Category Archives: Home Grown Revolution

Needlefelt Birds for Handmade Monday

Happy Easter to all!  Are you full of chocolate yet?  We’re having a quiet time here as the family are away and so needlefelt birds have been in the forefront of my mind and the felting needle has been smoking…(which is what mustn’t happen to the lamb shanks I shall be putting in the oven shortly for a long slow cook for our dinner à deux tonight !)

We celebrated the start of the hosepipe ban last week with a really rainy day here…

Norfolk garden viewed through a rain spattered window

Some people found it most depressing…

A small dog being very grumpy about the rain

Of course, Murphy’s Law applied too, as after days and days of dry weather, this was the day the soil was delivered to fill my beautiful new raised beds from Home Grown Revolution

These are now looking absolutely splendid…

raised beds from Home Grown Revolution

…all ready for warmer weather and the time to get them planted.  I’m feeling very guilty about the garden as despite my best intentions things are slipping rather, but short of that elusive extra day in the week I would love to find, it can’t be helped.

As well as the smoking felting needle, the keyboard’s been pretty hot too, as I’ve been writing.  I haven’t mention it before (because I sort of didn’t believe it until I saw in black and white) but I am now a Features Writer for UK Handmade, and you’ll find my first offerings here and here if you are curious.  And if you haven’t found UK Handmade’s website before, there are lots and lots of really interesting articles by some amazingly creative people to keep you amused over the holiday weekend!

I was also asked to write a guest blog post by Sue, of SusanD1408Crochet Addict which you can find here if you’d like to know  how Planet Penny came into being.

Meanwhile, back at the felting needles…. You’ll remember last week I had got as far as this…

colourful needlefelt Merino wool balls

….but nobody guessed where I was going with it.

I started with the pale yellow on in the middle…

the woolly feet of a needlefelt chick

(those little feet are very important) …and turned into a special Easter chick…

a needlefelt bird on the letter P

However the real aim is a piece to exhibit at the Norfolk and Norwich Open Studios Taster Exhibition at the Forum in Norwich next month.  This has existed in my head for so long it was rather a shock to realise that I hadn’t actually made it yet, so I’ve been working on it all week.  This involved my Easter Chick having a few more friends, a whole flock of needlefelt birds…

pink, blue and yellow needlefelt birds on a branch

A wool branch of needlefelt birds

a lambswool branch of needlefelt birds

I’m now at the final stages, with leaves crocheted in Bluefaced Leicester wool….

…and with any luck I should finish it this evening in front of the fire.  The branch is made from the lambswool yarn I bought from High Fibre, and used with the needlefelt robins at Christmas and I’m really pleased with the way it works in with the whole concept.  One day, when I have time (!) I will knit myself the raspberry colour mug hug from the yarn I bought from Fiona at the Pick’n’Mix Market last year.

Needlefelting is getting a fresh burst of publicity this week with this month’s issue of Mollie Makes.  Aren’t these cute?

So I hope there will be lots of enthusiasm for the Needlefelting Course I’m teaching on 17th April at The OutHouse Studio in Aylsham, North Norfolk.  I think there’s a place or two left, so if you are near enough, it would be lovely to see you!

I’ll leave you with a link to Wendy, over on 1st Unique Crafts who hosts Handmade Monday, and there you will find plenty more interesting things have been going on over the past week!

See you soon x

Love Birds and Hearts for Handmade Monday

Hello, It’s Handmade Monday time again!  Doesn’t it come round quickly?  It very good for concentrating the mind though, otherwise SO much time could be wasted on Pinterest, purely for research purposes of course!

I would like to say thank you to every one who left such kind comments on last week’s Handmade Monday post about my exciting trip to the hospital.  I’m still absolutely fine, but I really appreciated your concern, thanks so much …

I’ve been busy making, but plotting too, so I’m going to run my latest plan by you as it may be something you would like to join in with.  A while ago I had two beautiful raised beds put in the vegetable area of the garden.  They have lovely chunky railway sleepers which you can sit on, and metal bars over which I can put a polythene cover to make them into mini poly tunnels.  (If you’ve been visiting for a while, you’ll know they have featured on several occasions in Higgins type incidences and if  you put ”raised beds’ in the search box you will find plenty to have a giggle at, too many for me to add individual links to here!) 

Last year I got so tied up with the Open Studio plans that nothing really got started, so I decided that this year, I will get to grips with the whole thing, and see how much I can produce using the two raised beds and some containers.  I’m going back to basics, and I will be picking the brains of my friend Gaynor, who lives in the next village.  Gaynor is one half of Home Grown Revolution, who specialise in raised beds, and one of her New Year’s resolutions was to get out from the office and to get her hands dirty in the veg garden.  As the other one was to start a blog, we are going to be helping each other along, so watch this space, I hope it’s going to be fun!

With Valentine’s Day fast approaching I’ve been turning my thoughts to something new to needlefelt, and so we have the Love Bird…

He’s just 2 to 3 inches tall, but he has some smaller little friends too, who have come to roost in little woolly hearts…

and they’ll be for sale in the Folksy shop very soon.

I’ve been playing around in the button box again…

…and I’ve tried, but not quite managed to produce a crochet square a night with my lovely New Zealand wool…

…if only there were more hours in the day!

With that in mind I will step away from the computer, and leave you to pop over to 1st Unique Gifts where Wendy is hosting the Handmade Monday Linky to find out just what everyone else has been up to over the past week.

