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.

And the wind blew…

I have an ‘Albertine ‘ rose which grows to the left of the garden doors. For about 48 weeks of the year it is an unwieldy thug, rampant and thorny, insinuating itself into other shrubs and trying to get into the house. It always redeems itself in June though, being smothered in blancmange pink blooms with a delicate scent. This year it’s been particularly lovely, and I’ve so enjoyed the fact it has tumbled round the window so I can see it from inside the house. I was so sad then, on drawing the curtains back one morning last week to find the previous nights storm had ripped the best part of it off the wall and it was lying in a soggy heap of slimy petals on the grass. Cut back and retied it will live to bloom another day, but it no longer frames my view into the garden. My only consolation was a vase of roses straight from a page of ‘Country Living’ which graced the dining table for a few days.

World Knit in Public Day

Saturday 13th June was World Knit in Public Day so we took ourselves off to the village shop and sat outside, wowing the passing public with our knitting skills! The sun shone, Andy in the shop supplied coffee and biscuits, and we spent a pleasant morning chatting to the shop customers as they came to collect their morning papers. A couple of people went home and collected their own knitting projects so that they could come back and join us. It was nice to think that we were part of something so global , and yet we were able to take part in it on our own doorsteps.

If you look very closely at me in the left of the photo you will see I am wielding giNORMOUS knitting needles made by my friend Bill, (in return for some mad socks). I was able to use up a vast quantity of fluffy wool 10 strands at a time to make what I thought would be a rug. Henry thinks differently, so at the moment it’s a cat bed.

Unfinished symphonies, crochet & knit – finished!

A big gap since my last entry while I applied myself to all those projects I was writing about. The crochet blanket had been lurking in a basket for quite a while since I first started working my way through a book of crochet squares patterns.

I’d got to the point of joining the squares which is deadly dull, and I needed the impetus of hearing about my son Thomas’ move into an old cold house with two small boys to push me into action and get it done and dusted. Now it is finished and delivered, and I am nursing a rotten cold, I’m wishing I had one for me!

Once I had that under my belt I was on a roll… Next was the floor cushion. I bought this amazing yarn from Ebay, a big hank of random dyed marino wool with a strange thick/thin twist and started knitting it out from the centre, log cabin style. I backed it with a piece of scarlet furnishing fabric from my stash, and fastened it with big buttons… it looks great! That went off to the grandsons as well!

Now all I have to do was to polish off the little pullover – done! – and I’ve cleared the decks for the next project. Except for the socks…

In the beginning…

So, I’ve talked about it long enough – I am now officially a blogger. Jane Brocket of the Yarnstorm blog must take the credit (or blame) for this as I had her lovely book, ‘The Gentle Art of Domesticity’ for Christmas and I am now fired with enthusiasm.

I ‘m doing my usual thing of having too many projects on the go at once, but when I saw Jane’s lovely wavy crochet throw I just had to have a go, especially as I had a bag of gorgeous soft bluebelly colours sitting by my chair. By the end of the first episode of the last Prime Suspect I had enough made to have a disagreement with Henry the cat about it. It would grow so much more quickly without 14 pounds of purring tabby cat sprawled across it! However, there is also the small matter of a basket of snappy turquoise and blue crochet squares to stitch together into a cosy blanket for small grandsons, a stripy pullover in a landscape of soft greens, gold and yellow for the larger of the two boys, and a gorgeous explosion of a big knitted square in firework colours to turn into a bean bag. So why am I sitting at the computer?