Category Archives: Craft

Remembering the Memory Doll

It’s been a really hectic week here on Planet Penny as at last we found a quiet time to make me an office out of the storage room adjoining the studio. When the Studio block was built three years ago I already had designs on this little room as you can see from this post but it’s taken until now to find the time to make the big push. There was so much to clear out of the store, and now I’m having to find all the office related stuff in the studio to move it across and I’m unearthing all sorts of memories and forgotten projects! So as I haven’t got a new Handmade Monday project I though I’d share the Memory Doll with you, who has resurfaced from a box of bits and pieces.

She was designed to use up little fragments of pretty things which had some significance which might otherwise might have been put in a box and forgotten. (The irony of this does not escape me!)

So here she is, with her little cape made from my first (and last) attempt at traditional crochet. A lot of blood, sweat and tears went into this small piece which would never have grown enough to be used elsewhere. The dress is made from an old dress from happy days, and the satin covered buttons came from a blouse I had as a teenager. The flower was on a box of toiletries from a long ago birthday, and the pantaloons which you can just see here…

were made from remnants left over from a baby dress of my daughters.

I shall make sure she doesn’t go back in a box, but has pride of place on the dresser from now on!

I’ve been wondering if a tutorial for this might be interesting to anyone? Do let me know what you think…

This is I’m afraid a short post as I’ve been away and it’s nearly time to visit Clovis the Mad French Cat to give him his pill. I will post an up to date bulletin in the next few days when I hope to have good news about his progress. It’s taking a long, long time, but we’re getting there!

I shall leave you with the usual Sunday link to Handmade Monday over on Handmade Harbour where you will find plenty more to see, and I’ll be back soon ….x

Ocean Blue and Buttons…

Hello again…don’t the weeks come round quickly! It’s been very busy on Planet Penny over the last few days as we’re in the process of turning a storage area into an office, so having moved everything out for Tim to work on it my studio is CHAOS! It’ll be so good when it’s finished, I might be able to find things more easily (pause for hollow laughter!) but the main perk will be having the printer/scanner in the same room that I’m working in, instead of several rooms and a fight of stairs away. I suppose the exercise is good for me, but it makes things take twice as long! In the meantime I’ve been needlefelting and playing with Ocean Blue dye, and little flowery buttons…

Remember the little robins of last week? I had a cunning plan for their use, and it worked out very well. I found some pretty natural and red woven ribbon, just enough to make five of these…

…and put them on the Planet Penny Facebook page to see what the reaction would be. Despite several of you telling me off for mentioning the dreaded ‘C’ word (!!) I sold three before I even put them on Etsy, where there is now just one left! Don’t despair however, there will be more, but they’ll be just a little different. I don’t do mass production I’m afraid!

I have also completed a variation on the the Love Birds as I couldn’t source the straw wreath straight away, the latest ones have natural colour lambswool hearts…

…and three of these have made it as far as the Etsy shop!

And my other creative project the week has involved a spot of dyeing! I have such problems finding clothes I like, that fit, that are long enough, and I rarely find all that and in a colour I like. So when I found a tunic top in Cotton Trader’s sale which ticked all the boxes bar the colour one I snapped it up and went off to the local supermarket for a packet of dye…

Take one shirt like this…

…in a cotton linen mix, and add a packet of this…

and a few pretty buttons..and you end up with this…

I’ve ordered two more!

(This might amuse you: Having decided to change the basic white buttons to something more original I carefully sorted an interesting selection of colours snipped off the white ones and replaced them with the pretty flower ones – I hate sewing on buttons, don’t you? I had just finished ironing it and had hung it on a hanger to admire when my beloved OH came in. “Yes,” he said, “That looks really good. Now all you have to do is change the buttons…”

I say nothing!)

There was lots of interest last week about Higgins’ ‘Thundershirt’. He’s actually wearing it at the moment as a storm has just passed by and it does seem to calm him down a lot. He usually goes and sits on the back doormat and trembles but this time I wrapped him in the shirt and popped him into bed where he snuggled down and look reasonable relaxed. It was only a small storm so more testing will need to be done, but so far the signs are good.

I must finish this and go and administer tea to the worker in my little ‘soon-to-be’ office, it’s not the weather to be sawing wood! I’ll leave you with the usual link to ‘Handmade Monday’ over on Handmade Harbour.

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

A Needlefelt Bird in the Hand….

…but a handful of baby birds is even better!

Guess who’s thinking ahead to C*******s! It’s alright, I won’t speak the word aloud!

I’ve been waiting for materials to arrive so I’ve switched to a different breed of bird, and trying out a different size too. Last C*******s I couldn’t keep up with the demand for needlefelt robins, I think it was the Kirsty effect, so I’m starting early year, although I find it really hard to think of Christmas in August, don’t you? (Whoops, sorry, it slipped out! )

The robins are now fluttering their way to the Planet Penny shop, and you can find them here, here and here..

I’ve been a little indulgent this week and treated myself. I said last week I couldn’t resist the little scented dachshunds, and so I had one made just for me by the lovely LouLou of Farrell and Holmes and these lovely parcels arrived a few days ago, smelling wonderful!

But I’d only ordered one thing!? And here it is, such pretty fabric…

and in the other one? A little present for me…

Thank you LouLou!

