Author Archives: pennygj

The Knitted Home – Ruth Cross … The Winner!

Two weeks ago I reviewed this great new book by Ruth Cross, The Knitted Home and offered a copy as the prize in a draw. There was a fantastic response: sixty comments in all, with some great knitting stories. It’s amazing how long some people have been knitting, so many people being taught by mums, and grannies. One person taught herself from a Ladybird book, and another learnt over the phone!

The one that made me laugh out loud was this… “My Grandpa taught me to knit, with his method that no child forgets! ”stab it, strangle it and pull its head off” not for the weak and feeble…” Thanks to Penelope Brown for that one, I shall use it myself!

I’m glad I made it a draw rather than saying it would be the best story which won because I wouldn’t have been able to decide. I allocated numbers to each entrant and use the online Random Number Generator which is a quick and fair way to select a winner (although it immediately makes me feel bad about everyone who didn’t win!)

Anyway, enough rambling on, the lucky winner is…number 16….Natalie, of Free Spirit Designs. Congratulations!

Now Natalie doesn’t actually knit yet, so I really hope this is the start of her knitting career. The Free Spirit Designs blog is here, and the Facebook Page is here so we’ll have to call in regularly to check up on Natalie’s progress!

(Don’t forget you can still buy the book at a special price, see the original post for details)

I will be back very soon with another fantastic and generous giveaway from the lovely chaps at MOO! I’m sure you need some business cards, postcards or similar…?

The Magic of Serendipity

Serendipity, a ‘happy accident’ ..it’s one of my favourite words. The older I get, the more aware I am of the opportunities created by the serendipitous nature of the every day. And this week’s happy accident all started with carrot cake!

I had an overdue hair appointment with my usual hairdresser, but in a different place because he is waiting to open his new salon. The appointment was long, so I took my Kindle and by the time my hair was deemed ready for the basin, the main character in the book had visited several coffee shops and eaten quite a lot of carrot cake. I found myself yearning for carrot cake. Having mentioned my craving, Jon, my hairdresser had the answer. The best carrot cake in Norwich he assured me, just up the road from where I was sitting.

Trips into Norwich these days are usually fraught with the need to get home to make my Mum’s lunch or walk Higgins, but today unusually my Mum was cared for, and Tim was on Higgins duty so I decided that lunch was going to be a slice of carrot cake and a cappuccino. Very decadent!

It was very nice carrot cake (and if you are a fan and find yourself in the Norwich Lanes visit the House Cafe and tell me if I’m right!) and, suitably replete I wandered back down the road doing a spot of window shopping. I ground to halt out side a shop full of the gorgeous fabric. So I just had to go in.

The shop is Arts Desire, and the Serendipity Fairy had just waved her magic wand…

…and it’s one of those shops you just want to move into. I would so love a wall like this…

…and all that pretty china. Here’s some of the gorgeous fabric…

..and there are kits…

…and ribbons…

…and more ribbons…

…it was all absolutely…

I do rather think I need that cushion!

And there was a dachshund!

Behind all this gorgeousness I found a Craft Lounge offering workshops in Lampshade Making, Knitting, Crochet, wet Felt making, Sewing, Quilting and Silver jewellery making. It’s Norwich’s answer to the Makery in Bath!

I had just established that there were no Needlefelting classes on offer when the owner returned from lunch and after ten minutes of nattering and comparing notes we had a cunning plan.

I regularly get emails asking if I teach Needlefelting Classes, and mostly I just teach private groups. Finding a good venue that people can get to easily has been the main drawback and Norwich has good routes from most places these days. So the Craft Lounge at Arts Desire, just off the centre of the city will be the perfect place to hold Needlefelt Workshops.

There are no dates as yet but it will be after Open Studios is over from the middle of June onwards. If you are interested please follow this link and leave your contact details (mentioning Planet Penny/needlefelt) in your message and we will keep you up to date.

Don’t despair if you are tempted by all this loveliness and live too far away because there is also an online shop and a Facebook Page so there are lots more goodies to drool over!

I will be back on Sunday with the results of the draw for the Ruth Cross book ‘The Knitted Home’. There’s still time to enter if you haven’t already, just leave your knitting story in the comments on the post here.

I will also have details of yet another great prize which I have been given to offer to you, so don’t forget to call back to take part.

See you soon…x

Sunshine and Flowers

Suddenly it’s Spring! It’s such an overwhelming change too, after a winter which seemed to go on forever. The daffodils at the side of the road, resolutely green and tight budded, responded to the sunshine so immediately you could practically hear the sound of popping as they opened. There’s now a definite green tinge to the brown twigginess of the hedgerows, in a few days Spring will really be busting out all over!

It’s been another busy week, which started with a trip to London. I went to meet the Pinterest Team, who came over from the US to organise a campaign with selected bloggers. And they selected me! Very honoured by that, and very surprised! Anyway, it all happens in May and I look forward to telling you all about it then.

With a little time to spare, I wandered round and went off to see St Paul’s, knowing that in a couple of days I would be seeing it on the news during the coverage of Margaret Thatcher’s funeral. I was too late to go inside, but it is a very beautiful and imposing building, especially with the blossom and late afternoon sunshine.

