Category Archives: Books

Making Winter

With all my moaning and groaning about the approaching Winter I was really happy to find another excellent way to combat the glooms over on Silverpebble‘s Blog. Emma feels just like me about winter and has obviously been running through the same thought processes about making it more enjoyable. It’s a good way too for all you Autumn/Winter lovers to share the things you love about the season, and lovely warming recipes and seasonal crafts and makes.

So that has got me revisiting a favourite recipe from a favourite chef…

..and make yummy Leek and Potato Soup. Follow the link for my version of the recipe, Nigel Slater has a great way of guiding you rather than being strict about quantities, which is what I love about this cookery book.

We have a special visitor for lunch tomorrow, so this soup, with some local Pesto bread and Goat’s cheese will be delicious, I can hardly wait!

So do visit Silverpebble where you’ll find links for all the other participants…

…and don’t forget to come back here tomorrow to join in with…

Between us we’ll beat the Winter Blues!

Name the Cow – The Results

Well first I’ve got to say I’ve been really let down. I know it’s a bit of a gloomy day, but honestly, I just can’t get my staff to get up these days…

So the draw with the hat just didn’t happen, I’ve had to resort to the Random Number Generator.

Still, I only had to do counting for the name vote, and ended up with a short list of seven, which were, in no particular order, Flora, Ermintrude, Petunia, Pamela, Miss Marple, Lucy and Gertrude. After an early lead, Ermintrude finally lost out to Petunia, which I think suits her very well.

Petunia the Cow

Thanks so much for your help, I now have a selection of names for the rest of the herd, and Petunia will be heading off to Folksy very soon to find a new home.

And now for the draw. Having given everyone a number, I set the RNG going and the winner was No. 14, who is….drumroll…..pregnant pause…. Tilly Mint Boutique!!! So congratulations, I shall put the Julie Arkell book and tiny sheep in the post very soon.

Thanks so much to everyone who took part, I shall look out for another occasion to celebrate in the near future.
See you soon x

Blossoming…

There’s a LOT of blossoming going on at Planet Penny at the moment.

Still running to keep up, and apologising for not announcing the results of the Easter Cup and Saucer draw, I am very pleased to say that it was won by Teje, of Nero’s Post and Patch and the cup and saucer have been very cosily packed in LOTS of padding and are now winging their way to Greece. I hope that Nero allows Teje to enjoy her coffee in it, although I suppose at a pinch he could have dog biscuits in the saucer! Do go over and say hello to Teje and the handsome Nero, and have a look at the beautiful Garden quilt that Teje has made.

Young readers are blossoming too…

Who would like to see my younger grandson, reading Daddy’s book?

A definite little blossom!

And if you go to Thomas’ blog, you’ll find that there will soon be exciting books for older boys too, (hopefully you will forgive a little maternal pride creeping in at this point! )

We had a little blossoming at the last meeting of our local Knit and Stitch Group too, when I did a needlefelting class, and we ended up with a delicious plate of felted fairy cake pin cushions…

I hope once the holiday weekend is over – and I’m not wishing it away! – I will have more blogging time, so please forgive this being a little short and sweet. Thank you to all the knowledgable gardeners who identified the weed as Coltsfoot. I now know to eradicate it on sight!

If you want a little Eastery fix, have a look at the Indie Quarter where you will find a Planet Penny Alpaca Bunny with some friends.

I shall be having a grandson fix, as the boys are coming tomorrow for the Easter Weekend so I will be back next week when all is quiet and the chocolate has been eaten! I hope you all have a happy and sunshiny holiday break with family and loved ones, and I’ll see you soon x

Splash of Colour – November

Better late than never, they say, but I can’t believe it’s Friday and I haven’t managed to post all week. Higgins and I have just got back from our walk, and the rain has started so I can sit down without guilt while he sleeps off the exercise (and the obligatory bath, well he is very low slung!)Emma over at Silver Pebble feels just like me about winter, but has come up with a ‘cunning plan’ to keep the Winter Blues away. She has invited fellow bloggers to post a blast of colour at the beginning of each month between now and Spring to keep our spirits up which is right up my street (although anyone who has been visiting Planet Penny for a while now will know I don’t really need an excuse to get colourful !)

I need a bit of cheering up now though. We’ve had a tiring, noisy but ultimately great weekend with family and now they’ve all gone home. The little boys, one four, one nearly five and one six year old very nearly ran Higgins’ legs off and he had so much fun. Although he was puzzled, very puzzled about the blue stripy human puppy which every one wanted to cuddle. It made exciting squeaky noises and was, allegedly, very nearly as cute as Higgins but wasn’t allowed to play.

Tim has gone back to work for two weeks and it’s just me, Higgins and Henry. There’s been a lot of sleeping but lately he’s been looking at me saying, “I’m BORED!”

So, November colour…Well, there’s been a lot of orange about…

There’s been sunshine too…and pink… I found a strangely speckled dahlia…

What do you think? I like my flowers to be a true clear colour on the whole, but I don’t want to sneer at it’s brave attempt to carry on flowering.

