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.

Reasons to be Cheerful – Lucky 13!

The first thing I found this morning when I went on the computer is that the Guardian has a feature called Reasons to be Cheerful, so we are in good company! And one of their reasons made me very happy, new in at IKEA is this…

Oh how I love raspberry pink! Now IKEA is a day trip for us, we have to do the meatballs and everything, but I might have to work on a visit very soon. I realise there’s a whole love/hate thing with IKEA too. When we introduced Aimee to it she nearly had to be carried sobbing and screaming into the carpark after half an hour but lured in by something like raspberry pink dishes I think I can be brave!

Going from one extreme to another, in this case a multinational Super Store to an individual business, I love the way most of the things I buy on line from small retailers tend to arrive looking like little presents…

…bamboo crochet hooks from Wool and Buttons…

I love using bamboo knitting needles, I’ll let you know how I get on with these…

I’m being optimistic about the garden too, although the last few days have been too gloomy and wet to get anything done at all. I went out in the drizzle this morning to encourage Higgins to follow, he’d really rather not when it’s wet.

I had spotted the yellow crocuses which grow in the lawn were about to open and thought I could get a lovely shot of Higgins smelling the flowers…

‘Higgins! Look! What’s this?’

Gallopy gallopy…CHOMP!

…one less crocus to brighten the gloom…will I ever learn?

We went off to the garden centre to replace the mini plastic greenhouse which was really useful for starting off seeds but had been ripped off the wall and seen off by the gales. Fortunately, still half price so it didn’t break the bank at less than £15.00. This time we’ll put in stronger fixings. This is a problem when you live in windswept Norfolk.

A new trowel and fork in bright blue. New because you might have noticed someone chewed the handles off the old ones, and bright blue so I don’t keep mislaying them…

…and they look very jolly along with my gardening gloves…

And while I’m waiting to get to grips with the great outdoors, I have a few indoor projects from the cut price shelf to be going on with.

I’m very cheerful that I’ve sold one of my Love Bird Hearts on Folksy and later today I will be adding the larger one, which has been finished off with a primrose…

So, despite the gloom, I’m managing to keep my spirits up, how about you? If you’ve got some cheerfulness to share please join in with the Linky below, or leave a comment on the post. It’s always lovely to hear from you….!

A Blog Award

I’ve just been nominated for an award! Isn’t that fabulous? Thank you SO much, TillymintBoutique…

It’s to be awarded to blogs with fewer than 200 followers, and I don’t actually know many followers I have, as WordPress doesn’t work like Blogger. (I’ve recently started using Bloglovin’ which works really well, so if you would actually like to officially follow me, the button is up on the left hand side bar! Ed. to add: and now I’ve found a subscribers widget too! )

The rules are simple:

– Show thanks to the blogger who awarded you by linking back to their blog…
– Post your top 5 blogs and let them know by leaving a comment on their blogs…
– Post the award on your blog!

…and I have chosen five ‘young’ blogs to pass on to you all…

They are, in no particular order:

Daisies Divine for knitting and sewing
Moobaacluck an artist and illustrator with a great range of hand painted goodies.. I’m after some painted bunting!
PickleLily making and baking in Somerset
Knitsofacto knitting and crochet and gorgeous photography
Faith knitting and crochet and the most adorable puppy!

Do visit them and say hello, there’s lots to see!

I’ll be back very soon with this week’s Reasons to be Cheerful. I hope you’ve been looking for them amongst the January gloom so you are ready to join in!

See you soon x

Love Birds and Hearts for Handmade Monday

Hello, It’s Handmade Monday time again! Doesn’t it come round quickly? It very good for concentrating the mind though, otherwise SO much time could be wasted on Pinterest, purely for research purposes of course!

I would like to say thank you to every one who left such kind comments on last week’s Handmade Monday post about my exciting trip to the hospital. I’m still absolutely fine, but I really appreciated your concern, thanks so much …

I’ve been busy making, but plotting too, so I’m going to run my latest plan by you as it may be something you would like to join in with. A while ago I had two beautiful raised beds put in the vegetable area of the garden. They have lovely chunky railway sleepers which you can sit on, and metal bars over which I can put a polythene cover to make them into mini poly tunnels. (If you’ve been visiting for a while, you’ll know they have featured on several occasions in Higgins type incidences and if you put ”raised beds’ in the search box you will find plenty to have a giggle at, too many for me to add individual links to here!)

Last year I got so tied up with the Open Studio plans that nothing really got started, so I decided that this year, I will get to grips with the whole thing, and see how much I can produce using the two raised beds and some containers. I’m going back to basics, and I will be picking the brains of my friend Gaynor, who lives in the next village. Gaynor is one half of Home Grown Revolution, who specialise in raised beds, and one of her New Year’s resolutions was to get out from the office and to get her hands dirty in the veg garden. As the other one was to start a blog, we are going to be helping each other along, so watch this space, I hope it’s going to be fun!

With Valentine’s Day fast approaching I’ve been turning my thoughts to something new to needlefelt, and so we have the Love Bird…

He’s just 2 to 3 inches tall, but he has some smaller little friends too, who have come to roost in little woolly hearts…

and they’ll be for sale in the Folksy shop very soon.

I’ve been playing around in the button box again…

…and I’ve tried, but not quite managed to produce a crochet square a night with my lovely New Zealand wool…

…if only there were more hours in the day!

With that in mind I will step away from the computer, and leave you to pop over to 1st Unique Gifts where Wendy is hosting the Handmade Monday Linky to find out just what everyone else has been up to over the past week.