Back home, Open Studios is fast approaching. We’ve picked up boxes of brochures and postcards and tomorrow we’re off to the Forum in Norwich with our pieces for display in the Taster Exhibition which is on from Tuesday to Friday. I mentioned in this post that I was making a website for our Art Trail so if you would like to know more about us call over to the Two Rivers Trail (and watch out for the gorilla!)

I’m longing to find time to get out in the garden like some others I could mention…

…and Higgins isn’t the only one enjoying the sunshine out there either…

…but at the moment I tend to just wander round with a cup of tea and a camera in my tea breaks.

These little Grape Hyacinths have survived remarkably well considering they are on one of Higgins’ routes round the garden and he’s trodden on them regularly for months!

I’ve done nothing in the vegetable patch, so this little pansy has taken advantage and moved in…

I skived off from working for a couple of hours this morning to visit the beach. We’ve not been for ages as we’ve had weeks of Arctic winds blowing straight of the sea and I didn’t think it would do my sinuses much good! It hasn’t done the beach much good either, as our miles of pale gold sand has been scoured off and deposited elsewhere. The level of the beach must be about 15 feet lower, and there are pools and stretches of clay.

The huge chunks of granite which are part of the sea defences and normally partially hidden in the sand are exposed, and it was quite a feat of mountaineering to get over the top and on to the next stretch of beach.

Higgins really enjoyed the pools…

..and also discovered the most revolting bit of flotsam…or even jetsom..in the shape of a baby’s dummy. He smelt it from about 20 feet away, made a bee line for it and carried it all the way back to the car to put in his toy box!

So this is why I haven’t finished the project that was going to be my Hand Made Monday feature! I’m sure you don’t begrudge me a trip to the seaside though, and I will get back in the next few days when it’s done. I have also taken deliver of a fresh batch of Planet Penny yarn which I need to get back on to the Etsy site so it really is busy, busy, busy at the moment.

Don’t forget, there is still time to join in with draw for a copy of The Knitted Home by Ruth Cross. Just visit the post here, and leave your knitting story in the comments. Do take a moment to read some of the stories which have already been left, some of them really raise a giggle.

Back soon…x

The Knitted Home – Book Review

Every now and then I am asked if I would like to review a book, and I have to restrain myself from biting off the offering arm in my delight at the chance to see a new crafty publication! This one, the Knitted Home by the talented Ruth Cross arrived to fit in very nicely with the subtle, monochromatic vibe I embraced to produce my needlefelted sheep. This book is a visual delight, and feels gorgeous too! (Am I the only person to love the feel of the thick matt finish which seems to be used more and more for books and magazines?)

Throw and Cushion from The Knitted Home - Ruth Cross

Although some of the projects in this book are quite challenging, there are excellent clear instructions at the back of the book so even a completed beginner could get to grips with some of the easier patterns. Ruth’s explanations of creating textures with stitches will soon inspire the adventurous, and for many of the projects the main requirement is the patience to see a big project through to the end.

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cable throw -The Knitted Home - Ruth Cross

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textured knitting panels - The ~Knitted Home - Ruth Cross

The project I’m looking forward to trying is this beautiful table mat. I love this crushed raspberry colour, but I’m also dying to see whether it will work in Planet Penny rainbow colours. It starts off with 24 stitches and ends with 360 stitches, so even that is a challenge in itself!

circular place mat - The Knitted Home - Ruth Cross

But there is also a neat little pattern for beginners which is also a great way to make use of experimental squares when you are getting to grips with stitches and patterns. Turning them into lavender bags means you don’t have to accumulate a big bag of knitted bits to stitch into a blanket, just two little squares and you have the makings of a little pretty to hang in the wardrobe or drawer handle.

Stripey Lavender Bags - The Knitted Home - Ruth Cross

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Stripey Lavender Bags close up - The Knitted Home - Ruth Cross

And now the even more exciting bit…would you like to win a copy? I have one right here, sitting on my desk and it could be yours!

All you have to do is to leave a comment on this post and tell me what or who got you started with knitting. If you haven’t started knitting yet, well you can tell me about that too! You can comment up until Saturday 28th April, then I will put all the names into a virtual hat (Random Number Generator actually, I’ve tried getting Higgins to do it and he either eats the slips of paper, or the hat!) and announce the lucky winner on Sunday 29th April.

And if you can’t wait, you can purchase a copy of The Knitted Home at the special price of £16.00 (RRP £20.00) details below.

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To order The Knitted Home (9781906417727) for £16.00 including p&p*, telephone 01903 828503 and quote offer code JS190. Or send a cheque made payable to: Littlehampton Book Services Mail Order Department, Littlehampton Book Services, PO Box 4264, Worthing, West Sussex BN13 3TG. Please quote the offer code JS190 and include your name and address details. *UK ONLY – Please add £2.50 if ordering from overseas.

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I’m linking up again with Handmade Harbour and Handmade Monday again this week and I’m looking forward to hearing your knitting stories. Also, I would like to thank everyone who left such encouraging comments about my sheep in the last post. I always read your comments although I’m afraid I don’t get time to answer as many as I would like and they are always much appreciated. Thanks so much.

