale of how many hoops they produced for us to leap through, even when it was established I was completely blameless. I’ll gloss over the gibbering frustration and cut to the happy ending which was that the lovely man in our local garage (we went to primary school together) produced an ideal replacement which ticks all the boxes, particularly of transporting my mum and her wheelchair. And in the nick of time as Tim has just headed off in his car which is about to spend a week in the car park at Luton Airport. (Not Tim you understand, just his car!) So I’m mobile again, and I’ve got a much better use for hoops than jumping through, as you will see…

We’re about to plunged back into Winter apparently. I saw a newspaper headline yesterday which screamed “48 HOURS OF SNOW HELL!!” some people can expect “UP TO 10CM!!!” That’s around 4 inches if you are reading this in the US, where by all accounts some of you are sitting under 4 FEET and more of the stuff. If you are, I’m thinking of you. I’m sure you are coping better than the UK where the default position seems to be of ‘making a drama out of a crisis’ again. SO embarrassing!

So that’s why I’m going back to earlier in the week when the sun shone and Higgins and I went out into the garden to spot signs of spring. The primroses are still looking good…

There was just the one violet…

…a solitary crocus..

..and of course, my favourite snowdrops…

I brought this piece of Spring indoors too…

A good use for a favourite cup which has been glued back together after an unfortunate incident with a tabby cat!

And those hoops we were jumping through ? Well, I’ve made another mobile, for the knitters this time. Remember the Christmas ornaments from Day Two of the Advent Calendar? I just loved the mini yarn balls and needles so much I wanted to use them again…

It would be perfect for hanging in a craft corner…

…and a great way of using yarn scraps. (It reminds me of the story of the old lady who had a box in her dresser labelled ‘Pieces of String To Short to be Useful’, I have bags of yarn like that!)

Tomorrow I am back to needlefelting, neglected for too long. I have a group of 14 ladies from or local W.I.S.E. group (Women In Search of Entertainment) I just hope I can entertain them with a needlefelting class…we are making hearts and I hope to have some pictures for my next post.

I’m linking up with Handmade Monday later today which you’ll find hosted by Wendy over on Handmade Harbour and…

I’ll be back soon, have a lovely week …x

Hearts and Flowers Mobile – The Reveal!

I can’t believe it’s taken me all week to get to the ‘big reveal’ for the Hearts and Flowers Mobile project I was working on last weekend. I’ve spent a lot of time keeping metaphorical plates spinning and I’m so glad I’ve got the routine of Handmade Monday to keep me ‘regular’, once a week at least! I think if I was asked to pick just one piece of advice to give to someone trying to get their head around blogging it would be make a routine, and stick to it. I know when I started out it was so easy to put off a post and then have so many photos, so many ideas that it would take a huge effort of will to sit down and turn it all into something potentially interesting to someone else. Right now the mid week post keeps getting put off because of ‘stuff’ getting in the way, but I’m hanging on the the weekend post for dear life until everything settles down a bit.

We’ve had all sorts of weather thrown at us in the UK over the past days, but I made the most of a brief mild spell to nip into the garden to see what was going on and found these…

…with a little help from my friend!

I love snowdrops. They look so delicate and yet brave the elements every year to let us know that Springtime will arrive, eventually…

There is an old rhyme which says…

The snowdrop, in purest white array,

First rears it’s head on Candlemas Day.

Candlemas Day falls on the 2nd February, so it must be true!

Back indoors though it was rather a struggle to photograph my Hearts and Flowers Mobile. Ideally I need a large blank space, a white corner of a room with no distracting background stuff going on. But I live in a very small cottage, my studio is packed with things and the mobile is just under a metre or 3 feet long so I hope you’ll bear with me…

I’ve used the garland pattern to make the hearts and flowers using the Planet Penny Cotton colours (the pattern and yarns are available from the Etsy shop). I’m very happy that it worked out exactly as I had pictured it, and that doesn’t happen very often!

It’s triggered another idea, so I hope I get time to make a start this week. My other ongoing project is building a website for our entry in this year’s Norfolk and Norwich Open Studios. This will be the third year that I and my friend Kit Calladine the printmaker will be taking part, but this time we are part of an art trail with six other local artists which is very exciting. Before long I will put a link to the website so you can find out all about us, and hopefully some of you may even pay us a visit!

And this also means I must return to the felting needle. I have a plan for a piece for the Taster Exhibition but it is very easy to have the image in your head for so long that you forget you haven’t actually made it yet!

So altogether I have quite a bit to keep me out of mischief , and I promise I won’t forget to call back here to tell you all about it!

Meanwhile, I shall leave you with a link to Handmade Harbour where after 6pm this evening (UK time) you will find lots of other busy crafters and makers taking part in Handmade Monday.

I’ll be back soon…x