Dyeing | planetpenny.co.uk

May 2013
M	T	W	T	F	S	S
« Apr
	1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30	31

Category Archives: Dyeing

Christmas Crochet for Handmade Monday

I sincerely apologise to those of you who find it hard to think about Christmas in September, but I’m afraid those of us who hand craft seasonal bits and pieces have to start early or we run out of time! I could really do with an extra pair of hands, as I haven’t yet worked out a way of crocheting whilst needlefelting! I’m back with the crochet hook at the moment because I have just had a new delivery of Planet Penny Cotton Club yarn, and this time I have just a few packs with Christmas crochet in mind, lovely Snowdrop.

It’s perfect for the Crochet Christmas Bunting in the tutorial here, which is featured in a magazine published in a few days time, Simply Crochet.

I’ve been experimenting with my own ball of ‘Snowdrop’ to come up with a couple more patterns to use this lovely yarn. Would you like to see? There are crochet snow flakes…

…and crochet Hearts…

and Snowflakes and Hearts…

Christmas Crochet Packs of yarn, crochet hook, buttons and patterns will be available in the next few days in the Etsy shop…

Re-assuming my needlefelting hat, I discovered a fragment of old lace in a box the other day (you see how I’ve benefited from all that boring tidying up I’ve been doing?) and combined it with a new twig heart. I had been a little wary of it, because the wire shaping was so noticeable, (I presume it was made with florists in mind) but I’d raided my Mother-of-Pearl button box and it made all the difference…

And there was still that last dyed top to transform…Remember this?

A rather uninspiring blue/grey… But then I remembered some beautiful binding I bought in France over two years ago…

(… it was lovely to revisit the occasion on Planet Penny via this post – blogging is a wonderful thing!) and with some matching buttons came up with something which I am very happy to have in my wardrobe…

(The camera is lying about the blueness of the dye, BTW!)

There will be a short ‘break in transmission’ over the next week or so as I’m going to be away. Excitingly, I’ve been invited to a book launch in London on Wednesday for Buttonbag’s new craft book, closely followed by a trip to the South Coast to visit the family so there will be lots to tell you about when I’m here again (note to self: charge the camera battery!)

I’ll leave you now with the usual link to Handmade Monday over on Wendy’s Handmade Harbour. Have a lovely week and I’ll be back before long…

Written on September 16, 2012 by pennygj in Books, Christmas, Crochet, Dyeing, Handmade Monday, Planet Penny Cotton ClubTags: binding, Christmas Decoration, crochet, Needle Felting, needlefelt, Planet Penny Cotton Club

Back in the Dye Bath…

7 Comments - Leave a comment!

D’you remember the fun I had couple of weeks customising my bargain tunic top from Cotton Traders in this post? Well I bought a couple more and I’ve been back in the dye bath with those packets of Dylon dye again.

I have to admit to initially being a teensy bit disappointed with the results, I rather thought I was going to get a deep lavender colour and a dark blue, and what I got was a pastel lavender and a rather grey blue…

…and as you know I do like my saturated colours! But rather than buying yet more dye and trying again I decided to go with the flow and see what I could do to make them more ‘me’.

Before I emptied my entire button collection out of the big (very!) box where they are stashed I remembered a little collection dating back several years from a little handmade dress shop in Norwich which unfortunately closed down. I knew one day I’d have the project which needed a selection of tiny fabric buttons and I only had to wait about 10 years for that moment to come!

I think I bought 300, well I’ve used 11 of them now, 289 to go!

As well as changing the original buttons, I’ve also stitch an extra one in between each of the functioning buttons and I really like the effect…

(looking at this next photo it’s actually just the colour I was hoping for…ho hum! )

The dark one? Well I have a cunning plan, but haven’t quite executed it yet so watch this space!

It’s all been rather lovely here the past couple of days. It always seems to happen when the children go back to school doesn’t it?

