Apparently the best way to counteract writer’s blog is write. Just write. So here I am, kick starting the Planet Penny blog again by waffling on a bit and wondering if there is still someone out there.
But actually, it doesn’t matter if everyone has moved on, I’m going to write this for me and see where it takes me. And if you are still out there, give me a shout, a wave and tell me how you are doing, I’d love to catch up.
It’s been a funny old time over the past couple of years. In the beginning lockdown seemed a wonderful opportunity to be madly creative and get loads done. But I, like many other people, just ended up retreating into the far dark depths of my cave and being totally unproductive. Not an original thought to be had.
But over the past few weeks small pointy shoots of creativity have broken through the barren ground at the front of the cave and I have crept out and have been knitting like a woman possessed. Socks for all! Fingerless mitts! A temperature blanket!
So I’m going back to my roots, to the very beginning of this blog (fourteen years ago this month) I’m going to make things and write about them and see where it takes me.
If you would like to follow my journey you are more than welcome. I would love the company!
Having signed myself up to a 100 Day Project involving a lot of stitches, I seem to have committed myself to producing even more over the next few months.
A couple of weeks ago some friends and I took ourselves off to Norwich Castle Museum to see an exhibition. The exhibition was wonderful, but naturally any excursion with chums just has to involve coffee and cake, doesn’t it?
Courtesy Norwich Castle
So it was in the Rotunda coffee shop that we spotted an group of ladies beavering away with needle and thread, producing the most amazing stitchwork, reminiscent of the Bayeux Tapestry. Nosiness took over, naturally, and we wandered over to find out what was going on and before we knew it two of us had signed up to join in!
Last Thursday saw us trotting off to the Shirehall alongside the Museum to learn the stitches we would need to create a banner to hang behind the throne in the Keep. Such glory! Such responsibility….eeek!
The Shirehall was a revelation. I’ve driven past it nearly all my life and never before been inside. It is now the Museum Study Centre, dark and gloomy passageways, bars at the windows, but the most fabulous entrance hall, and a beautiful stained glass dome which cannot been seen from anywhere outside.
We had an intensive day with our tutor, it’s a privileged to be able to learn stitching skills like these for free, and amazing how completely exhausting wielding a needle and thread can be.
Yesterday we headed back into the city as some of our fellow volunteers were at the latest Norfolk Makers Festival held in the Forum in Norwich and we wanted to catch up with what was going on. So much amazing work; we are feeling quite daunted but really happy to be involved in such amazing project.
Tomorrow we are back at the Shirehall brushing up on our applique techniques so another day of intense concentration, and I’m still stitching away at my slow stitched shirt every day! (and knitting a sock, but that’s another story!)
And so is the Norfolk Makers Festival! If you are in the area it is well worth a visit, and I’ll be back to tell you more about it.
I have been slow stitching my way into 2020 nursing a January cold and general ennui! But the snowdrops are beginning to appear, February is here, and the evenings are noticeably lighter. It’s time to shake off the slough of despond created by politicians, trolls and the media and focus on our own mental health, the wellbeing of our nearest and dearest and those in the wider world in need of support.
I have struggled to get myself into gear after Christmas, but thought one way was to join in with the 100 Day Project. Giving myself a daily challenge to do something, however small, to engage myself with creativity. And so enters the favourite shirt!
2011 – now the two little lads at the front are taller than me!
I have had this shirt a long long time!
It’s spent some time languishing in a cupboard because I ‘grew’ out of it, but Slimming World has helped out with that aspect and I’ve been wearing again over the last few months. It’s soft worn linen and cotton, it’s blue and white stripes. I love blue and white stripes! You’ll find any number of permutations in my wardrobe, including all my pyjamas.
But there were a few places where the enthusiastic serving of bolognese sauce has left small stains, where catching the door handle on passing has created a little tear, a lost button, a worn out elbow. In this day of recycling the obvious answer was a patch or two, a darn.
And so my slow stitch 100 Day Project was born. I signed up and pledged to do my thing: every day for 100 days I will stitch my shirt. I will embroider a bit, applique a bit, find loved scraps to stitch into place, and see just how far I can take my soft striped shirt into another existence. It will be an incentive to carry on losing weight as all those stitches are going to slightly shrink it in the process, but that can only be a good thing.
A while ago I spent a day with the lovely Hiroko Aeno-Billson learning about the Japanese art of Boro mending, visible mending of treasured clothes and textiles. This, and a borrowed book Slow Stitch by Claire Wellesley-Smith are keeping me inspired. The project started on 22nd January so I’m a bit late sharing this but I have to keep going until 30th April…phew!
I shall be sharing this journey on Instagram as much as possible as well as on the blog so if you interested come and find me there. I’d love to know if you are joining in with your own project, or if you are slowly stitching and mending too.
