Category Archives: Needlefelt

Dolly Peg Angels for Handmade Monday

Hello, and welcome to another Handmade Monday. I hope you’ve had a lovely weekend as we all rev up towards the Christmas festivities. I was very excited to find that I was able to control the weather on Planet Penny and arrange for some seasonal snow to fall!

I’ve just about reached the point of RSI on the needlefelting front now, and I’m longing to spend an evening with the hexipuffs or some crochet. I can’t believe how popular the needlefelted robin baubles have been, I think it’s the Kirsty effect! I’ve just posted the very last ones for this year on Folksy, the result of an experiment, but I really like it.

One of my fellow stall holders at the Pick’n’Mix Makers Market is Fiona Henderson of High Fibre yarns and she makes the most unusual yarns, a bit like french knitting, from lambswool, and I bought a few skeins to try out. So this is what I’ve used to make a little creamy wreath on which two teeny tiny robins can perch….

…they’ve still got the little feet that make everyone go ‘aaaah!’…

Looking at then here they look huge and a bit hairy, but in fact they’re only 2″/5cm long from beak to tail.

I also have a rather gorgeous raspberry pink yarn from High Fibre destined to be a mug hug soon, another reason to get at the knitting needles!

By way of a change, I’ve revisited the Dolly Pegs, and made a little Choir of Angels who are also listed on Folksy…

…and then decided the Dolly Peg Dolls would make a great tutorial to share, and you can find it here! I hope you enjoy it, I’d love to see your versions.

I’m off to do some baking now. We have the Christmas meeting of our Knit and Stitch group this week, and I’m using that as an excuse to get out the Frangipane Mince Pie recipe. I’ll have to get them into the freezer the minute they’ve cooled down though, they are SO more-ish I doubt there would be any left if I don’t!

Finally, thank you so much for the congratulations and nice comments about Planet Penny being on the Ch4 Favourite Craft Blogs list. I hadn’t realised before how many links there on the 4Homes website for makers and crafters, well worth a look. And of course the other place to visit today for handmade inspiration is Wendy’s Handmade Monday Linky over on 1st Unique Gifts.

I’ll leave you browse…

Have a lovely week! x

Reasons to be Cheerful – Week 8

Hello! I hope you are all feeling as cheerful as I am at the moment. but if not I hope that somewhere along the way between this blog and the others taking part we can bring a you a smile or two.

It’s jolly cold and windy here today, but at least we haven’t got the ice and snow that is making life miserable further north. Norfolk always manages to fit in a lot of sky over it’s landscape and I never tire of photographing it.

(Home and a warm fire is tucked away behind the trees in the middle!)

I’ve every reason to be cheerful today because Tim is home, and home for Christmas too. It doesn’t always happen, and he does have to go back offshore the day after Boxing Day for two weeks, but it’s lovely to have him about for the run up to Christmas.

Higgins is happy too. Watch the remake here of ‘The Railway Children’….Higgins in the Jenny Agutter role…”Daddy, my Daddy!”

I have a small gem from the grandsons to share too… Max and Benjy won a Christmas card competition. “Daddy, Daddy! We’ve won a vulture, a £20 vulture!”

So that’s Christmas dinner taken care of then.

I’ve had a BIG challenge on the needlefelting front, and I think I’ve cracked it. I had to create a hamster, and not just any hamster, a particular hamster. It wasn’t till I started that I realised just how tricky hamsters are because they can be very round and fat, or all stretched out and lithe. I cracked it on the third attempt, and gave him an apple to play with for good measure. I can’t tell you how happy I was when it all started falling into place! Phew!

Finally, I’m very happy to be able to share the exciting news I mentioned last week. I’m on a list! And not just any list, but the Channel4/4Homes Favourite Craft Blogs list!

I suppose I should be very cool about it, but I’m not. I just can’t believe when I look back at my tentative beginnings here on Planet Penny, that I’ve come this far. So I shall say it again…Phew!

And at the risk of sounding as if I’ve just been presented with an Oscar, it wouldn’t have happened without all you out there. I was reading a blog a few days ago where the writer was justifying her decision to disable comments, because she said she was writing for herself and not for other people to express opinions. But it doesn’t work like that in the crafting blog world. I need your opinions and feedback, and don’t know where I’d be without it!