I’m going to try and take Higgins out for a walk in few minutes. It all went very wrong yesterday when we set out a good pace, got about 200 yards from the house and someone fired a gun several fields away. Without flinching. or breaking stride Higgins wheeled round and headed back home at a brisk trot…and that was that! Hopeless gun dog!

Back soon….x

Written on September 6, 2012 by pennygj in Craft, Dyeing, Nature, Norfolk, TextilesTags: Customising, Dyeing, Norfolk

Ocean Blue and Buttons…

28 Comments - Leave a comment!

Hello again…don’t the weeks come round quickly! It’s been very busy on Planet Penny over the last few days as we’re in the process of turning a storage area into an office, so having moved everything out for Tim to work on it my studio is CHAOS! It’ll be so good when it’s finished, I might be able to find things more easily (pause for hollow laughter!) but the main perk will be having the printer/scanner in the same room that I’m working in, instead of several rooms and a fight of stairs away. I suppose the exercise is good for me, but it makes things take twice as long! In the meantime I’ve been needlefelting and playing with Ocean Blue dye, and little flowery buttons…

Remember the little robins of last week? I had a cunning plan for their use, and it worked out very well. I found some pretty natural and red woven ribbon, just enough to make five of these…

…and put them on the Planet Penny Facebook page to see what the reaction would be. Despite several of you telling me off for mentioning the dreaded ‘C’ word (!!) I sold three before I even put them on Etsy, where there is now just one left! Don’t despair however, there will be more, but they’ll be just a little different. I don’t do mass production I’m afraid!

I have also completed a variation on the the Love Birds as I couldn’t source the straw wreath straight away, the latest ones have natural colour lambswool hearts…

…and three of these have made it as far as the Etsy shop!

And my other creative project the week has involved a spot of dyeing! I have such problems finding clothes I like, that fit, that are long enough, and I rarely find all that and in a colour I like. So when I found a tunic top in Cotton Trader’s sale which ticked all the boxes bar the colour one I snapped it up and went off to the local supermarket for a packet of dye…

Take one shirt like this…

…in a cotton linen mix, and add a packet of this…

and a few pretty buttons..and you end up with this…

I’ve ordered two more!

(This might amuse you: Having decided to change the basic white buttons to something more original I carefully sorted an interesting selection of colours snipped off the white ones and replaced them with the pretty flower ones - I hate sewing on buttons, don’t you? I had just finished ironing it and had hung it on a hanger to admire when my beloved OH came in. ”Yes,” he said, “That looks really good. Now all you have to do is change the buttons…”

I say nothing!)

There was lots of interest last week about Higgins’ ‘Thundershirt’. He’s actually wearing it at the moment as a storm has just passed by and it does seem to calm him down a lot. He usually goes and sits on the back doormat and trembles but this time I wrapped him in the shirt and popped him into bed where he snuggled down and look reasonable relaxed. It was only a small storm so more testing will need to be done, but so far the signs are good.

I must finish this and go and administer tea to the worker in my little ‘soon-to-be’ office, it’s not the weather to be sawing wood! I’ll leave you with the usual link to ‘Handmade Monday’ over on Handmade Harbour.

Have a lovely week and I’ll be back soon…x

Written on August 19, 2012 by pennygj in Craft, Dyeing, Handmade Monday, Higgins, Life in GeneralTags: Handmade Monday, miniature dachshund

Yarn Projects Galore!

11 Comments - Leave a comment!

I hate to complain, but if we have all the worry and inconvenience of a drought and a hose pipe ban to look forward to, can’t we do it with a bit of sunshine? It’s been sooo gloomy over the past few days, real ‘Tupperware box‘ weather.

Spring is trying hard though. Driving over the weekend the sight of the Blackthorn blossom frothing in the sunnier roadside spots lifted my heart but it hasn’t quite got going in this part of Norfolk yet. I took the camera out dog walking yesterday to capture the first opening buds…

…of course, it also brought the crop sprayer out, rather a worrying fluorescent green that spray!

I’m trying to keep it cheerful on Planet Penny though. This week the latest Mollie Makes landed on the door step with several useful projects for Cotton Club crocheters!

