Author Archives: penny

About penny

I live in Norfolk, England in a cottage on the edge of the Norfolk Broads where it can be peaceful and beautiful, or wet and muddy, or occasionally wild and windswept. With me is husband Tim, Henry the elderly and opinionated tabby cat, and Higgins, the miniature dachshund with a massive personality. You’ll find me chattering on about wool and textiles, knitting and crochet, recipes, books and patterns, exhibitions and shopping and of course, the adventures of a small dog! Planet Penny has a Facebook Page, you can find me on UK Handmade and I am featured on Channel4/4Homes Favourite Craft Blog List.

Celebrating February…

…and this year with an extra day! I hope you are all enjoying your ‘Leap day’ and the sun is shining. I’ve just been sorting through the February images, it’s gone very quickly, but so much has happened!

Thank you all for all the comments and encouragement, I do love to hear from you all, and have had quite a few chats via the contacts box!

As well as everything else next month I am planning to pick up my felting needles again as Open Studios is on the horizon, and I have several ideas buzzing round my head for that, and of course things will be gathering speed in the garden… oh for an extra 12 hours in the day!

So for now I’ll leave you with the February Mosaic…

…and I’ll be back soon …x

Hooray for Crochet Mice!

The Making of the Crochet Mice…

I’ve set myself a challenge, to see just how many projects I can get out of the Planet Penny Cotton pack, at one ball of each colour. One of the reasons I put this collection together is that I found it impossible to find one stockist, on the high street or online, who had every colour to make up a rainbow, and going from place to place, or buying a ball here and a ball there from different online stockists was time consuming and expensive.

From the time I dyed my own colours I was determined to use every scrap of Bluefaced Leicester 4 ply I had so painstakingly coloured myself. I’m still using the little leftovers the needlefelted pincushion from this post, and the Sophie Digard inspired scarf from this post.

I wanted a pattern for crochet mice which was just right for small amounts of yarn and this silky smooth cotton yarn is perfect for amigurumi, and the bright colours just lend themselves to something fun so I devised this cute crochet mouse pattern and made one in every colour.

So I developed my own simple pattern for crochet mice, and used beads for the features as I have made them to be strictly ornamental However, with embroidered features they are ideal for a small child (just right for little hands) or filled with catnip for your favourite puss cat.

And so the knitters out there don’t feel left out, there a knitted version too!

~~You can find the yarn, the knit and crochet patterns for the mice, as well as other patterns using the gorgeous Planet Penny Cotton yarn in the Etsy shop here…~~

Ed. to add. the Etsy shop has now closed but you can find the patterns FOR FREE here…

I’ll be back soon …xx

Silent Sunday

My Planet Penny Facebook Face

I’ve had a Facebook Page for Planet Penny for a while now, and very slowly the ‘likes’ have mounted up. It’s been very long winded, so when I reached the magic 200 I had a ‘giveaway’, and one lucky person has just won a needlefelt pin cushion in a little drawstring bag.

( I think I need to make more of an effort with Facebook, so if you’ve got any tips I’d love to hear about them, and if you want to ‘like’ me, I need all the friends I can get! ) But for now I’m heading off towards 300, and then I’ll do the ‘giveaway’ thing all over again!

Anyway, having a little gift to parcel up made my own surprise package in the post very useful indeed. I have recently been awarded Fave Blog Status by the Dotcomgiftshop which is quite an honour in itself, and I was also sent a selection of gift ribbons from their Mothers day gifts range as a present.

Perfect timing!

And hugely useful to me as not only is Mother’s Day fast approaching, but my mum actually has a birthday at the beginning of March, as does my son, my niece and most of ‘Rabbit’s friends and relations’!

so I’m very well stocked for all the gift wrapping, all I have to do is make the pressies!

Sharing our Reasons to be Cheerful…

…just one more time!

Which doesn’t, of course, mean we can’t keep looking for them!

Here on Planet Penny, I’m still finding little flashes of springtime promise, (even though as I type the wind is howling and rain is lashing against the window!)

Higgins is not quite so cheerful because although the ‘boss’ came home from work last week, he’s had to go away again on a course…so Higgy hasn’t got his early morning vantage point. The routine is that Tim sits in the reclining chair to drink his morning tea, and Higgins gets as far down the chair as possible, so he can lie on ‘ a person’, always the best place as far as he is concerned, on red alert, looking down the garden ready to leap, like a coiled spring when the post lady and the paperboy arrive. This is how he does it…

After my last post it’s been very cheering to have lots of enthusiasm and lovely comments (thank you!) for the Planet Penny Cotton Club project, and I’m still trying out different ideas…

…and I’ve been happy to pack up the cotton packs in the pretty pink mailing sacks!

(If you’d like to join in do get in touch, there are still some packs left, and if I sell out there will be a waiting list!)

This is the last Reasons to be Cheerful post and Linky for now, I hope you’ve enjoyed it, either joining in or just following the links to meet other bloggers. I know I’m really happy to have gained some new bloggy friends!

Please join in for this last Linky below, or leave a comment so we can go out on a high, I do love to hear from you…thank you for taking part x

Wearing my Miss Marple Hat…

(not the most dynamic of sleuths, but the only one I know who knits!)

It’s time to tell you about my detective work, which started back in the Autumn and all because I really, really wanted something.

And what I wanted was a rainbow…

And I knew there was one to be had, because I kept seeing them, out there in cyberspace…

Lots of beautiful crocheted bit and pieces, in a rainbow of glowing colours.

I looked and looked, but couldn’t find anywhere to buy exactly what I had seen in the UK.

So, having got the bit between by teeth I trawled around the net searching for clues until I found the supplier, in Europe, who confirmed that they didn’t have a UK stockist.

The good news was that I could buy the yarn, my rainbow, directly from them. However, the bad news was that I would have to buy…a lot…

More than I would probably manage to use up in a month of Silent Sundays or Handmade Mondays.

But it occurred to me that if I love it, then maybe you out there would love it too, and maybe it could be the start of something exciting, and something we could share.

I took the huge step, and ordered the minimum order, which was still a great deal of money and yarn, and three months after started the search and the negotiations I took delivery of a large carton of gorgeousness. I opened it full of trepidation, having chosen from a huge colour chart of tiny swatches but it was a bit like opening a treasure chest…

…just an explosion of colour!

I’ve shared with you some of my experiments over the weeks, the crochet carnival bunting…

The Hearts and Flowers Garland…

The Stuff Jar…

and all the other bits and pieces.

…so I hope it’s whetted your appetite! The rainbow packs of mercerised cotton DK, comprise one 50g ball (125m) each of 14 different shades priced at £36.50 per pack. It has a lovely sheen, and I’ve found it very easy to work with, sometimes cotton’s lack of stretch can make it less easy to use than wool. It knits beautifully too, and I imagine would lovely for bold and colourful embroidery.

You can find out all the details on the Planet Penny Cotton Club page here.

So, what do you think? Is this something you’d like to try, or will I be giving my family and friends rainbow coloured lovelies for the rest of my life!?

Edited to add: The yarn is now available via the Planet Penny Etsy shop via this link

I’m linking up with Handmade Monday again on 1st Unique Gifts, I hope I qualify even though this week has been mainly sorting balls of yarn and getting ready for the needlefelt class I’m teaching on Tuesday at the OutHouse Studio.

I’ll be back soon, I’m looking forward to hearing from you! x