Author Archives: pennygj

Blogtober 2022 – Day One

Welcome to October, and yes, it’s properly Autumn now, the heatwave is a distant memory. I seem to have gone seamlessly from moaning about being too hot to complaining about the cold, so I need to speed up the knitting and crochet creations to keep myself and the rest of the family warm. I just can’t knit socks quickly enough!

Higgins is spending a lot of time wrapped up in a blanket which is the default position for dachshunds it seems. We’ve got to the point where, if he is comfortably ensconced on my lap and snuggled in a throw, I get the most horrible groans and grumbles from him if I have to get up. He’s definitely turned into a grumpy little old man!

I’ve been time travelling, looking at old blog posts and reliving memories, trying to decide how to tidy things up and make them more relevant. My biggest decision has been to revamp the Rainbow Mouse patterns, both crochet and knit. As I no longer have the Etsy shop where they used to be for sale, I’m going to make them available as PDF for free on here. This will happen in the near future so keep a lookout, I will let you know.

So, a short post, but a beginning. I’m off to sort out ‘work in progress’ for a revived pattern I shall be sharing soon. This will entail a blanket, a cup of tea, an audio book, and my four-legged helper who I hope will not get tied up with the wool and needles!

Until tomorrow…x

Blogtober 2022 – coming soon!

Gosh, I’m embarrassed to pop up after all this time and say I’m taking part in a blogging challenge! But I shall do my very best to reinstall the habit, and stop faffing about saying I must change the theme/tidy up the out of date bits/scrap everything and start an entirely new blog. I need to just write, and see what happens!

Tiny squares crochet — Tiny Squares Crochet Scarf – 2009

One thing I’ve done is go back to the very VERY beginning of my blogging journey and had quite a revelation. When I started Planet Penny, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing, I just wrote, and it was fun. I got a routine going for photographing what I was doing, downloading and editing the photos as I went, it all became as natural as breathing.

But gradually, things started to get technical. Blogger wasn’t good enough, it had to be WordPress. When I started my business I started to get nagged about Keywords, SEO, Cornerstone content, URLs all that stuff which makes me confused and grumpy.

Fair Isle cushions and Crochet Blanket 2010

And yes, I did build my stats up, and the business went well and all of that. But now I can see that it gradually sucked the pleasure out of just writing about the things I do and things I love.

Even Photoshop which I used to edit my photos and could do almost with my eyes closed gradually became so technical and ultimately too expensive that I gave up on it.

And then there was Brexit which wiped out the business side of Planet Penny, and then the pandemic which has affected everything and everybody.

So I’m throwing all that ‘stuff’ out of the window and I’m just going to turn up and woffle on about things. I hope I won’t be boring (do tell me if I am!) and that you’ll join in and tell me what you’ve been doing too.

I’m looking forward to the challenge, see you on 1st October…x

Thank you!

What a wonderful welcome back you have given me, unexpected and so heartwarming. Thank you…

I thought I would share with you something pretty personal to me which might give you a little insight to my journey back here. It certainly helped me make sense of my own life over the past few years and some clarity as to how I want to travel into the future.

I had a lot of pleasure drawing it too!

New Year, Same Me!

Apparently the best way to counteract writer’s blog is write. Just write. So here I am, kick starting the Planet Penny blog again by waffling on a bit and wondering if there is still someone out there.

But actually, it doesn’t matter if everyone has moved on, I’m going to write this for me and see where it takes me. And if you are still out there, give me a shout, a wave and tell me how you are doing, I’d love to catch up.

It’s been a funny old time over the past couple of years. In the beginning lockdown seemed a wonderful opportunity to be madly creative and get loads done. But I, like many other people, just ended up retreating into the far dark depths of my cave and being totally unproductive. Not an original thought to be had.

But over the past few weeks small pointy shoots of creativity have broken through the barren ground at the front of the cave and I have crept out and have been knitting like a woman possessed. Socks for all! Fingerless mitts! A temperature blanket!

So I’m going back to my roots, to the very beginning of this blog (fourteen years ago this month) I’m going to make things and write about them and see where it takes me.

