Category Archives: Handmade Monday

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!

See you soon…x

Wearing my Needlefelt Hat

I’m resisting having too much of a moan about the weather having seen just how badly other parts of the country have been hit by floods, but I had a soggy old trip on Thursday when I went off to teach needlefelting at The OutHouse Studio! We’ve had a brief interlude of windy sunshine since then, but today is grey, and soggy and Higgins had a horrid morning because of a thunderstorm. We’ve had the longest day, but when are we going to get some Summer?

Still, on Thursday we were warm and dry with needlefelt, coffee and homemade biscuits. It was only a small class, but it does mean those there get more individual attention. We were making brooches again, which is a nice way for people to learn needlefelt basics and have something wearable to take home.

These are my samples…

…but being definite ‘Duck Weather’ the final choice for the class wasn’t surprising!

There are all sorts of pretty things in the shop itself….

I’m kicking myself for not taking close up photos of Caroline Nash’s beautiful and unusual jewellery which she makes from pieces of old cutlery. You can just see them in the first photo. I was terribly tempted, I think I will be going back before too long when I have more time to choose!

Back on Planet Penny, I was very grateful for a really useful comment on last week’s Handmade Monday post and my pondering about the relative merits of Folksy v Etsy. Thank you, Siobhan, for helping me make up my mind. I really needed a buyer’s point of view to add to my own feelings about the ease of using Folksy, and as I’ve used it more over the last few weeks there have been several issues about the ‘clunkiness’ of the Folksy website which have been quite inconvenient. I haven’t taken the decision to move over to Etsy lightly; I tend to be very loyal once I have given my allegiance to something, added to which a couple of weeks ago I was number one in the Folksy best sellers list, but I couldn’t sit on the fence any longer!

You’ll find the yarn, patterns and kits are all on Etsy now in the Planet Penny shop. All the new Fridge Magnet Kits sold very quickly last week but I’ve been beavering away making more, winding yarn…

…and making magnets which are a bit boring…

…look pretty!

I know that, despite loving the colours, the cost of Airmail postage on a 750gm pack is off-putting for some people in the US, so I hope that by making up the kits which weigh so much less it will make having a little piece of the Planet Penny Rainbow a little more affordable!

Looking outside, it seems we are having a sunny interlude, and so I must step away from the computer, put on the wellies and persuade a small dog, who does NOT like puddles, that a spot of exercise might be a good idea!

I will leave you with the usual link to Handmade Monday over on Handmade Harbour. Do go and visit, there’s a lot of creativity going on!

See you soon… x

Crochet Mini Mice for Handmade Monday

When I introduced the Mini Mice on a Handmade Monday Post a month ago I had just finished making them, hadn’t written the pattern and was in the run up to Open Studios etc. Definitely the last time I introduce something that isn’t in the final stages of going ‘live’! Since then I have been asked over and over about the pattern, the kits and when I would have them available. The thing is, I really want to get it right. I don’t want to disappoint anyone with a pattern that doesn’t work or a kit which doesn’t look like fun, which is why I’ve been beavering away all week to get things ready for this post.

As you can imagine, the Crochet Mini Mice kits take a little while to build, and I had to find a way to supply the yarn so it’s tidy, but also looks attractive.

I now have a new little windy gadget and some cards. Here’s the yarn in all it’s rainbow gorgeousness…

The Mini Mice kits will also contain the magnets, the stuffing, the eyes and noses and the all important pattern, enough to make 14 mouse magnets. All you will need is a 3mm hook and a needle and black thread. I think my next quest will be to source a supplier for 3mm hooks as I’d love to be able to add those to the kits.

The pattern will be for sale on my new Etsy shop. I’m sort of teetering in the middle at the moment between Etsy and Folksy. Because I have so many visitors from the US, Etsy seems to be more geared toward that market, while being very user-friendly for the UK and other places. Does anyone else have any thoughts or experiences about this? I’d love to hear from you if you do.

If you have previously bought a full pack of the Planet Penny Cotton Club yarns from me and would like a copy of the pattern, do let me know and I will send you a copy free of charge.

I will be putting the kits on Etsy this week at £17.50, but as an introductory offer I have 5 to sell at the special price of £15.00 on a strictly first come, first served basis. If you would like to buy one, please contact me through the Planet Penny Contact Form.

I was all set to leave you with the links to Handmade Monday over on Handmade Harbour where you will find all sorts of crafty goings on, but I embarked on a mini project today inspired by the lovely Penelope by the Sea on her blog L is for Love.

She has been Noticing Yellow this weekend so I popped out for half an hour to see what ‘yellow’ I too could notice. Quite a lot as it happens…

What a lovely sunshiney end to the week!

See you soon…x

Open Studios for Handmade Monday

I’m sitting in the garden outside the studio typing and listening to the birds singing whilst we wait for our visitors for the Norfolk and Norwich Open Studios.

