Author Archives: pennygj

Away in a Manger…

A while ago I mentioned the Crib and Wreath Festival at our local church, and the contribution the Knit and Stitch group were working on. Last week we all gathered at the church to set up our pieces in readiness for the Festival. At time like this you see anew the beauty of the typical English church and St Michael and All Angels at Barton Turf is very typical. It is, of course, far to big for the parish it serves which now no longer has even a village shop, and so it functions under that peculiar regime of worship and fund-raising found up and down the country these days.

Inside, the stalwart band of ladies essential to the running of any village affair mustered their troops. How could anything function without these unpaid treasures who organise events, arrange flowers, polish pews, run errands and generally oil the wheels of rural life? Years of fundraising for St Michael’s has resulted in the recent installation of a loo and small kitchen, no mean feat to sympathetically integrate these modern necessities into the architecture of a 14th Century church, but it does allow it to function as a community centre, and give it a role which justifies its upkeep. And means a plentiful supply of soup, rolls, tea and cake for visitors to its various displays, festivals and celebrations. (and coffee and biscuits when you turn up on a cold wet morning to set up your stand!)

I was really happy with the swags we had made for the font, a loose interpretation of the wreath idea which meant that there were four pieces to be entered for the secret auction, and the rich colours looked beautiful against the pale old stone. The Knit and Stitch Ladies had been really busy making small items for sale, knitted crackers, stockings and baubles, crochet snowflakes, gift bags, angels and hearts, and the whole display was topped off with an amazing knitted crib scene. I apologise for the lack of photos at this point, I was over absorbed by the task in hand!

Yesterday afternoon I persuaded my mother out of her house to visit the festival. Not easy these days now she is wheelchair bound and these things involve ramps and other people fussing. She hates to feel she is a nuisance. I’m so glad I did. The weather was sunny, with a gentle breeze, the church was bright and warm and there were lots of people she knows but hardly sees these days. She loved the exhibits and then, unexpectedly, there was a Navity Tableau put on by the local primary school. Are you, like me, completely undone by a childrens Nativity play? Our local rock star(well he would have been, given the right breaks) strummed carols softly on his guitar while his wife read the Christmas story as the children enacted it. At the first sight of Joseph in his dressing gown, teatowel on head and glasses slightly crooked, alongside a diminutive Mary teaming traditional blue with Ugg boots, the pair of us welled up. The shepherds tramped down from the hills in search of baby Jesus, who had been found with surprise under her chair by Mary, and quickly recovered for a cuddle. As the shepherds reenacted their route from the hills by walking up and down the aisles (gently steered at the corners by a grownup when they looked as if they were heading off course) the smallest one happily swung his lamb backwards and forwards in the air. Angel Gabriel looked stern, the star twinkled prettily as she led the Kings to the stable, the rock star played ‘Away in a Manger’ and Mother and I dabbed our eyes.

What nicer way to start the run up to Christmas?

Happy feet in hand knitted socks

I’m celebrating the completion of a second pair of socks! Despite my little difficulty about repeating myself, I’ve actually made not one but two pairs of matching socks with Christmas presents in mind. I don’t make them for just anybody. They take too long, and the wool is too expensive to give then to the people who look at them askance and then buy multipacks of sports socks from Matalan (you know who you are!) No my socks are for the appreciative people in my life, and for them I am happy to acknowledge the fact that they have two feet and go that extra mile to produce two socks the same. Although the price of a ball of sock yarn to produce one pair is more than that multi pack, I realised today as I was lining up my personal collection for a photoshoot that I am still wearing the first pair I ever made, in 2004. And they still make me happy…

I had a little help with the photography, Higgins wasn’t sure about the lighting…

Electrical Disturbances

A couple of years ago, at the end of a fairly protracted renovation project on our house, we had a house fire. Only a little fire, but with vast amounts of smoke from all the electrical wiring involved, which permeated the entire house with thick black oily smoke. Only the week before I had been taken off to hospital in an ambulance with appendicitis so I and Henry the cat were safely recuperating at my mother’s house on the other side the village at the time of the fire. In my rather fragile state, the state of our house and possessions was enough to cope with, I really didn’t need to hear too much detail about the actual event. Unfortunately, my mother’s gardener at the time was a retained fireman, a garrulous man who delighted in the opportunity to lean on his spade and hold forth. Thus cornered one day he regaled me with the exciting tale of how he had broken down our front door with an axe, and with non existant visibility had gone in wearing breathing apparatus, and crawled around on the bedroom floor looking for my body! These images haunted me for months, and I struggled with settling back into our home for quite some time because of them.

All this is to set the scene so that you can imagine how I felt at quarter to five this morning, with Tim in the middle of the North Sea, waking up from a deep sleep and hearing the crackling of electric wiring shorting. Having established it was coming from the main electrical feed into the house, what to do? I did NOT want a posse of firefighters with axes, even if they were potential calender material. I found the emergency electricity number, and pressed 1 for ‘Dangerous Situations’ and talked to Lee. His answer to ‘Is it likely to cause a fire was “Yes, and no”‘ Hmm, reassuring. His solution was to turn off everything at the mains, and wait for a man to call. We waited, me, Henry and Higgins, in the candlelight. I don’t know what they thought, Higgins had a dog chew so probably not a lot. I thought about all those disaster movies where someone looks at a cupboard and says ‘I wonder what’s making that funny noi…KERBOOOOM!’