The weather this week has been beautiful, so no more thunderstorms much to Higgins relief but the lovely Mrs Micawber, who was very concerned about his well being, sent a link to something which might just solve his problems, not only with the storms, but with the fireworks which upset him so much. It’s a Thundershirt, and here he is modelling it!

The theory is that being wrapped snuggly calms dogs and makes then less stressed about loud noises and other worrying situations. Thank you so much Mrs Micawber, we’ll let you know whether it works when the weather breaks!

Well, it’s another short post as I must away to administer Clovis’s evening antibiotic on the other side of the village, I will get a lot more done when I don’t have to visit three times a day, it’s a good thing I love him! I’ll leave you with a link to Handmade Monday so you can visit lots of other lovely bloggers who have been creating little lovelies over the past week.

See you soon…x

Crochet, Cats and Crochet Mice….

Welcome back to Planet Penny and another Handmade Monday post. It’s also a catch up post, because last week I didn’t feel able to bring you up to date with the ‘Clovis the Cat Saga’ because I was dreading the outcome. But I’m back now, with more crochet, more mice, and even more cats!

If you’ve not visited before, Clovis is my ‘foster’ cat, living with my mum and who suffered a nasty accident 10 days ago, you can find out more in this post. Last weekend he was safely ensconced in his crate, and I thought I had the after-care sussed. That was before the Break Out, when he hefted his 8 kilos plus frame out of the crate just as I was juggling with a used earth tray (YUK!) and got out outside!!

To cut a very long story and traumatic story short, he got out, panicked, ran under the neighbour’s car, got up inside the car while we searched elsewhere. Reappeared several hours later when the neighbour started the car and belted down the garden on three legs and vanished into the undergrowth. Hours of fruitless searching and calling later I gave up for the night, hoping he would creep in via the catflap under cover of darkness. The next morning my mum went to look for him inside…no sign… By now it was raining, and I went back to search, dressed in waterproofs and wellies…convinced that he had displaced the pins, caused an infection, had soggy bandages, was lying somewhere in pain and unable to move and it was all my fault…

The neighbour came out and suggested starting his car again, just to make sure he hadn’t gone back underneath, and, just on the off chance before he did, I went back inside just to check Clovis wasn’t inside. And there he was, on the bed in the spare room!!! I couldn’t get near enough to check him over, so I shut him in with food, water and a tray and left him alone over night to recover his nerves, as the following day I had to catch him again and take him to the vet.

Against all the odds he was absolutely fine, I meanwhile have aged 10 years….

Tomorrow of course, I have to catch him again for the next vet visit, please wish me luck!

However, I have still fitted in some creativity, the first being a little ‘Granny’ project with the Planet Penny Cotton. It’s fun making all the little bits and bobs with the rainbow colours, but I wanted to make something pretty for the home…

This small remnant of beautiful vintage Provençal Print was crying out to be a cushion back…

…and I was pretty pleased with the front too!

I can’t get away from pussy cats though, while my back was turned Henry decided to give it a quality control check!

…it passed!

And the crochet mice?

Well, after my last post about using different yarns and hooks to change the size of the mice on the Mouse Patterns, I had lots of comments via the Planet Penny Facebook Page about the cuteness of the teeny tiny mice made from Coton Perlé using the Planet Penny Mini Mice pattern. I’ve raided my embroidery basket to make some pretty little crochet mouse hair slides…

and have now bought a mini rainbow selection to have a play with using this much finer crochet hook…

Very happy colours!

I hope you’ve had a slightly less exciting time where ever you have been over the last week. I know I’ve given the impression with my photos lately that Norfolk has been having the summer no one else has had, but we’ve had our share of wet days too. It’s St Swithin’s Day today, and this is supposed to happen…

‘St. Swithin’s day if thou dost rain
For forty days it will remain
St. Swithin’s day if thou be fair
For forty days ’twill rain nae mair.’

So far around here it’s been dry, so fingers crossed!

I’ll leave you with the usual link to Handmade Monday over on Handmade Harbour where you can find lots of lovely blogs to visit…

See you soon …x

Hearts and Flowers and a Nurses Hat for Handmade Monday

It’s been touch and go whether I would actually get this post written today. Wearing TWO nurses hats has been rather time consuming, so this post is going to be light on text, but I hope the pretty, colourful photos of hearts and flowers make up for it.

Thank you all so much for your good wishes sent in Clovis the cat’s direction. It’s been a little dicey over the last couple of days, but I’ll leave an update until I have concrete news to report. Please keep up the positive vibes for our trip to the vet on Monday morning!

I’ve been working on a new pattern and although I said I wasn’t going to post pictures until the pattern was ready to publish, well, what the heck! Just bear with me, and it will be ready in a week or two.

I can think of lots of pretty ways of using this pattern of hearts and flowers. Strung across a dresser, used as curtain tie backs, interwoven with fairy lights (thank you, (Marigold the Goat!) and individually as a key ring, bag or phone charm.

Anyone with any other ideas? I love to know what you think!

I’m leaving you with the usual link to Handmade Harbour and all the creative people who take part in Handmade Monday. My message to them is to send apologies if I don’t have a chance to visit anyone this week, but I hope all my other lovely readers will make up for my absence!