Category Archives: Gardens

When not in textile mode my other passion is gardening and my garden

Button Up for Handmade Monday

Buttons, badges, pins or even brooches? Not sure, but I’ve been having fun with them! If you read this post you’ll know that I had a little kit for Christmas and now it’s all gone quiet I’ve been having a play.

click on the image for info

They are very easy to make with the equipment supplied in the box…

and clear instructions…

…and there’s lots of scope for individuality. They look pretty just as a way of showing off a lovely scrap of favourite fabric, or with embroidery and embellishment can be as fancy as you like…

I particularly like these two…

…which I do think can be elevated to brooch status, but I also have a soft spot for this jolly one…

It’s certainly easier than the ones I made a while back using the buttons you cover yourself as I had to remove the button shank, and then cover the rather tatty looking back with felt before glueing on a pin.

It still works well though, and as you can see I’ve been experimenting with a little crochet edging in my own dyed wool. (It was far to much work dyeing it to waste a scrap!)

This one which was made using the biggest covered button I could find is covered in a piece of vintage embroidery salvaged from a very stained tablecloth…

It’s all been a bit of a displacement activity because I keep seeing all sorts of ‘mission statements’ on other blogs about intentions for the New Year and I’m still faffing around, not being able to make up my mind. Do I put all my ideas in black and white and frighten myself with a huge list and set myself up to fail, or do I just come up with a couple of things and do them really well, or shall I just make it up as I go along…? As usual…

Hmmm, I’ll let you know!

One thing I am going to do is to get to grips with the vegetable plot this year. Last Spring I got so tied up with Open Studios (and that’s happening again this year!) that in the end all I grew were Sweet Peas.They were the most successful Sweet Peas ever, but not what my raised beds were put in for so this year I must do better!

It was actually sunny and mild this morning, so I went out and cleared the first raised bed of all the chickweed, forget-me-not seedlings and oxalis…

…so I could put the cover on it ready to warm the soil…

The cover is looking rather well worn now, but does sterling service, and I leave the metal supports in place as they are so handy to lean on when you’re feeling a bit creaky!

Well, I think I qualify to join in with Wendy and the other Handmade Mondayers over on 1st Unique Gifts. Do go over to see what happening and also to admire Coral the Camper van!

See you soon! x

2011 – A Year in Pictures

It’s the end of the year, so I thought I’d do a recap. It’s been very interesting trawling through the archives and seeing how things have developed over the months and I thought I would share the experience…

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

It’s already giving me lots of new ideas for the next twelve months, so I hope you’ll drop in again to see how it’s going! In the meantime, I wish you all a very Happy New Year, where ever you are….see you in 2012! xxx
http://youtu.be/QEVF0fah17k

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

Reasons to be Cheerful 3

It’s that time of the week again, and actually there’s a lot of cheerfulness this morning as the sun is shining on the dew in the garden so it’s all looking beautifully sparkly!

Higgins is rather enjoying being allowed to have the door open so he can gallop in and out without always being the wrong side of the door.

And the garden looks rather good from his level too!

I’m very cheerful about the fact that I have a hollyhock growing at last. I love hollyhocks, and have been so annoyed by the way they will happily seed themselves in between gaps in the paving at the side of the road, and refuse to grow in my garden. This one has spent six months getting enormously tall, but has managed to flower before the snow arrives!

Now I’ve just got to see if I can get colourful ones to grow next year…

And talking about sparkly things, today my younger son’s new fiancee is coming to lunch to show us her engagement ring and to talk about making bunting for their wedding next May. Now that really is exciting!

So I have no trouble at all finding three reasons to be cheerful this week , how about you? If you’ve only just arrived, you can find out all about the Reasons to be Cheerful Linky here. If you add your three reasons to your latest blog post and add it to the Linky at the end of this post, then we can share a bit of cheerfulness with all our bloggy chums. And if you don’t have your own blog, don’t worry, just leave a comment, I’d love to hear from you xx

Reasons to be Cheerful…

Having announced a cunning plan, I’m really nervous about telling you! I really hope you like it…

As an insomniac, quite a lot of strange things run through my head in the wee small hours when I’d actually much rather be asleep! And I often doze off and wake up with tunes running through my head which won’t shut up. Last night it was this…Do you remember it?

Ok, so maybe not to everyone’s taste (though you’ve got to love that sax!) but the sentiment is just right.