Have you ever tried casting on a sock by candlelight? It’s pretty unsuccessful, but it stops you thinking about disaster movies. Eventually dawn broke and I could blow out the candles. The emergency man turned up four hours later, he would have been useful if I had gone KERBOOOM! He replaced an enormous fuse, and apologised for my trouble. I wish I could get my fuse replaced, I have completely fizzled out…

Reasons to be cheerful…

Funny how just a little thing can change how you view the day…Getting out in the garden in dressing gown and slippers with the puppy BEFORE the rain starts is always a good start. Higgins hasn’t got the hang of the fact that the more times you make a run for the door without doing what you came out for just prolongs the agony. He is struggling with country life really, too much weather, he should have gone to live with Paris Hilton.

Todays mail was very exciting… firstly, red polka dot cake tins…

So good, I had to do styling…

…and my Spoonflower fabric…

When I first discovered Spoonflower I was too intrigued to go away and come up with a new design, I went for the nearest jpg file, my faithful pink sheep, and like it so much I ordered a fat quarter as a test run. My pink sheep started life on an invitation designed by my son Thomas Taylor for my Graduation party four years ago and was originally wearing a mortar board. I loved her too much to send her off to oblivion, so with the help of Photoshop she hung up her mortar board and joined me here on Planet Penny. I’ve offered to make Thomas a pink sheep bow tie, but strangely, he’s declined…

I was so excited by all this I initially overlooked the fact that my latest copy of ‘Selvedge’ had arrived…Oh. Joy!..

…with this beautiful image on a card inside.

After a wet morning, a band of blue started to spread from the west, and the wind became a breeze, just right for a spot of exercise. I’ve tried to get round the short dog = cold wet tummy problem with a rather smart fleece jumper for Higgins. Apart from the fact that I could have bought myself two fleeces for the cost of a tailor-made miniature dachshund one, getting it on is a bit like putting skin on a sausage. Then you have the problem of persuading him to get out of bed…

We got out there eventually though…

Even the sugar beet looks good in the sunshine, and you can just see home across the field…

All that was left was to make a cake to justify the fact I had bought not just one, but three tins to put cake in. I had some windfall apples, so a quick flip around Google and…Easy Apple Cake? …yes, we like easy. Well, it was easy enough to put together, but who has a 20cm x 30cm tin to hand? And how would the capacity of a tin you haven’t got compare with the one you have got? So, a round cake instead. Fine. But…how does that affect the cooking time? Answer – a lot. After the allotted 40 minutes a gorgeous crispy crust trembled above a completely liquid interior, another twenty minutes, then ten and then another twenty five minutes before the ‘sod it’ moment when I got it out and decided that was IT.

And it was.

Delicious…

…eventually…

Old Faithful R.I.P.

It’s sort of been one of those weeks. There’s been a bit of this and a bit of that and all that tangly wool and the WEATHER …! I had just got excited about some rather pretty shopping and thinking I had time to photograph it and write about it and my camera died. I felt like I’d lost the use of an arm. There are wordsmiths out there who write beautiful blog posts and paint their own word pictures, but I NEED to illustrate my ramblings. First thing this morning I set off through the rain and wind to Norwich and the London Camera Exchange clutching my Fuji FinePix F650 with the lens well and truly jammed. It’s been making a weird graunching grinding noise for weeks (months?) and I’ve been trying to ignore it. Apparently the thingy has worked its way off the helix and the whatsits had worn (you can tell I know exactly what I’m talking about) and the price of repair was far more than a new camera… so that’s what I’ve got, a natty little Olympus FE-4000.

So now I can write about my shopping expeditions last week with full colour illustrations. I know I should be working hard to finish the hand dyed project, but when it got a little derailed last week it sent me off to socks. Socks have been popular in the blogs I read lately, both Vanessa, of ‘Do you mind if I Knit’ and Jane Brocket have succumbed to the spotty lovelies to be found at Boden, but I have been indulging in the meditative appeal of sock knitting. There is something about the smallness of the work, the little needles feel like extensions of your fingers rather than separate tools, everything tucks into your encircling hands, and the whole thing can be popped into a pocket and taken on the bus, the doctors’ waiting room or even, if you are not actually turning the heel, to the cinema! My only problem with socks is that you have to knit two the same, and I’m really bad about repeating myself. I have got round that by having more than one pair on the go and alternating them, deliberately creating even more odd socks than my washing machine does! The final reason for extolling the joys of sock knitting are the glorious colours in which the sock wool is dyed. Sitting in the warm with a handful of Technicolour sunset is the perfect antidote to the wet darkness outside.

The second shopping trip took us to Anglia Fashion Fabrics. This is the place to go in Norwich for everything you could possibly need for sewing and making, and now it has opened a second venue called Make Place offering tuition for complete novices to learn how to sew, which is a brilliant idea. On this particular day there was also a MakePlace Market with stalls selling beautiful bags and clothing made from recycled items, felt hats and scarves, jewelry, al sorts of yummy things, but alas, no camera! Having been inspired by this, it was essential to go next door and check out the actual shop where I succumbed to this..

polka dots

because I’m having a bit of thing for polka dots, especially red and white ones…this..

stash

Because no-one who sews can possibly turn down the chance to have a fabric called ‘Stash’ …and this..

Well…you can see why. There are dachshunds, how could I resist? I think this will probably end up being a bag to keep all his stuff in. For a small dog he does have a lot of stuff!