Tag Archives: Norfolk and Norwich Open Studios

An office in the sun!

Well, this is a rare occurrence, Higgins and I have moved outside. We’re on the veranda outside the studio, there’s blue sky, sunshine, flowers, birdsong…What could be better? office_in_the_sun

Only last week we were huddled under a blanket (in Higgins case, three blankets) watching the rain lash down so I’m making the most of every minute now.

There is just one weekend left of Open Studios here in Norfolk and it’s been good, as usual. Really nice to meet the people who come to visit who are really interested in what we do, and in who, in turn, have interesting stories to tell. Higgins has been working well with the meeting and greeting, he even had an assistant! Higgins&Coco It did get very tiring in the end though… tired Higgins

I have been been diligent in my decluttering efforts. So many things which I have made in order to create patterns, but eventually I have to reluctantly part with them in order to make room in the studio, and in my head, for new ideas.

It’s not easy! The knitting mobile has been sold…

it’s off to Germany as a present.

And the Hearts and Flowers Mobile is off to grace a little ones bedroom which is lovely. It’s nice to know it will have a good home.

Hearts and Flowerts Mobile from Planet Penny Quite a few little needlefelted pieces have been sold too, although I’m not going to part with Clover the sheep!

Flock of needlefelt sheep - Planet Penny

Clover is the one in the middle!

So if you are in the area next weekend do call in. There’s bunting and baubles and fairy lights and books too! I’m never going to rival decluttering queen Marie Kondo, but I’m trying!

Back soon…x

Needlefelting in Norwich

Well, Open Studios may be over for another year, but the needlefelting goes on… Last Saturday I packed my big spotty bag with a rainbow of fluffy fleece and went off to the Craft Lounge at the new Arts Desire premises. It’s all looking very lovely there now, and I especially appreciated the posh new coffee machine, and Kay’s newly acquired skills as a barista. I function so much better after a shot of caffeine!

We had a lovely group of people on the Needlefelt workshop who were very creative and soon got into the swing of needlefelting, with only the odd squeak as someone missed the work and pricked a finger (with no swearing, I was impressed)

At the end we had an eclectic mix of creations, several birds, a cuddly mouse, a French bulldog, a scary monster and a rainbow hedgehog…

I’ve now had a request for a workshop for making needlefelt notebook covers so if you are interested, do let me know.

Back home, I’m trying to get to grips with the garden which seems to have gone mad while my back was turned. I’ve made lots of moments to just stand and stare at the Albertine Rose though…

For 48 weeks of the year it’s a complete thug. It’s rampaged over the fence into next door and is swarming up their house too, fortunately they really like it. It sends out long, long branches covered in large thorns which grab at unsuspecting callers and it takes our son, Will, who is also our gardener most of an afternoon to trim it, tame it and train up the wires he’s put on the house. But at this time of the year it completely redeems itself, smothering the front of the house with fondant pink. I love lying in bed and viewing the world through rose petals!

It’s all too brief though, and already the North wind of the past couple of days has made the doorstep look as if we’ve hosted a wedding reception…

Such a fleeting moment…

Going back to the needlefelting again, one or two sharp-eyed people spotted the little old man in the tree when they came to visit for Open Studios…

I’m going to leave him there and see what happens. Will he rot? Will he be eaten by slugs or moths? Will he be dismantled by birds for nesting material? Or will he still be there for next year’s Open Studios…?

We shall see!

See you soon…x

The Joy of Open Studios

Could there been a better day taking part in Open Studios? I don’t really think so. The sunshine has been glorious and the sky blue…

…the butterflies discovered the flowers on the courtyard and kept us entertained all day……and Higgins had a bath, specially!

The Studio is still looking astonishingly tidy…

…and we’ve had so many lovely visitors.

A lady from Yorkshire demonstrated tatting…

My best friend from Art School came with her husband and friends (and there was soon as much noisy laughter as there ever was when we were studying together!) Lots of local friends arrived to find out what we get up to and old pals from way back arrived to surprise us.

We got rather too excited when we discovered that two of our visitors ran a circus! And that he was the clown and she was the Ringmaster!

The clown really loved Higgins and I think the feeling was mutual so for a short while Higgins running away to join the circus was definitely on the cards.