We neeeeed reasons to be cheerful sometimes, especially now. In the Northern Hemisphere, winter is approaching. The nights are drawing in rapidly, it’s cold and very often grey. The TV news is full of doom and sadness, the boiler packs up, the toddler grinds his lunch into the curtains, you get the picture, I don’t need to go on.

So I thought it would be fun have some Reasons to be Cheerful, and share them around, so we can all have a little uplifting when we most need it.

So here’s the plan. Every week I’ll put a Linky, here on Planet Penny so you can link your blog post where you’ve included your 3 reasons to be cheerful…as the song says 1,2,3. It can be photos, or a saying, or even a little story about what has made you smile over the past few days, or a mix of all three. I don’t want to lay down too many rules, lets see what develops, but obviously nothing offensive, or that contravenes copyright laws, I’m sure I don’t really need to say it!

Don’t forget to put a link back to Planet Penny in your post to bring people back to the Linky so everyone can join in the fun!

So, what has made me happy this week?

Well, for One there is…

Late October Roses

Two…

My Happy Place!

And Three? Well, it’s just got to be ….!

My noisy little friend!

So please join in and take note of those little moments in your week which make you smile and share them with the world. If you don’t have a blog, don’t worry just pop them in the comments!

And now here’s the Linky…

Thanks so much for joining in!

One more day to add your link for this week, but don’t worry, I’ll be doing it again!

Sweet Peas, Strawberries and Stitches…

It’s Friday again, how quickly it comes around! At the moment the sun is shining so I must try and nip out to make the most of it before the next band of rain arrives. It seem only five minutes ago we were begging for rain in East Anglia, never satisfied!

I’ve had a varied week, lots to tell you about. It was my actual birthday (I know, I’ve been milking this event for weeks) so some lovely flowers were delivered…

…and the house has been filled with the scent of lilies ever since.

I had a special needlefelting order to complete which I was pleased with, but the light was so bad I’m not so happy with the photos I took. He is sitting on a little crochet mat with a ball of wool to play with…

I’m obsessively knitting too, since I saw this on Penelope by the Sea’s lovely blog. It’s the Boneyard Shawl. I don’t know about knitting for winter in the summer, I can’t wait to finish it to snuggle up in it now, it’s been so cold!

Isn’t it gorgeous yarn? It one I can actually get locally, (we don’t have dedicated yarn store, it means a trip into Norwich) it’s Sirdar Escape wool rich DK and the colour mix is very pretty and random. I’m struggling to work out when to stop knitting, unlike crochet you can’t lay it out flat when you have so many stitches on the needles, so it’s a bit hard to judge what’s going on. I’m nearly at the end of the third ball with one more to go and I’m thinking better too big than too small.

Which leads me to the next purchase. I started knitting on standard needles, but the pattern requires circular needles which I didn”t have in the size, so when I saw a Tweet about a promotional discount from a new online wool shop I wizzed over to see what was there. I found these lovely bamboo circular needles. I do like using bamboo, but have never found circular ones. In order to qualify for the discount, I had to spend a bit more (life can be tough) and fell madly in love with some fabulous Bluefaced Leicester yarn from the Natural Dye Company…

Such a nice way to shop! I had a Twitter conversation with Joanne from Wool and Buttons whilst putting in the order, a tweet to tell me it was in the post and it arrived the following morning before 9 o’clock. So pay her a visit, and say I sent you!

So the next project, socks or mitts? I can’t decide!

I’m loving having fllowers to cut for the house growing this year. It’s a bit accidental, the garden’s been rather neglected one way and another so I ended up with a bamboo wigwam in the veg bed where I popped in some sweet pea seeds. It’s taken forever, but at last they are flowering and the colours are rich and the scent is heavenly. Added to a self sown cornflower I have been able to have a little posy of colour and scent on the dresser all week…

And the strawberry? Well I had to show you this lovely pressie from my dear friend Jen. It starts off small…

…unravels…

…and turns into the very thing for carrying home the spoils from a visit to the yarn shop!

Well, lovelies, I’d better get out in the garden and do a spot of deadheading. I hope you all have a fabulous weekend. Higgins and I are taking a trip to visit the lovely Emma of Silver Pebble who is opening her studio this weekend. Emma has made me something rather special which I will share with you soon.

Can you guess what it might be?

See you very soon x