I’ll be back soon to tell you about my next adventure. I’m off to London tomorrow to find out about a campaign just for bloggers. Intrigued? So am I, because that’s all I know about it for now. Who knows, maybe I’ll meet some of you there.

Back soon…

All Sheep Shape…

Have you heard the sound of birds singing and sheep dancing on Planet Penny this week? It’s all because the sun is shining and I have finished my piece for the Norfolk and Norwich Open Studios Taster Exhibition at the Forum in Norwich….yippee! I’ve just looked back and found I published my Ta-daaa moment for the last piece almost exactly a year ago today, you can read it here. And I said “This has existed in my head for so long it was rather a shock to realise that I hadn’t actually made it yet, so I’ve been working on it all week” And I can say exactly the same this year. It’s amazing how a deadline focuses the mind!

But first, the sunshine. It’s still not very warm, but it was a relief to wake up yesterday morning and realise the wind was not whistling in the chimney which it’s been doing for days.

I’ve had the doors open into the garden for the first time this year (and kept my fleece on) to let some fresh air into the house and Henry and Higgins have appreciated being able to wander in and out as they please. Henry has a spot on a warm paving slab where in a few weeks he will be able to get spaced out on Cat Mint…

…and Higgins parked himself under the bird feeder to make sure no pesky birds could get at the little dish of water I put out for them. He found it was particularly delicious, so much nicer than the inferior water in the dog bowl!

There’s a lot of bare earth in the garden, even the weeds are holding back, but there are patches of Spring to enjoy…

And so to my big project for this week. I really wanted to do something completely different this time, to step away of the bright colours, the crochet, the small things. Also to challenge myself on the needlefelt front and make something much bigger than little birds and mice. So I’ve used a very subdued palette…

Natural Merino fleece with a background of charcoal grey.

So can you guess what I made? Well, of course it’s a sheep!

It’s actually quite hard to photograph and get the angle right…

It’s called ‘How to Knit a Sheep’… (but please don’t ask me for a pattern!)

The knitted part starts off as unspun fleece and gradually reduces in thickness until it becomes undyed 4 ply to knit the lacy part.

This has been a rare moment when the finished piece is almost the same as the picture in my head, hence the singing and dancing! As you can imagine, I haven’t done a lot else this week but there are exciting Planet Penny things in the pipeline which I hope to share with you soon.

It’s Handmade Monday again this week so I’m linking up with Wendy for Handmade Monday over on Handmade Harbour and I’ll be back very soon…x

Waiting for Spring

Happy Easter! It seems strange to start a post entitled ‘Waiting for Spring’ that way but we are really stuck in some topsy turvy weather at the moment. Hard to credit getting up on the first morning after the clocks change for British Summer Time to a sprinkling of snow! We’ve actually got off lightly here in Norfolk as far as snow goes, the pictures of devastated farmers digging their sheep out of snowdrifts in other parts of the country have been heartbreaking. We’ve just got the Arctic blast coming straight off the North Sea and hitting us sitting on the exposed lumpy bit sticking out of the East of England to contend with.

So I’m sharing a pretty Spring like picture to cheer us up…

Higgins is not a fan of going out in the cold and I’ve had a running battle with him over the building of dachshund ‘nests’ out of the soft furnishings. He’s only really happy when he has buried himself and if he finds himself on the sofa with no available ‘blankie’ he will grizzle until he’s been covered up.

Since he’s eaten the corners of all the old cushions he now has a cushion of his very own, and a fleece blanket he can do whatever he likes with. Unfortunately, he feels these are just not good enough, and compare very poorly with the fluffy throw I have draped over the back of the sofa, and the new velvet cushions in anemone colours I rashly bought a few weeks ago.

Every time my back is turned, this happens…

…and he might look guilty…

…but that doesn’t mean he’s going to move!

I’ve reached a bit of a hiatus on Planet Penny just now. It’s always slightly problematic judging stock levels with the Planet Penny cotton because I don’t have a huge amount of space to store it. Unfortunately an unexpected rush of orders has coincided with a couple of colours being out of stock at the suppliers so it’ll be first come first served on the few packs remaining until the middle of April.

But…

There are some changes afoot. I’ll be trialling a new pack, which some of you have been asking about for a while AND I have a new venture in the pipeline which I will tell you about later on in the year, so I’m not standing still by any means.

Meanwhile, Open Studios is on the horizon and I have started an ambitious needlefelted piece for exhibition so a lull on the cotton front is probably a good thing. There are only so many hours in the day! It’s refreshing change to be doing something creative and challenging just for me, I hope it turns out looking at least a little bit like the image in my head.

Just a reminder, the Bunny crochet pattern offer ends tomorrow, Easter Monday at 5pm UK time. After that it will be available through the Etsy shop, but for now it’s still yours for FREE!

I changed the yarn to make this version, a big soft squidgy version as a baby toy…

I’m off now to dig Higgins out of his latest nest, put on his coat and march him round a field or two…

…and then get back to my felting needle. Don’t forget to nip over the Handmade Harbour to see what’s going on for Handmade Monday this week.

I’ll see you soon…x