But orange? I am generally heard to say,’I don’t like orange, but…’

I’d run a mile from any clothing in orange, it would make me extremely miserable. But a blue bowl full of clementines, now that would make me happy. Nasturtiums? I love them. Pot Marigolds. Pumpkins. Autumn leaves. Terracotta tiles. I’m sure you can add to the list. And the book that is making me happy at the moment, and adding an extra splash of colour is Kaffe Fassett’s Quilts en Provence. It’s full of orange, and I love it!

One day, I will make one!

So every time the mud outside gets too much I shall escape to the sun and Provence and dream…

Back in the studio, someone else is getting a colour fix, but he’d better not eat those cushions!

I'm not chewing...I'm not!

I shall be back next week with my latest colourful cushion, another fair isle which has been progressing rather slowly. Have a lovely weekend, I hope the sun shines where ever you are and if you are celebrating Guy Fawkes Night, enjoy the fireworks!

Frogging…

When I mentioned ‘frogging’ to a friend the other day I was met by a blank stare. However, when I then said ‘Rippit, Rippit’ the blank stare turned to enlightenment, and sympathy.

There’s been a lot of ripping involved with my latest cushion. It’s not that I haven’t knitted fair isle before, but I’ve not had a palette of seventeen colours, and I wasn’t changing the background colours as well as the pattern colours. I’m blaming Kaffe Fassett and his book Pattern Library. I think he has a special sort of brain that doesn’t get boggled, because boggled my own brain certainly became.

The crochet cushions are the same back and front, but I didn’t think my sanity would last long enough to knit both sides, so I dug out some needlecord in a really pretty blue and some gorgeous red wooden buttons which I think work well.

Too late I noticed I’ve got the nap of the needlecord running both ways which makes one side darker than the other, but I’ve decided it’s a design feature!

So, would you like to see it? Here’s a little hint…

…and another…

This is the reverse side!

…and that’s quite pretty too, but here is the finished article…

I have two more little cushion pads left so I’m having a ponder about what I do next. There are the lovely grandala ideas over on Crochet with Raymond, I could do Lucy’s granny stripe, zigzags might be fun…

In the mean time I have been resting my eyes from all that colour with some pristine white cotton crochet, another bunting experiment. I have resisted so far because I’ve seen lots of other versions of crochet bunting but I deliberately didn’t look too closely at anyone else’s so I could invent my own take on it. So far, I’m liking it…

Well it must be time to finish blogging, if only because Henry the cat has come to sit on the keyboard and I can only access some of the keys. Have a lovely weekend…x

Confessing a Secret

It’s no good, I have to tell you. My name is Penny, and I’m a bookaholic.

It started at a very young age. I blame my mother.

She was a librarian and indulged her habit in Bristol Library before she was married. When we moved to Norfolk when I was very small our local village only had a voluntary library service in the St John’s Ambulance hut and it didn’t take long for Mum to volunteer. Once it was taken over by the County Library she worked there part time and by the time I was at High School there was a posh new Library and Mum had a full time job until she retired.

So right from an early age, there was a never ending flow of books through our house. I can’t remember not being able to read, but I can remember getting through seven Enid Blyton books a week in the summer holidays. I actually struggle even now to choose books in the library because for years I was spoilt by my mother handing me books and saying, ‘You’ll love these’, and I always did.

Now there are sooo many temptations to indulge my little habit. There’s Bibliophile, ‘Three for Two’ and ‘Buy One Get One Half Price’ offers in Waterstones and W H Smith, and the most tempting one of all, Amazon. I get into trouble about my Amazon habit, My son, as a writer, (That Elusive Line) tells me stories about how it’s affecting publishing, and independent bookshops and I agree with what he says, and understand how frustrating it is to those who are affected by the march of big business. But I’m doing my best to support EVERYBODY! We have a lovely new independent bookshop in Norwich, The Book Hive, and I make every effort to support it,(and it’s not hard!)

But Amazon. It’s like a wicked siren insinuating itself onto my emails. ” Hello-oh! Look…. You bought this, so we know you’d LOVE this…Go on, you know you want to…”

And I do…I do..and with one click it’s mine, and is delivered next day (Well I have to subscibe to Amazon Prime, don’t I?)

These days the temptations are always the books which feed my creative habit, and Oh, they are SO tempting. So colourful, such wonderful photography and then, when they arrive so many of them even feel gorgeous, even sensuous, with satiny, velvety papers and covers…

And I wasn’t well, and I needed cheering up, and there was this book…

It’s just gorgeous…

(Sorry about the shiny bits, it’s that sumptious paper you see.)

These are so CUTE, and 2010 is the year of the baby in our close and extended family…

An entrelac blanket, so no sewing up required…

…and a simple sweater pattern sized from toddler to extra large man.

Somewhere to store all those yarns…

And even suggestions for wrapping up all the gifts for giving…

So today I’m off to Norwich to buy that last ball of yarn to finish the crochet blanket, and I might just have to indulge in a ball of something gorgeous to knit a little something or other…

Do you have a secret book habit? Go on, you can tell me…

P.S. If you want a chance to win a childrens’ picture book, follow the link to the blog mentioned above!