Kit is working on a lino cut at the other end of the table…

and in the middle is a little furry helper…

It’s been fairly quiet so far today but the visitors we have had have been lovely and we’ve both made sales. Open Studios isn’t just about selling, but it would be nice to cover the entry costs and then anything else is a bonus.

My studio is looking great, so tidy! You wouldn’t believe how much I’ve got stashed away in boxes and hidden…

And it’s so lovely to be able to sit out in the garden and just enjoy the fresh air after all the wet and miserable weather which has gone on, and on, and on…

As you can imagine, I haven’t got any thing new in the way of textile creativity to show this week after all the preparations have been taken care of, but I’m still linking up to Handmade Monday over on Handmade Harbour so you can follow what’s going on on all the other creative blogs which take part.

If you only visit once a week, you may have missed the guest blog post from the Young Adult Fiction writer Thomas Taylor. There’s a chance to win a signed copy of the book and still time to enter so please don’t miss out.

Open Studios continues for another two weekends, so if you are in North Norfolk over the long Bank Holiday or the weekend after, it would be lovely to see you…

Mini Mice for a Crochet Handmade Monday

I wish I could share this beautiful tree in a shaft of sunlight with a blue sky background, but alas the gloom of the last few days makes me worry if I wait for the sun to come out, all the blossom will have faded and died. It tends to run in a two year cycle, last year there were about three flowers, this years it’s really going to town!

I seem to have spent so much time over the past week with my head down, working, that things are popping out in the garden and I’m missing them. I’m hopelessly behind with the Garden Diaries, I was full of good intentions but there is only one of me, and it’s a bit of a struggle to not only do it all, but write about it too!

We’re really in the run up to the Norfolk and Norwich Open Studios now, doors open next Saturday for three weekends, which is both scary and exciting. We’re not novices this year though, we had a really positive experience last year, so we’re looking forward to it.

In between winding many, many little balls of cotton over the last week for the Rainbow Mouse Kits I’ve been working on a new pattern and I’ve just finished making the prototype in time to show it to my Handmade Monday chums… I seem to be in the grip of a mouse obsession at the moment, both crochet and needlefelt and I can’t quite move on from it yet. I wanted to devise something small, to use up those little oddments of yarn which might otherwise be wasted, so I’ve now got a teeny, tiny mini mouse!

I couldn’t let him be lonely…

…and in the end of course, there had to be one of each colour… and then I thought… MAGNETS!

I’ve had quite a lot of fun playing with them….!

I hope to write the pattern before too long and I’ll put it on the Etsy shop, although if you’ve bought a Planet Penny Yarn pack I will send you the pattern on request. I’m thinking about a kit too, but does anyone know whether sending magnets through the mail, especially overseas, is a potential problem? I hate to think of one of my ‘pink parcels’ being detonated in a car park somewhere!

If you are a Handmade Monday regular and wondering about the rest of the wedding bits and pieces, I wrote about it in my last post which you will find here. It’s worth a visit just to see the amazing wedding cake made entirely from….well I won’t spoil it, go and take a peek!

Next week, hopefully on Thursday, I will publish my first ever Guest Post. If you have children, or grandchildren aged 10+ or are an avid reader yourself come back to meet the author Thomas Taylor, talking about his novel, ‘Haunters’, which is published next week. (It’s dedicated to me and Tim, it’s amazing what people will do to be allowed on Planet Penny!!!)

I’ll leave you with a link to Wendy’s Handmade Harbour so you can visit all the other Handmade Monday blogs, and yet more mice…

See you soon….squeak! x

Hearts and Flowers

This is going to be a very short post. We’re still coming back down to earth after a wonderful wedding weekend, and I haven’t got my head together enough to process photos, or write much. I hope you’ll forgive me, there’s lots of other news as well, so I’ll wait for the champagne bubbles to clear out of my system so I can write properly!

Thanks so much for those many sun dances and fair weather vibes being sent our way after the last post. It worked! After days of truly dreadful weather, the wedding day was as bright and shiny as anyone could have wished for.

We spent Friday afternoon decorating the venue, and serendipity decreed that the 60, yes – SIXTY- metres of bunting I had stitched was exactly the right length to do the whole room, not one flag too many or few. ( I of course, tried very hard to pretend it was down to careful planning!)

I also stitched many metres of paper hearts for the doors so my sewing machine was not happy, but it looked pretty! The bride’s mother did beautiful things with flowers and between the combined families we transformed the room.

The main thing I made for the wedding I have given a little hint of it in the Silent Sunday post, but I’ll save the main photos for the next post. Don’t forget to come back for a peek!

In the meantime I will leave you with a link to this week’s Handmade Monday which Wendy is now hosting on her new blog, Handmade Harbour so you can see what else has been going on, and also a tiny glimpse of a wonderful, magical day …