See you soon …x

 

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

 

Lovely weather for ducks…

…and toads. I spent so long moaning about the cold during the winter I hesitate to mention the heat, but in Norfolk over the last few days it’s been hot,hot,hot… It was lovely to wake up this morning to the gentle patter of rain, and good that the dry spell didn’t break with a thunderstorm and a deluge that just runs straight off and down the drains.

Higgins has spent a lot of time lying around, too hot to get up to mischief (mostly). We tried a cooling spray of water from the hose but as far as he was concerned it was rain, and he was very put out. This morning when he barked to go out and it really was raining, he just sat and growled at it to stop. When it finally eased off enough for a quick sortie round the garden he was most intrigued to meet one of these…

I’ve not seen him wandering around the garden before, but he must have been feasting on our slugs for a while because he was really rather large. I hope by now he’s found another comfy spot for pest control duty.

I’ve been nibbling my way around the veg patch for a few weeks now, mostly salad greens and carrot thinnings. The mange tout have been tasty and the pea flowers very pretty…

… but my raised beds are not really big enough for such straggly plants. I keep finding enormous pods under the collapsed foliage which are definitely only suitable for ‘mange’ing the bits out of the middle. The beetroot are looking great though, and the little ones I thinned out were delicious. We had the first two courgettes for lunch, thumb size, and the first few beans, french and runner are beginning to show. Oh, and the potatoes I planted in two big buckets are looking really healthy. I just hope there’s something happening below soil level.

I’ve been trying to get some colour into the pots in the courtyard area by the studio to make up for the fact that my front garden is suffering from a) the dry and the heat and b) my inability to get things to flower which will take over from the spring flowers, aquilegia, poppies and all the other things currently running to seed. I’m finding the black walls of the studio a good background for bright colours. It worked well for the primulas…

…and now they are over I’ve planted a vibrant mix of dahlias and geraniums.

We actually managed to beat the blackbirds to the cherries this year, probably because we’ve had the best crop ever.

We can never get many as the trees are quite tall, and pruned to give a high canopy of shade, but Will went up and did his orangutan impression and we managed a couple of pounds of sweet dark fruit.

Trying to make the most of them I found a recipe for pickled cherries on the internet. Unfortunately not a good recipe, the amounts were all wrong so I had to improvise and won’t know if it worked for a month, but if it does I will let you know and share the recipe. Looks pretty though…

Cherry jam required stoning the fruit. Oh dear…Tim came into the kitchen to what appeared to be a blood bath…Juice on the work top, the floor, most of the utensils, my hands, arms, clothes… There was only a pound of cherries. I ended up with just a jar and half of jam which allows for testing…absolutely delicious…but by the time I had cleaned up and bleached the kitchen the project was probably not an effective use of time. Anyone getting offered cherry jam when they come to my house will know they are very special!

I’ve also finished a poignant project. A while ago I lost Jan, my much loved Aunt, a patchwork enthusiast. Her daughters-in-law passed on two works in progress along with her sewing effects, and hoped I might be able to make them into the family heirlooms Jan had intended. I was a bit stumped with the first one. It was a long strip of hand sewn hexagons, three to five pieces in width, and long enough to be the width of a double quilt. Looking at the prepared pieces, and the fabrics I had to work with, I wasn’t going to be able to complete something that size. And anyway, I really wanted to keep it as predominately Jan’s work and adding another nine tenths to it would take mean it was more my project. In the end I divided it into three pieces, and rejoined them to make a rectangle, piecing in hexagons Jan had tacked to card (old Christmas cards in fact, and rather moving to find cards from my grandfather, and other relatives now passed away amongst them) until I had something about baby quilt size.

Now I had to keep my fingers crossed for a baby! Last month, little Euan arrived. He would have been Jan’s fourth grandchild and she would have been so happy. But at least I could pass on the quilt she had made so much of, with both our names on the back, to give him a cuddle …

 

Mixed Greens

A short post, typed through gritted teeth…can you type through gritted teeth?  When I was young, and naughty (which of course was a very rare occurrence) my mother would say despairingly “I could give you away with half a pound of tea!”

So, puppy, anyone?  Very nice tea, Clipper, organic.  Very naughty dog though.  No-one with any sense would want him, however good the tea.

The crime?  Well it’s gardening related.  Over at Purple Podded Peas Celia has some excellent staff, Undergardeners par excellence.  Weeding, hoeing, pest clearance, manure…they are the business!

Here? Well, the Head Gardener is happy to put in an appearance…

…but is pretty laid back these days.

The Undergardener?

Over enthusiastic and won’t take instruction.  Has been given a verbal warning.

After two afternoons spent tidying and clearing the vegetable garden and hoiking the weeds out of the raised beds out came the seed packets to see what I could get going in the one bed I’d had the cover on for a couple of weeks to warm up the soil.  I sowed half a bed, salad leaves, chives, spring onions, red spring onions, radishes, carrots…and in pots sowed basil, dill and coriander.  Tired by then,and thirsty, I popped in for a well deserved cuppa and came out to…chaos…

The Undergardener had heaved himself on his stumpy little legs over the sleeper which formed the bed, and into the nice, soft, fluffy compost and it’s neat rows of seeds and, well, I don’t know…disco dancing?  mining? fossil hunting?

No more neat rows…no more labels…even the labels in the pots had been taken out and chewed…I won’t know if it’s basil, or dill, or coriander until they’ve grown big enough to taste…

So that’s why Higgins is lying in his bed looking worried about the packet of tea.   But do you know? In the end my Mum didn’t give me away either….

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