See you soon …x

Silent Sunday

Reasons to be Cheerful about January!

It’s a good thing I take my camera with me where ever I go so I can catch those fleeting moments of loveliness which are standard for British weather in any month of the year. Today has been gloomy, damp and grim. Tim has just come home with Higgins with a thick layer of mud on his underside. That’s the problem with a 4″ inside leg measurement!

However on Monday the day dawned like this…

and ended like this…

…and in the middle was a chilly walk on the beach!

Which was very enjoyable!

I had a really good time at the OutHouse Studio in Aylsham yesterday, teaching a beginners needlefelt course. I didn’t realise it was the very first course to be run, which made me feel rather honoured. It was a small group but everyone had lots of fun,(including me) and were very happy to go home with a Cupcake pincushion. The OutHouse now has a website which you can find here and if you are in Norfolk do keep an eye out for all the other crafts which will be featured over time. Next month the course is needlefelt animals, which I promise to show you soon.

And there are Wedding plans! My younger son is getting married in May and my future daughter in law and I are plotting flowery country loveliness galore. Obviously all under wraps for the moment, but if you have any suggestions of blogs or websites of the crafty country wedding kind, we’d love some tips!

And finally I’d like to share this, the best Facebook status I’ve seen…

“listening to music while sorting out paperwork makes the job worthwhile!!”

I’m sure you’re wondering why, most of us listen to music on a daily basis. But this was written by my niece, who recently had her cochlear implant switched on…How fantastic is that!

So what are you reasons to be cheerful this week? Do join in, via the Linky below or in the comments column and spread a little happiness, all over the world!

See you soon xxx

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life

Are you superstitious? How was Friday 13th for you? It’s never been a problem for me and I’ve tended to let it pass me by, but I’ve had my Friday 13th moment now and after a little debate with myself, I’ve decided to share it with you.

I went to bed on Thursday with a hot water bottle on a sore tum, and although that subsided in the night, I still wasn’t feeling terribly good and so drove myself off to the surgery. Imagine my surprise when after questions and tests, it was decided that an ambulance should be called! My initial reaction was to want to go home for a lie down and wait for it to go away, but I was told firmly that they couldn’t actually rule out a heart attack or an aortic aneurysm and I wouldn’t be much good to anyone if I went home and died. Blimey! Oh all right then…

You’ve got to give the good old NHS it’s due. I’ve moaned a lot about it in the past, but when you need it it, it’s there, you get put in the system and there’s no one there waiting for you to produce your cheque book first.

So off in the ambulance, covered in sticky dots and attached to a monitor. It was all so surreal I didn’t feel the slightest bit worried, and was really excited when the siren went on!

Anyway to cut a long story short, I’m fine. I had loads of tests and everything came back normal. The worst thing about the day was I didn’t have my emergency knitting, or a book so I was very bored, and hospital Cauliflower Cheese is appalling, how do you cook carrots so they are both bendy and crunchy at the same time? (The suggestion is that I’ve probably got an acidy gastric thing going on so it’s just as well I’ve got back to home cooking!)

So I might have my gloomy January moments, but I do look on the bright side about a ride in an ambulance!

And talking of January gloom and adding some brightness, I was inspired by this post over on Countrystyle Living to try a bit of candle recycling. I had a couple of ends of scented candle which when added to an ordinary white household candle and melted down made enough wax for this…

I used the wick from the household candle in the cup…

…and I’m very pleased with the result. It gives a rather neglected little teacup and saucer it’s moment of glory too!

I also have a new LYS. Well I’ve cheated rather, there’s a lovely shop called Norfolk Yarn in a part of Norwich I just never seemed to get to , but now I can count it as local because my Son and Daughter-in-law to be have moved in just a 6 minute walk away (can you tell I Googled it!) So when we called for coffee on Saturday I knew I had to do a detour to have a little browse around.

This is also where I found the Silent Sunday spinning wheel. I had one once a long time ago, but it didn’t fit in with a small house, three children, a large dog and no time. As I still have a small house and no time I think I’ll just stick to admiring other peoples!

And I did fall in love with the beautiful bag which the shop owner brought out to show me…

…and this is the base…

It’s knitted with Noro yarn and felted, and I shall be investigating the source of the pattern shortly. I feel a project coming on!

I couldn’t come away empty handed though, could I? I was thrilled to see the Ashford Tekapo wool which Alice uses over on Crochet with Raymond and as she has spoken so highly of it I bought enough to get me going. The plan is for another sampler blanket similar to this one which I started this blog with…

This one went off to the grandsons to snuggle up in, but I’m hoping to make a more outdoorsy, cosy one for sitting under when it gets chilly by the barbecue so I’ve chosen something a bit subtler than my usual colour pallette…

I’ve got some pattern books for inspiration, a new one…

This one I’ve had a while…

…and this one dates back to 1979!!!

…but it’s got some amazing inspiration inside!

After that, my first dabblings look a little tame, but we’ll see!

Well, I’d better stop now. There is a chicken roasting in the oven with a bunch of thyme stuffed in the cavity and there’s a most tantalising smell wafting my way! I’ve got a few last things to get ready for teaching the Needlefelted cupcake pincushion course at The OutHouse in Aylsham this coming Tuesday. If you are in Norfolk there are still a couple of places left, it would be lovely to see you!

I’m off to link up with the amazing Wendy of 1st Unique Gifts, who does so much and still manages to host Handmade Monday each week! Do go over and find all the other links and see what’s been going on…

See you soon…xxx