A quick hello from Higgins and me to wish you all the very best for the coming months.
The end of the last decade has not been easy for those of us living in the UK, barraged by a seemingly never ending stream of politics, bad temper and lies. Globally many of us feel vulnerable, both from climate change and those who are in power.
After the election in the UK I made a conscious decision to step back from the stream of news, fake news, opinions and hatred which I was absorbing daily through social media which had tainted my mental well being for months and months. It was affecting my creativity; I felt unable to write blog posts but also utterly helpless to change anything.
So, I can’t change the world, but I can change my world and maybe, possibly make some other peoples’ world just a little bit lighter in the process. I can but try. I want to reconnect with my ‘tribe’, lovely people who have been visiting Planet Penny for for a long time, and to connect with the newcomers too. I feel that for everyone, all over the globe, community is the key.
I’m going to take it slowly, drastic changes are usually doomed to fail. I hope you’ll join me trying out some vegetarian and vegan recipes as I move from ‘Meatless Mondays’ to a Flexitarian way of eating over the next months. Maybe growing a few things to eat as well? And lose weight? Yay…that would be fabulous!
Less spending, more mending…there are ways of making your repairs more beautiful than the original, let’s give it a go.
And losing ourselves in creativity to sooth our troubled minds, I have lots of ideas!
I hope you will come along for the ride, following, here or on Instagram to find out what I, (and my little furry friend) get up to, and do get in touch if you have ideas you would like to share
Lots of love from Higgins and me, we’ll see you soon …x
It’s that time of year again, and I’m getting all geared up for our annual Festive Fair, the seventh! I’m a member of the Two Rivers Artists group here in Norfolk. We originally got together for The Norfolk and Norwich Open Studios and have continued our association ever since. We all do something different, which makes for a creatively inspiring group, and we share the same slightly potty sense of humour! We always have fantastic guests at the fair so it’s a brilliant place to start your Christmas shopping. You can find out more on the website.
I’ve been beavering away in the studio making needlefelted goodies for my stall at the Festive Fair but what I’m really going to concentrate on for the future will be teaching the skill to other people. We have a great eco built hall in the village with a meeting room which is the perfect size for a group of students and I have recently held a couple of workshops there which were great fun. So 2020 here I come! I’ll be promoting the workshops at the fair so if you are in Norfolk it would be lovely to see you.
I shall leave you with an image of Higgins, who does NOT approve of all my busyness and has retreated under his blanket to sulk!
If you’ve been in a branch of Waterstones this month and seen the book displays, you may well have seen the distinctive turquoise and yellow colours of May’s Book of the Month, ‘Malamander’.
Note the on brand nail art!
(If you are wondering why I’m writing about this, I must declare an interest, as Thomas is my son!)
The other reason I am writing about this is as a warning to crafty parents or grandparents. You know that thing when the kids come home from school and announce, ‘It’s world book day, I want to be dressed as a tiger, caterpillar, Pippi Longstocking’…(fill in as appropriate) or’ I’m in the school play, I’m Henry VIII, I said you could make the costume’? It doesn’t stop when they leave school.
My son is quite grown up now…
…but I still got the ‘Muu-uum, I wonder if you could make…please?’! Which is how I came to make a Lost and Founder Cap for Herbert Lemon.
Herbie is one of the main characters in Malamander, and is the Lost and Founder at the Grand Nautilus Hotel in Eerie-on-Sea, and obviously he needs a cap to show how important he is.
So, of course I could make one… (typical me, say yes first, work out how later)
Firstly, I had to find some Royal Porpoise Blue fabric. (You haven’t heard of Royal Porpoise Blue? Neither had I) After a spot of trial and error and messages back and forth I found a colour which met with Thomas’ approval, and ordered a metre. I thought that was overkill, but more of that later…
Amazing what you can do with a cornflake packet…
I rely heavily on serendipity when I’m working, Little did I know when I fitted a new cover on the ironing board two days before that the offcuts of wadding were exactly what I needed to line the inside before stitching in a pale gold lining.
Thomas sourced the gold braid…
…and then was just the problem of the badges of office. We found brass letters which were just the right size, and I bought an ammonite pin in pewter which I covered with gold leaf.
The only thing left to find was the right gold elastic to go under Herbie’s chin – this is a source of much irritation to him during his adventures. After much discussion we found the perfect solution on Ebay…BRA STRAPS! ( but don’t tell anyone!)
So the cap went off to the book launch in London…
where it was a big hit with the youngsters…
The only problem now is that Thomas is off doing lots of events with children at book shops and schools and ALL the children want to try on the cap. It’s already looking a slightly the worse for wear…so…
Just as well I bought all that fabric. I’m off to eat more cornflakes!
To find out more about Herbert Lemon, Violet Parma and the unctuous Malamander, click on the map to visit Eerie on Sea
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