If you would like to follow my journey you are more than welcome. I would love the company!

Norwich Castle Reborn – Even More Stitches!

Having signed myself up to a 100 Day Project involving a lot of stitches, I seem to have committed myself to producing even more over the next few months.

A couple of weeks ago some friends and I took ourselves off to Norwich Castle Museum to see an exhibition. The exhibition was wonderful, but naturally any excursion with chums just has to involve coffee and cake, doesn’t it?

City of Norwich Castle and Cathedral — Courtesy Norwich Castle

So it was in the Rotunda coffee shop that we spotted an group of ladies beavering away with needle and thread, producing the most amazing stitchwork, reminiscent of the Bayeux Tapestry. Nosiness took over, naturally, and we wandered over to find out what was going on and before we knew it two of us had signed up to join in!

Last Thursday saw us trotting off to the Shirehall alongside the Museum to learn the stitches we would need to create a banner to hang behind the throne in the Keep. Such glory! Such responsibility….eeek!

The Shirehall was a revelation. I’ve driven past it nearly all my life and never before been inside. It is now the Museum Study Centre, dark and gloomy passageways, bars at the windows, but the most fabulous entrance hall, and a beautiful stained glass dome which cannot been seen from anywhere outside.

We had an intensive day with our tutor, it’s a privileged to be able to learn stitching skills like these for free, and amazing how completely exhausting wielding a needle and thread can be.

Yesterday we headed back into the city as some of our fellow volunteers were at the latest Norfolk Makers Festival held in the Forum in Norwich and we wanted to catch up with what was going on. So much amazing work; we are feeling quite daunted but really happy to be involved in such amazing project.

Tomorrow we are back at the Shirehall brushing up on our applique techniques so another day of intense concentration, and I’m still stitching away at my slow stitched shirt every day! (and knitting a sock, but that’s another story!)

And so is the Norfolk Makers Festival! If you are in the area it is well worth a visit, and I’ll be back to tell you more about it.

See you soon…x

Slow Stitching and The 100 Day Project

I have been slow stitching my way into 2020 nursing a January cold and general ennui! But the snowdrops are beginning to appear, February is here, and the evenings are noticeably lighter. It’s time to shake off the slough of despond created by politicians, trolls and the media and focus on our own mental health, the wellbeing of our nearest and dearest and those in the wider world in need of support.

I have struggled to get myself into gear after Christmas, but thought one way was to join in with the 100 Day Project. Giving myself a daily challenge to do something, however small, to engage myself with creativity. And so enters the favourite shirt!

2011 – now the two little lads at the front are taller than me!

I have had this shirt a long long time!

It’s spent some time languishing in a cupboard because I ‘grew’ out of it, but Slimming World has helped out with that aspect and I’ve been wearing again over the last few months. It’s soft worn linen and cotton, it’s blue and white stripes. I love blue and white stripes! You’ll find any number of permutations in my wardrobe, including all my pyjamas.

But there were a few places where the enthusiastic serving of bolognese sauce has left small stains, where catching the door handle on passing has created a little tear, a lost button, a worn out elbow. In this day of recycling the obvious answer was a patch or two, a darn.

And so my slow stitch 100 Day Project was born. I signed up and pledged to do my thing: every day for 100 days I will stitch my shirt. I will embroider a bit, applique a bit, find loved scraps to stitch into place, and see just how far I can take my soft striped shirt into another existence. It will be an incentive to carry on losing weight as all those stitches are going to slightly shrink it in the process, but that can only be a good thing.

A while ago I spent a day with the lovely Hiroko Aeno-Billson learning about the Japanese art of Boro mending, visible mending of treasured clothes and textiles. This, and a borrowed book Slow Stitch by Claire Wellesley-Smith are keeping me inspired. The project started on 22nd January so I’m a bit late sharing this but I have to keep going until 30th April…phew!

I shall be sharing this journey on Instagram as much as possible as well as on the blog so if you interested come and find me there. I’d love to know if you are joining in with your own project, or if you are slowly stitching and mending too.

Have a lovely week, I’ll be back soon…x