The free gift on the front was a crochet flower brooch, very pretty, but if you buy a copy be warned that the pattern has a mistake which Mollie Makes give a correction for here. I spent a little while convinced I was losing the plot until I finished off on my own and was relieved the next day to find it was the pattern after all! It was interesting to do a quality comparison between the cotton yarn supplied which seemed to be a standard quality and the Cotton Club yarn, can you tell the difference?

I was amazed at how splitty and rough the ordinary cotton was by comparison.

The other bits of inspiration could be found here on page 35…

and also on page 61…

The new batch of Planet Penny Cotton Club yarn has arrived, with an extra shade not available last time, so it’s better than ever!

it’s bridges a gap as you can see…

So there are now 14 balls in the pack, still priced at £2.50 a ball and at 125m a ball I think is longer than both Debbie Bliss and Rowan (but do correct me if I’m wrong)

I’ve been busy sorting and packing the yarn, but it’s not too much of a hardship because I’m getting a colour hit every time I open the box…

I’ve sent the first few packs off across the ‘pond’ , I hope they don’t take too long to arrive. It was lovely to receive two emails one after the other yesterday from people on the waiting list whom I had contacted to say the yarn was ready. One was from the U.S. and the other from about 10 miles away from Planet Penny, but they both started, ‘I’m SO excited!’ I’ve also had a link to Peas in a Pod the blog of another extremely happy person, you can pay her a visit here. Isn’t it amazing, and wonderful that we can all join in the fun however far apart we are? Do get in touch if you would like your own Rainbow Pack.

And I nearly forgot, I was asked if I could write up my version of the Rainbow Mouse pattern…

…from this post and I have! You’ll find it here…

And, as if there wasn’t enough going on, the time is fast approaching for Norfolk Open Studios. The deadline for applications for the Taster Exhibition is this coming Monday, and although I know what I propose to make, and in my head it’s finished (and in my head it looks rather wonderful) I haven’t actually done anything at all!

So with that in mind, and knowing how little time I will have for dyeing my own fleece I sent off to Wingham Wool for their shade card so could get the supplies I need for the needlefelt project I have in mind. They have an amazing colour chart, which if you undertake to return within two weeks is free…

…and I have selected these colours to augment what I already have in my stash…

I’ll share my idea as it develops but in the meantime, if someone could arrange for an extra 12 hours a day, I’d be really grateful!

See you soon! x

Pin It

Written on March 14, 2012 by pennygj in Craft, Crochet, Dyeing, Life in General, Needlefelt, Norfolk, Open Studios, Planet Penny Cotton Club, TutorialsTags: crochet, Needle Felting, Norfolk, Norfolk Open Studios, Planet Penny Cotton Club

Hooray for Crochet Rainbow Mice!

37 Comments - Leave a comment!

I’ve set myself a challenge, to see just how many projects I can get out of the cotton rainbow pack, at one ball of each colour. It’s so easy, when you go to a shop where everything is readily available, to buy a ball in every colour you need (finances permitting, of course!) make the project and pop the leftovers in a bag for ‘Ron’ (as in later-R-on). When I started dyeing my own colours my attitude changed, I was going to use every scrap of Bluefaced Leicester 4 ply I had so painstakingly coloured myself, so it’s still in use, as in the needlefelted pincushion from this post, and the Sophie Digard inspired scarf from this post.

I’m not personally a fan of a vast majority of the amigurumi figures which are very popular, a lot of them are just too cartoonlike for my taste, but there’s no denying they are a perfect project for small amounts of left overs, and a perfect size for little hands to hold. I’ve found this book very useful, and would recommend it to beginners…

Nikki Trench’s patterns are well written, and the How-to section of the book very useful if you are just starting out. It gave me the inspiration for what was in the back of my mind…

I’ve had LOTS of fun in my spare moments over last week…

Want to see?

