Author Archives: pennygj

Needlefelted Robins for Handmade Monday

It’s the final run down to the Pick’n’Mix Maker’s Market in the lovely market town of Holt,  Norfolk on the 26th November which is NEXT WEEKEND!!! (Aaaah! Speak severely to self….’Calm down, dear!’)

Actually I am looking forward to it, panic aside, because I will see so many friends, especially Emma of Silver Pebble, Celia of Purple Podded Peas, Gabriella of Moobaacluck, Tracey and Craig of Faded Splendour, and the hostess with the mostess, Lisa of Bobobun.  And there will be Daisy Boo’s Kitchen…and CAKE…and lots of other lovely stalls!

So as, much to my delight, my little Carol Singing Mice sold almost immediately I have made another group, and they are just waiting  to collect their song sheets and bell…

Needlefelted Mice…and I have been making more needlefelted robins, this time to hang on the Christmas tree…

needlefelt robin decoration

needlefelt robin decoration

needlefelt robin decoration

Despite my efforts to remained focussed I did get somewhat side tracked by discovering the delights of the ‘hexipuff’. It came at me from two different directions, firstly in Vanessa’s post on ‘Do You Mind If I Knit’, and then on the UKHandmade website.  Isn’t this pretty?

Such a brilliant way of using leftover sock yarn!  These are my first efforts…


…and the lovely thing is that UK Handmade are collecting donated hexipuffs to make a quilt to raise funds for charity, and you can find out all about it here.

I think I qualify to enter Handmade Monday this week!  If you drop over to Wendy’s Blog on 1st Unique Gifts you’ll find plenty more to see.

See you soon! x

Mid November Cheerfulness


What do you think of that for an Autumnal photo?  Albertine usually only does her stuff, very spectacularly, for three weeks in June!  She’s a little confused!

It’s been a little hectic this week, and again I’ve had moments of ‘Humph, what is there to be cheerful about?’ but it’s always there when you look for it.

We had a bit of worry over my mum.  She struggles heroically with all sorts of health issues and keeps amazingly positive but this week new pills rendered her a bit more wobbly than usual and for the first time she had to use her alarm necklace and we had a call to rescue her.  She’s less than a mile away so we were there within minutes to find that she had gently capsized rather than fallen, and had only damaged her dignity.  It was so fortunate that Tim was home though as I could never have got her off the floor single handedly and probably would have had to call the emergency services.  Knowing  my mum, she’d have said, ‘Ooh, lovely, firemen!’

So for a couple of days I’ve been going round every couple of hours but now the doctor has been and the pills sorted out we are back to normal for the moment.  Such a worry though.

Any way, The sun’s been shining through the last remaining cherry leaves this morning…

I think over the next week the rest of the leaves will be down, but there’s been a lovely sparkly carpet for a small dog to rush about on!…

If you look in the top left hand corner of the first Higgins photo you’ll see my  Drummer Boy rose which is still blooming too…

I rescued it from the ‘Nearly Dead’ bin at the local garden centre some years ago and it has been gratefully flowering every year since!  And talking of buying plants, I was very happy to find hyacinths to buy at the Farmers Market last Saturday.

You might remember last winter I had these…

…and now I have these to look forward too…


This morning Selvedge arrived…

Which has gone into the pile with Country Living…


…and Country Homes and Interiors…

…to be read, sometime, when I’m not wielding a a red hot felting needle!

Which reminds me.  Thank you for all the suggestions which were made about listing the Felty Balloons on Folksy.  I’ve taken them all on board, but I think I will wait now until after the Pick’n’Mix Market which is in 10 days time.  It would be rather lovely if I don’t have any left to list, wouldn’t it? We’ll see!

Yesterday afternoon I went out to the studio with express intention of have a good tidy up, walked in, spotted a particular piece of fleece, had a brainwave and ended up needlefelting again!  But it was very productive, because I made this little chap…

I thought if he had a couple of brothers, they could go carol singing, and here they are!  This one has the music…

…this one rings the bell…

…and this one knows all the words!

They are quite wee, just over 2″ tall, and look SO cute on the mantlepiece. However, I will be sensible, and they ARE for sale! (Ed. to add: and were sold, the very next day! Another reason to be cheerful!)

