Category Archives: Needlefelt

A Hearty Handmade Monday!

Happy Monday! The beginning of another week, and I think now, like it or not, we have to admit that Christmas is coming. 41 days! oo-er!

Have you started the Christmas shopping yet? I’ve been so busy thinking about having things on my stall for the Pick’n’Mix Makers Market I just haven’t had a thought about actually buying things myself! I’m sure I’ll find the answer to several pressie dilemmas on the other stalls there. If you want to see just what’s coming up, have a look at this post about the June Market.

So what have I been making this week? There’s been more of the same with the baubles and the dolly peg dolls, which have already started to sell so I need to keep up, but the new thing was in response to a remark about the Duck I made for the Auction for Team Hannah (where you can bid for him!)…

…and his jolly heart shaped balloon.

So I’ve made some more. With spots!

It reminds me of the film Up…

I really love all those cheerful colours.

I would like to put these for sale on Folksy, the problem being the infinite variety, it would take so long to list them. I’m really not good at churning out masses of things all the same. I suppose if I listed them by the main colour, people could take pot luck on the spots, I don’t know…. What do you think?

I just think they look so jolly. Would be fun in a nice shiny green pot plant!

If you like Handmade Monday, go over to see Wendy of 1st Unique Gifts, where lots of other creative people have links to what they’ve been up to.

I must get back to my felting needle, see you soon x

P.S. To those of you who have been missing Higgins, he’s fine and full of mischief as ever. If you need a little mini dachshund fix, you can find a post he wrote a while ago just here!

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

Silent Sunday

Needlefelting by the Fire

Here in North Norfolk we seem to be clinging on to our Indian Summer, although it’s been good to light the woodburner once the sun goes down. It’s very poignant, I’m very much a Spring person, and struggle a bit with approaching Winter and I’m finding capturing little moments with the camera a really good way of being more positive about the clocks going back next weekend.

It does mean that sometimes I have to be a bit adventurous to get the shot I want. The Silent Sunday picture this week involved clambering round quite a lot of mud and through dead stalks to get at that last surviving sunflower. Higgins thought I’d gone quite mad and dug all four little legs firmly in the ground when I tried to tow him behind me, so I had to do it with a dachshund tucked under one arm into the bargain!

I’ve been needlefelting this week. With the Pick’n’Mix Market just a short month away I’ve been working on more Christmas decorations making Sputnik Baubles and I’ve had lots of fun with the colours. I said in a previous post I’m working on all-year-round colours, rather than a traditional palette, and I’ve been surprised how jolly and clown like my creations are becoming…

…and you can sort of imagine them orbiting Planet Penny can’t you?

(Now I’m feeling ashamed because I realise just how long I’ve had those wooden hangers waiting for me to creatively cover them!)

After last week’s Handmade Monday I had interest expressed in a tutorial for the Crochet Fairy Lights which you will now find here. I’d love to see if you make them!

And talking of Handmade Monday please make a trip over to 1st Unique Gifts to say hello to Wendy and to find out what other exciting bits of making have been going on over the week.

Finally thanks to everyone who took part in the Reasons to be Cheerful Linky. I hope that now you know about it you’ll be looking for your own little sparks of happiness to share for for the next one which is scheduled for Thursday. When clocks go back next weekend, we’ll need all the cheering up we can get!

See you soon x

Name the Cow – The Results

Well first I’ve got to say I’ve been really let down. I know it’s a bit of a gloomy day, but honestly, I just can’t get my staff to get up these days…

So the draw with the hat just didn’t happen, I’ve had to resort to the Random Number Generator.

Still, I only had to do counting for the name vote, and ended up with a short list of seven, which were, in no particular order, Flora, Ermintrude, Petunia, Pamela, Miss Marple, Lucy and Gertrude. After an early lead, Ermintrude finally lost out to Petunia, which I think suits her very well.

Petunia the Cow

Thanks so much for your help, I now have a selection of names for the rest of the herd, and Petunia will be heading off to Folksy very soon to find a new home.

And now for the draw. Having given everyone a number, I set the RNG going and the winner was No. 14, who is….drumroll…..pregnant pause…. Tilly Mint Boutique!!! So congratulations, I shall put the Julie Arkell book and tiny sheep in the post very soon.

Thanks so much to everyone who took part, I shall look out for another occasion to celebrate in the near future.
See you soon x

Handmade Monday…again!

Happy Monday! I hope that wherever you are you are not being washed or swept away. Not too awful in Norfolk, but soggy enough for Higgins to decide a lie-in is the best option!

A shortish post today, I’m getting ready for a Needlefelting class this evening, for a local group. They are known as WISE, which I believe stands for Women In Search of Entertainment, so I hope I can keep them entertained. They meet in the pub, which is nice, although I think the drinks ought to be fairly weak while the felting needles are flying around! (I’m taking the monkey plasters, as insurance.) We’ll be making cupcakes again…

I seem to have scored a hit with the last project I was working on. Do you remember this?…

…which showed you in this post.

I decided it was a bit half-hearted and so put it back on the needles and used the remaining wool to make it longer, and more versatile, more of a statement. I needed a model…

…and it seemed to suit…

Can you see the look in her eye?

It never came off, and went out of the door that evening on a very happy daughter!

So I’m trying again, as I went shopping at the weekend and came back with more beautiful yarn…

which I now have it on the needles to pick up in odd quiet moments…. (I’ll be modelling this one myself, I think!)

While I was in Norwich I paid a visit to the Norwich Print Fair which is always very inspiring and is in a very interesting and pretty part of the city…

(click on the photos if you want to find out more…)

And was also able to meet two fellowTweeters! One of the upsides of spending time (too much time!) in cyberspace is linking up with people from all over the world, so you don’t often get an opportunity to meet up in person. I am @woollyplanet on Twitter, and introduced myself to Mandy Walden by waving my sheep pendant and going Baaaa! (Tim reckons I’m probably certifiable) but Mandy knew who I was! And I also found Sarah Bays, whose print of the ‘Chicken of Doom’ reminds me a lot of my last bird, Attila the Hen. If you can’t get along to the print fair, which is on ’till the 17th of this month, do look at all the beautiful prints on the website. I always come away wishing I had more wallspace.

Did I say this would be a short post? How I rabbit on…

I’m linking up again with Wendy on 1st Unique Gifts for Handmade Monday where you can browse though the list of other crafty bloggers. Do go and have a look.

Have a lovely week, see you soon x

P.S. I’ve just found out it’s National Cupcake Week, very appropriately, although I don’t think those cupcakes will be as ‘high fibre’ as mine!