And Emma from Silver Pebble came with her family and stayed and did crochet and finger knitting which was lovely…

When eventually every left to go home we sat on the verandah and ate strawberries, clotted cream and chocolate cake and agreed it had been a splendid day all round.

If you’ve ever wondered about taking part in Open Studios yourself, and it happens all over the UK,we would both thoroughly recommend it. Yes, we make sales but its much more than that. People are so interested in what we do and how we do it and it’s great when they go away enthused to try something creative themselves.

And there is still next weekend, so if you are in the area and would like to visit you can find out all about us and the rest of the Two Rivers Trail of which we are a part right here.

Hope to see you then…x

Missing Mojo – Found!

You might remember me bemoaning the loss of my Mojo in this post, the debilitating feeling when inspiration disappears out of the window.

Well, I’m happy to relate that it’s back and I’m beavering away being creative and even the wind and rain whipping past the window and howling down the chimney hasn’t dampened my spirits today!

I realise that I’ve become bogged down, especially with Social Media. When I started writing this blog I had no idea about SEO, I didn’t have a Facebook Page, a Twitter account, a featured board on Pinterest, an Instagram account, Flickr. I wasn’t helping other people with their Facebook Pages, Twitter accounts, websites….

Add that to the Etsy shop, packing yarn, writing patterns, answering queries as well as family commitments and actually having a life… the part of me which I discovered and which grew when I was at Art School only a few years ago was in danger of withering away altogether.

Being part of Open Studios over the past few years has kept me hanging on by my fingernails though, and I’ve loved making the exhibition pieces…

Wool Gathering 2012

How to Knit a Sheep 2013

That time of year is coming round again (so quickly!) and I’ve been rummaging around in my mind for the perfect inspiration. For ages after making the sheep’s head, I toyed with the idea of a stag’s head complete with antlers. The perfect place to hang crochet garlands and pompoms! But then I realised that every time I opened a catalogue or magazine, or watched a design programme on television there seemed to be some sort of variation of a stag’s head, a rhino, a zebra or similar and I knew the moment had passed.

There are also restrictions for the exhibition too. I work in three dimensions but making something which needs a plinth, and finding the plinth too is an added complication, so the hanging format I’ve used so far works best.

Inspiration struck a couple of weeks ago because of our local pantomime. The Am-Dram group in the village is full of creative people and we’re lucky to have someone to devise something beyond the usual Sleeping Beauty/Aladdin/Puss in Boots offerings. This year it was The Green Man.

Aha! the Green Man! And with some research I find this quote…

His name means the Green One or Verdant One, he is the voice of inspiration to the aspirant and committed artist.

He can come as a white light or the gleam on a blade of grass, but more often as an inner mood.

The sign of his presence is the ability to work or experience with tireless enthusiasm beyond one’s normal capacities. In this there may be a link across cultures,… one reason for the enthusiasm of the medieval sculptors for the Green Man may be that he was the source of inspiration.”

Perfect!

I’ve sorted through my stash of fleece and yarns, filled a bag with natural colours and ordered some more from Wingham Wool Work. I also bought a sample pack of dyes and that’s what I’ve been doing most of today, dying natural fleece and yarn, and over-dyeing some bright shades to bring them into the right colour spectrum.

I’ve had such FUN! I’ve looked back in the archives and it was January 2011 when I last dyed yarn and I loved the results then. This is a very different palette, but I’m so enjoying throwing caution to the winds, and mixing up different dyes, and different strengths and dribbling them over the wool to get soft natural effects.

My Green Man has been inspired by the cherry trees in the garden with their grey trunks. His face is bark coloured using natural Cheviot fleece, rougher and hairier than my usual Merino, and lovely to needlefelt. This is the story so far…

Just waiting for the greenery to grow!

The greenery is too damp to use tonight so I will put my crochet ‘Hat’ on as I want to finally finish the bunting pattern which I’ve been editing. It’s looking very pretty…

I’m off to clean up the dye splatters in the utility room, but I’ll be back soon!

All Sheep Shape…

Have you heard the sound of birds singing and sheep dancing on Planet Penny this week? It’s all because the sun is shining and I have finished my piece for the Norfolk and Norwich Open Studios Taster Exhibition at the Forum in Norwich….yippee! I’ve just looked back and found I published my Ta-daaa moment for the last piece almost exactly a year ago today, you can read it here. And I said “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” And I can say exactly the same this year. It’s amazing how a deadline focuses the mind!