I’m sure you all have lots of Reasons to be Cheerful you could share just at the moment in the run up to Christmas. If you put them in your Blog, add it to the Linky below so people can visit, and if you don’t have a blog, please feel free to tell us what is making you happy this week in the ‘Comments’.

See you soon….x

Needlefelt Cup Cakes for Handmade Monday

Hello, and welcome to another Handmade Monday. It’s hard to believe that three weeks today we will be wondering what to do to make the turkey leftovers exciting! I’ve been reading through last December’s posts , and realising how great the whole blog thing is. If I wasn’t writing this, how would I remember last year’s early snow? Those photos are making me envious of the snow I hear has fallen in the North of England and Scotland over the last couple of days. Can it really be a year since the Mad French Cat came to stay at my Mum’s, to keep us entertained with his funny little ways? And I was SO organised last year! Making Christmas cards and Mincemeat, wrapping presents… At the moment my sole piece of preparation is a Christmas Cake in a bag…

Never mind, the time has not been wasted, and I’ve always liked a challenge!

My latest piece of news is the opening of a new shop in a Market town not too far away from where I live which is starting craft courses in the New Year. I’ll be there with my felting needles among other craft tutors, and you can find out more here. I’m off there on Thursday to promote the beginners’ class, a Needlefelt Cup Cake Pincushion, which you may have read about here before, but it’s always a good introduction.

And it’s surprising how yummy they look!

So it’s a short post this Handmade Monday, I need to be consulting the gospel according to St Delia for a bit of seasonal advice, and catching up. Do pay a call over on 1st Unique Gifts where Wendy has made a gathering place for all the Handmade Monday-ers!

Planet Penny on Folksy – A Year On

I’ve just sat down at the keyboard with my Reasons to be Cheerful hat on, and realised I have an anniversary to mark this month. It’s a whole year since I needlefelted my first robin and my chums in our little Procrastinators Anonymous group said, “Just get ON with it!” So I put it in the Folksy shop which I had set up months before and then had a crisis of confidence, and I sold it. And it’s a whole year since I took a clutch of robins to the Pick’n’Mix Makers Market in Holt because Emma of Silver Pebble wanted to choose one, and she sold the rest on her stall…

And this time last year I was visiting the Market as a customer, and this time I’ve got a stall, so I think I’ve got a Reason to be Cheerful right here!

(While I was digging around in the archives I found a photo I can’t resist using again…how ridiculous is this…?)

Anyway, enough of all that silliness…

I’ve taken advantage of Tim being back in the middle of the North Sea to commandeer the dining table on which to sort out my packing for Saturday…

Oooh-er, putting it in a photo makes it look so darn little, but actually sitting alongside it I’m sure it’ll be fine.

Needlefelting does NOT lent itself to mass production!

I’ve had some fun with the baubles…

and I’ve made a Christmas Angel…

…or two.

And I’ve put a bigger robin in a wreath which I’m quite pleased with…

I’ll hopefully have lots of pictures of this Saturday’s event to show you next week (note to self – REMEMBER THE CAMERA!)

So all that is jolly stuff, but before I share some other cheerfulness I just wanted to say a big thank you for all the lovely encouraging comments you have been leaving me. I might be beavering away on my own, but I never feel it while I have so many virtual friends visiting Planet Penny. And also, there’s been some interest in the whole needlefelting process, and what it’s all about. Excitingly, I’ve been asked to run some classes next year, I’ll let you know more as I get the information. Obviously that’s only any help if you live relatively nearby, but when things are a little calmer in the new year I can put a tutorial on line if you would like. Do leave a comment if you are interested.

So back to the matter in hand. I’m still finding loveliness in the garden but with the weather turning colder it seemed a good idea to bring it indoors…

…and Sweet Peas in November?

After yesterday’s fog, this morning’s sunrise was beautiful…

…and it was fun getting a Higgins’ eye view of the toadstools!

And finally, and I know I’ve gone over the three reasons but that can only be a good thing, there was a glorious misty sunset the other evening…

…it’s just a shame it has to happen so early in the afternoon!

So, what Reasons to be Cheerful have YOU found this week? Please share them on your blog and link them through the Linky below and spread a little happiness. And if you don’t have a blog, feel free to add them to the comments on this post, I’m looking forward to hearing from you…x

Needlefelted Robins for Handmade Monday

It’s the final run down to the Pick’n’Mix Maker’s Market in the lovely market town of Holt, Norfolk on the 26th November which is NEXT WEEKEND!!! (Aaaah! Speak severely to self….’Calm down, dear!’)