Nicki Trench’s mice weren’t quite what I had in mind, but having been inspired, I’ve developed my own pattern for a crochet mouse, and used beads for the features as I haven’t made them for a small child…

I have no idea what I’m going to do with my little rainbow of mice, but I love them!

By now, some of you will have received your Planet Penny Cotton Club packs, and I’m getting lots of excited feed back which is great. I can’t wait to see your creations! As I write I just have one pack left, but another order is in the pipeline so I’m happy for you to leave me a message if you are interested. Then I’ll let everyone know when it arrives so they can have the first chance to buy a pack before I put it on line.

I will have to adjust the price slightly. I thought when I started this a hidden cost might creep up and bite me in the bottom, and it did! It won’t be a huge amount, but I obviously have to cover all the admin charges. I’m currently doing a test run to see whether posting to the US and Europe is feasible too as I’ve had lots of enquiries. I’ll let you know as I go along, but in the meantime the contacts tab is there for you if you have any queries, and the comments box too too.

I’m linking up to Handmade Monday again this week, hosted by the talented Wendy on 1st Unique Gifts. Do visit and find out what everyone else has been up to over the last few days…

I’ll be back soon …xx

Pin It

Written on February 26, 2012 by penny in Books, Craft, Crochet, Dyeing, Handmade Monday, TextilesTags: crochet, Handmade Monday, Planet Penny Cotton Club, rainbow

A Reason to be Cheerful? It’s February!

14 Comments - Leave a comment!

I don’t want to wish the year away, but I’m never sorry to wave goodbye to January. There’s an optimistic feeling to February, an anticipation of Spring, even when it bitterly cold and wintery.

I have to work a little harder at being cheerful this week because Tim went back to work yesterday, so Higgins, Henry and I are keeping the home fires burning while he’s away. It’s good for me that, in Tim’s absence, I have to do more Higgins walking, even when the weather isn’t very nice, like yesterday…

Back at home, exciting things were happening in the garden. My gardening gurus were giving the whole thing a once over, clearing out ‘ground cover’ plants which have been threatening to smother us in our beds (and have certainly smothered quite a lot of pretty plants in theirs…) creating fixings for over enthusiastic climbers and generally getting things into shape for Spring. They also mostly finished off what I had started in the veg patch, which has always been my responsibility, so I’m still on target there for when the weather starts to warm up.

The excitement for Higgins was the appearance of long lost toys which have lurked in the undergrowth for months. He didn’t know where to turn!

Another cheerful thing has been the arrival of a wonderful piece of equipment. I’ve been wanting for ages to dye some more yarn, (you’ll remember the adventures I have with dyeing here and here) but I’ve struggled to prepare the undyed yarn. The yarn arrives in 100gm hanks and I dye it in 25gm mini hanks, in the microwave. A while ago I bought a winder, not the beautiful antique one I would have preferred at a vast sum, but a cheap and ~~cheerful~~ annoying one, which has never, ever worked properly. There was no where I could easily attach it, every time the yarn got tangled it fell off etc. etc… And the whole winding thing just became such a time consuming back breaking faff I just haven’t bothered.

Until it was mentioned to my friend Bill. Kit (my buddy and partner in craft) is married to Bill, and Bill, apart from being an amazing artist, a builder of cars, and all round good egg, does like a challenge, even a little one like making a wool winder.

So I now have a be-yoo-tilful wool winder or ‘Swift’, made of mahogany, which will sit on the table and twirl merrily as I get the wool ready for the dye…

And today, as you can see from the photos of Higgins above, has been glorious…

if very cold.

I had hoped to have finished a new project to show you, but I may have to squeeze in another post instead! Instead I shall add the Linky on the end, and hope that you have some Reasons to be Cheerful to share. And if you haven’t got a blog, you can still join in via the comments.

Looking forward to hearing from you…

see you soon ! x

Written on February 1, 2012 by penny in Art, Dyeing, Gardens, Higgins, Nature, Norfolk, Reasons to be Cheerful, Veg PatchTags: Dyeing, miniature dachshund, Reasons to be Cheerful