I hope that you too have found some ‘Reasons to be Cheerful’  even if you felt it’s been a tricky week so far.  And I hope too that you’ll be able to join in with the ‘Linky’ so that we can spread a little happiness about.  I’ve really enjoyed popping off to other blogs,  and sharing the cheerfulness.  I’ve decided to start the Linky slightly earlier, Wednesday afternoon rather than Thursday morning to give as much time as possible for people to find it and join in and so here it is!

See you soon xx


A Hearty Handmade Monday!

Happy Monday!  The beginning of another week, and I think now, like it or not, we have to admit that Christmas is coming.  41 days!  oo-er!

Have you started the Christmas shopping yet?  I’ve been so busy thinking about having things on my stall for the Pick’n’Mix Makers Market I just haven’t had a thought about actually buying things myself!  I’m sure I’ll find the answer to several pressie dilemmas on the other stalls there. If you want to see just what’s coming up, have a look at this post about the June Market.

So what have I been making this week?  There’s been more of the same with the baubles and the dolly peg dolls, which have already started to sell so I need to keep up,  but the new thing was in response to a remark about the Duck I made for the Auction for Team Hannah (where you can bid for him!)…

…and his jolly heart shaped balloon.

So I’ve made some more.  With spots!

It reminds me of the film Up…

I really love all those cheerful colours.

I would like to put these for sale on Folksy, the problem being the infinite variety, it would take so long to list them.  I’m really not good at churning out masses of things all the same.  I suppose if I listed them by the main colour, people could take pot luck on the spots, I don’t know…. What do you think?

I just think they look so jolly.  Would be fun in a nice shiny green pot plant!

If you like Handmade Monday, go over to see Wendy of 1st Unique Gifts, where lots of other creative people have links to what they’ve been up to.

I must get back to my felting needle, see you soon x

P.S. To those of you who have been missing Higgins, he’s fine and full of mischief as ever.  If you need a little mini dachshund fix, you can find a post he wrote a while ago just here!

Searching for Reasons to be Cheerful…

I have to admit to having to look really hard this week for any cheerfulness at all!  It’s entirely weather related, and I’m sorry to be so feeble.  I haven’t coped at all with the heavy layer of cloud which has been sitting on top of our little corner of Norfolk, my mother describes it as being inside a Tupperware box with the lid on…

But this morning, hooray… after a gloomy start the clouds started to break…

and as the weather lifted, so did my spirits…

and of course there are reasons to be cheerful!

The very first one must be the wonderful response that I had from my last post about Team Hannah which you can read in the comments there.  I know Hannah has been very appreciative and if you go to the Team Hannah website you will see the amount raised is moving steadily up, although there is still along way to go.   Its very uplifting to find out how many kind and caring people are out there.

I’ve been beavering away making Christmas decorations for the Pick’n’Mix Makers Market which is not far away now, and as part of my stall I have bought a Christmas Tree, which is …whisper it….up my studio with decorations on it!!!!!  In November!!! Very scary!  I’m not going to frighten you with pictures of the tree, but just a little peek…

Coming on nicely I think, and out on my walk this afternoon there was holly…

and ivy…

…so I’m really getting into the spirit of things!

Out in the garden, there are still a few brave plants doing their thing.  the Welsh Poppy…

…and these little blue flowers which normally flower in late Spring whose name escapes me for the moment…

…and the Eden rose.

This isn’t a rose I would really recommend as it has these spectacular heavy blooms on spindly weak stems so it’s very droopy, and the roses easily rot in wet weather.  but they do last for ages as a cut flower, and it’s trying awfully hard to do its stuff at the moment!

I also found this dear little bird feeder in our little market town this morning which I hope the birds will discover soon…

…and it cost £3!! I couldn’t believe it!

Well I’ve certainly exceeded my three reasons this week, and I haven’t even come to the one which cheered me up no end last night.  I won something!!  Such a surprise.  Wendy over on 1st Unique Gifts had a giveaway draw, and despite having 72 participants, I won one of Wendy’s brilliant clocks.  And it’s SO appropriate!

Isn’t it great!

So what are your Reasons to be Cheerful this week?  Can you share them so that if like me, someone is having fit of the winter glums we can visit your blog for a little happy moment.  Just add yourself to the Linky at the bottom of this post and then we can find you, and if you don’t have a blog do join in via the comments.  I love to hear from you…

I’ll leave you with another beautiful Winter Sky…

See you soon x


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