But first, the sunshine. It’s still not very warm, but it was a relief to wake up yesterday morning and realise the wind was not whistling in the chimney which it’s been doing for days.

I’ve had the doors open into the garden for the first time this year (and kept my fleece on) to let some fresh air into the house and Henry and Higgins have appreciated being able to wander in and out as they please. Henry has a spot on a warm paving slab where in a few weeks he will be able to get spaced out on Cat Mint…

…and Higgins parked himself under the bird feeder to make sure no pesky birds could get at the little dish of water I put out for them. He found it was particularly delicious, so much nicer than the inferior water in the dog bowl!

There’s a lot of bare earth in the garden, even the weeds are holding back, but there are patches of Spring to enjoy…

And so to my big project for this week. I really wanted to do something completely different this time, to step away of the bright colours, the crochet, the small things. Also to challenge myself on the needlefelt front and make something much bigger than little birds and mice. So I’ve used a very subdued palette…

Natural Merino fleece with a background of charcoal grey.

So can you guess what I made? Well, of course it’s a sheep!

It’s actually quite hard to photograph and get the angle right…

It’s called ‘How to Knit a Sheep’… (but please don’t ask me for a pattern!)

The knitted part starts off as unspun fleece and gradually reduces in thickness until it becomes undyed 4 ply to knit the lacy part.

This has been a rare moment when the finished piece is almost the same as the picture in my head, hence the singing and dancing! As you can imagine, I haven’t done a lot else this week but there are exciting Planet Penny things in the pipeline which I hope to share with you soon.

It’s Handmade Monday again this week so I’m linking up with Wendy for Handmade Monday over on Handmade Harbour and I’ll be back very soon…x

Hearts and Flowers Mobile – The Reveal!

I can’t believe it’s taken me all week to get to the ‘big reveal’ for the Hearts and Flowers Mobile project I was working on last weekend. I’ve spent a lot of time keeping metaphorical plates spinning and I’m so glad I’ve got the routine of Handmade Monday to keep me ‘regular’, once a week at least! I think if I was asked to pick just one piece of advice to give to someone trying to get their head around blogging it would be make a routine, and stick to it. I know when I started out it was so easy to put off a post and then have so many photos, so many ideas that it would take a huge effort of will to sit down and turn it all into something potentially interesting to someone else. Right now the mid week post keeps getting put off because of ‘stuff’ getting in the way, but I’m hanging on the the weekend post for dear life until everything settles down a bit.

We’ve had all sorts of weather thrown at us in the UK over the past days, but I made the most of a brief mild spell to nip into the garden to see what was going on and found these…

…with a little help from my friend!

I love snowdrops. They look so delicate and yet brave the elements every year to let us know that Springtime will arrive, eventually…

There is an old rhyme which says…

The snowdrop, in purest white array,

First rears it’s head on Candlemas Day.

Candlemas Day falls on the 2nd February, so it must be true!

Back indoors though it was rather a struggle to photograph my Hearts and Flowers Mobile. Ideally I need a large blank space, a white corner of a room with no distracting background stuff going on. But I live in a very small cottage, my studio is packed with things and the mobile is just under a metre or 3 feet long so I hope you’ll bear with me…

I’ve used the garland pattern to make the hearts and flowers using the Planet Penny Cotton colours (the pattern and yarns are available from the Etsy shop). I’m very happy that it worked out exactly as I had pictured it, and that doesn’t happen very often!

It’s triggered another idea, so I hope I get time to make a start this week. My other ongoing project is building a website for our entry in this year’s Norfolk and Norwich Open Studios. This will be the third year that I and my friend Kit Calladine the printmaker will be taking part, but this time we are part of an art trail with six other local artists which is very exciting. Before long I will put a link to the website so you can find out all about us, and hopefully some of you may even pay us a visit!

And this also means I must return to the felting needle. I have a plan for a piece for the Taster Exhibition but it is very easy to have the image in your head for so long that you forget you haven’t actually made it yet!

So altogether I have quite a bit to keep me out of mischief , and I promise I won’t forget to call back here to tell you all about it!

Meanwhile, I shall leave you with a link to Handmade Harbour where after 6pm this evening (UK time) you will find lots of other busy crafters and makers taking part in Handmade Monday.

I’ll be back soon…x