Actually I am looking forward to it, panic aside, because I will see so many friends, especially Emma of Silver Pebble, Celia of Purple Podded Peas, Gabriella of Moobaacluck, Tracey and Craig of Faded Splendour, and the hostess with the mostess, Lisa of Bobobun. And there will be Daisy Boo’s Kitchen…and CAKE…and lots of other lovely stalls!

So as, much to my delight, my little Carol Singing Mice sold almost immediately I have made another group, and they are just waiting to collect their song sheets and bell…

…and I have been making more needlefelted robins, this time to hang on the Christmas tree…

Despite my efforts to remained focussed I did get somewhat side tracked by discovering the delights of the ‘hexipuff’. It came at me from two different directions, firstly in Vanessa’s post on ‘Do You Mind If I Knit’, and then on the UKHandmade website. Isn’t this pretty?

Such a brilliant way of using leftover sock yarn! These are my first efforts…

…and the lovely thing is that UK Handmade are collecting donated hexipuffs to make a quilt to raise funds for charity, and you can find out all about it here.

I think I qualify to enter Handmade Monday this week! If you drop over to Wendy’s Blog on 1st Unique Gifts you’ll find plenty more to see.

See you soon! x

Mid November Cheerfulness

What do you think of that for an Autumnal photo? Albertine usually only does her stuff, very spectacularly, for three weeks in June! She’s a little confused!

It’s been a little hectic this week, and again I’ve had moments of ‘Humph, what is there to be cheerful about?’ but it’s always there when you look for it.

We had a bit of worry over my mum. She struggles heroically with all sorts of health issues and keeps amazingly positive but this week new pills rendered her a bit more wobbly than usual and for the first time she had to use her alarm necklace and we had a call to rescue her. She’s less than a mile away so we were there within minutes to find that she had gently capsized rather than fallen, and had only damaged her dignity. It was so fortunate that Tim was home though as I could never have got her off the floor single handedly and probably would have had to call the emergency services. Knowing my mum, she’d have said, ‘Ooh, lovely, firemen!’

So for a couple of days I’ve been going round every couple of hours but now the doctor has been and the pills sorted out we are back to normal for the moment. Such a worry though.

Any way, The sun’s been shining through the last remaining cherry leaves this morning…

I think over the next week the rest of the leaves will be down, but there’s been a lovely sparkly carpet for a small dog to rush about on!…

If you look in the top left hand corner of the first Higgins photo you’ll see my Drummer Boy rose which is still blooming too…

I rescued it from the ‘Nearly Dead’ bin at the local garden centre some years ago and it has been gratefully flowering every year since! And talking of buying plants, I was very happy to find hyacinths to buy at the Farmers Market last Saturday.

You might remember last winter I had these…

…and now I have these to look forward too…

This morning Selvedge arrived…

Which has gone into the pile with Country Living…

…and Country Homes and Interiors…

…to be read, sometime, when I’m not wielding a a red hot felting needle!

Which reminds me. Thank you for all the suggestions which were made about listing the Felty Balloons on Folksy. I’ve taken them all on board, but I think I will wait now until after the Pick’n’Mix Market which is in 10 days time. It would be rather lovely if I don’t have any left to list, wouldn’t it? We’ll see!

Yesterday afternoon I went out to the studio with express intention of have a good tidy up, walked in, spotted a particular piece of fleece, had a brainwave and ended up needlefelting again! But it was very productive, because I made this little chap…

I thought if he had a couple of brothers, they could go carol singing, and here they are! This one has the music…

…this one rings the bell…

…and this one knows all the words!

They are quite wee, just over 2″ tall, and look SO cute on the mantlepiece. However, I will be sensible, and they ARE for sale! (Ed. to add: and were sold, the very next day! Another reason to be cheerful!)

I hope that you too have found some ‘Reasons to be Cheerful’ even if you felt it’s been a tricky week so far. And I hope too that you’ll be able to join in with the ‘Linky’ so that we can spread a little happiness about. I’ve really enjoyed popping off to other blogs, and sharing the cheerfulness. I’ve decided to start the Linky slightly earlier, Wednesday afternoon rather than Thursday morning to give as much time as possible for people to find it and join in and so here it is!

See you soon xx