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.

Garden Volunteers

I’ve aready confessed to having lost the plot in the garden this year.  But it does carry on regardless, doesn’t it?  Last year I battled through with tomatoes, staking, watering, feeding, pinching out, and had to contend with splitting, blossom-end rot and terminal green-ness so I vowed I’d only grow them in my mother’s greenhouse in future, or not at all.

Of course this didn’t happen, due to my mother’s new knee saga so, succumbing to a rush of blood to the head, I bought two hanging baskets of Tumbler tomatoes thinking they would be ornamental as well as useful.  Once hung in a prominent position by the back gate, all the leaves shrivelled up and died.  I’m not going to insult my post with a photo.  They were so hideous I removed them from sight, parked them by the shed and ignored them. There, watered by the rain running off the shed roof and without a drop of Tomorite, they produced a good crop of tasty unblemished tomatoes.

I did manage to sow a few salad leaves in the raised beds, where,  in amongst the rocket which had been sadly decimated by something unidentified and voracious, I found the offspring of all those disasterous tomatoes of last year.  These are now tall and healthy and just beginning to fruit.

I am now watering them and pinching out etc, but will my intervention now mean they are going to turn up their toes? Where’s Alan Titchmarsh when you need him?  If they start sulking now I may well be on here in a few weeks time showing the world my little pots of green tomato chutney.

Jamming Session

Plum blossom

Some years ago I received a  wild plum tree from Country Living magazine which we planted at the edge of the garden.  I’ve always loved the delicate blossoms of the sloe trees which froth along the road sides in early spring, and I  thought that wild plums were sloes,  only really useable in sloe gin, being small and rather bitter.  It was quite a surprise to find that my little tree had produced beautiful sweet miniature plums.

Even more surprising was being able to harvest two and a half pounds of them.

Since Tim is away at work , I  felt that eating  that many  plums single handedly might have a slightly problematic effect, and I didn’t want them  to end up as a UFO (unidentified frozen object to you organised people out there who never create them) at the bottom of my freezer.  Jam is the answer… I had a sweet and sweaty session in the kitchen with David Tennant (Oh, all right, it was a rerun of Doctor Who – a girl can dream can’t she?) while testing and retesting for that scarily elusive setting point.  Eureka!  That’s it, and the jam is in the jars.

One for Tim and me, and one each for Thomas, Will, and Aimee.  Now, where’s the toaster….?

All Bobbled out!

Last night saw the monthly meeting of the Knit and Stitch group that I started in our village.  There was quite a debate at its inception as to whether we could advertise a ‘Stitch and Bitch‘ group in the parish magazine.  In the end it was decided that it might, just possibly, cause a fit of the vapours amongst those of a nervous disposition.  We are very delicate here in Norfolk!  Still, it hasn’t stopped us all having a very jolly evening once a month with wine, tea, coffee,  gossip and laughter and even the odd stitch or two.   Although the basis for the group is that we use stitches of all persuasions –  knitting, crochet, needlepoint, cross-stitch et al., we are currently working on a joint project making squares for a comfort blanket ahead of the Macmillan Coffee Morning at the end of September.  There are a variety of patterns from well known knitwear designers to be downloaded from the website and I happily started on the first of those, a rather lovely Debbie Bliss cabled square.

Debbie Bliss Macmillan blanket square

I have to report it’s completely unsuitable for  knitting  in company, especially with a nice glass of wine in the mix!  It is impossible to sit there muttering “Purl seven knit fifteen cable three back knit four make bobble knit two…. OH, *?!^$!*!!!? where was I?…” while every one else is chatting and having fun.  Carol sensibly opted for a straight moss stitch which looked great, and she didn’t rip it out once!  I got up this morning, made a cuppa and finished it in an hour.  I’ve now passed the pattern on to my mother, it may be the only Debbie Bliss one I make, the Martin Storey square looks quite relaxing!

Martin Storey Square

Although this colour really doesn’t do it for me!  To be continued… 

Sunny Sunday Afternoon…

 

With the press accusing the Met Office of causing disasterous holiday weather I must say here in Norfolk we’ve got off fairly lightly.  That’s not to say we haven’t had our moments, but in the spirit of  ‘making hay while the sun shines’, son William and I took our selves off the The Old Vicarage at East Ruston.  This is a wonderfully inspiring place for gardeners, formed as it is from a fairly unpromising plot on the Norfolk coast around an old empty Vicarage bought in the 1970s. The owners have transformed and added to the area, surrounding it with a belt of trees and creating a microclimate wherein a fabulous garden flourishes, with a plant sales area full of unusual treasures, and a tea room, and CAKE!  what more could you ask for a sunday afternoon?

I love the jungly feeling to the beginning of the walk…

From the cool of the trees we walked through the dry garden. The orange Californian Poppies look beautiful against the rocks and stones…

Then past the pond…

You can just see the amazing water snails under the lily pad.

I can never make up my mind if these are beautiful, or just a little bit spooky.

These too!

I wish I had  room to grow espalier style apples…

Then I was brought down to earth when I saw this, because it’s from Home Grown Revolution, and I have TWO and I was their first customer and I really have been rubbish in the vegetable garden this year!  Must try harder…

But then it was time for tea, Early Grey and lemon drizzle cake for me, coffee and something mapley and nutty for Will.  Oh dear, no photo, far too greedy, but we did leave a few crumbs, which were much appreciated.

We left via the plant shop with two Salvias, and a lot of inspiration.  That is the nice thing with gardens, there’s always next year!

The Finished Article

Before I can make further inroads into the textile mountain I have to finish what I started last week, the baby quilt.   I braved the temptations of Sew Creative at Wroxham Barns for the wadding and despite my best intentions bought some  backing fabric even though I had plenty at home.  It was just SO right!back

This is always the more fiddly bit of quilt making, where I usually put it away for another day, but now there is a baby waiting!  Once the quilt is finished, doing the edging is a nice peaceful hand sewing job in front of the television.

And it’s all finished and ready to wrap.

Quite a performance, I hope it’s worthy of an Oscar…

I do hope Oscar likes it!

A nice cup of tea…

A few years ago I carried about a little book in which I made notes about all the lovely things I had seen that I would really, really like to own. ( They were mostly culled from the Emporium pages of Country Living if I remember rightly!) Although the book has taken itself off to the ‘safe place’ where most of my things go, never to see the light of day again – it really is a VERY safe place – I do remember that one of my aspirations was to own a piece of Gabriella Miller pottery.and now I do…!

Lunch with Jen today, who knowing me so well, had cleverly chosen the perfect present. Which can be a vase…

..or revive me with a nice cup of mint tea.

Mint tea

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