Tag Archives: Norfolk Open Studios

The Magic of Serendipity

Serendipity, a ‘happy accident’ ..it’s one of my favourite words. The older I get, the more aware I am of the opportunities created by the serendipitous nature of the every day. And this week’s happy accident all started with carrot cake!

I had an overdue hair appointment with my usual hairdresser, but in a different place because he is waiting to open his new salon. The appointment was long, so I took my Kindle and by the time my hair was deemed ready for the basin, the main character in the book had visited several coffee shops and eaten quite a lot of carrot cake. I found myself yearning for carrot cake. Having mentioned my craving, Jon, my hairdresser had the answer. The best carrot cake in Norwich he assured me, just up the road from where I was sitting.

Trips into Norwich these days are usually fraught with the need to get home to make my Mum’s lunch or walk Higgins, but today unusually my Mum was cared for, and Tim was on Higgins duty so I decided that lunch was going to be a slice of carrot cake and a cappuccino. Very decadent!

It was very nice carrot cake (and if you are a fan and find yourself in the Norwich Lanes visit the House Cafe and tell me if I’m right!) and, suitably replete I wandered back down the road doing a spot of window shopping. I ground to halt out side a shop full of the gorgeous fabric. So I just had to go in.

The shop is Arts Desire, and the Serendipity Fairy had just waved her magic wand…

…and it’s one of those shops you just want to move into. I would so love a wall like this…

…and all that pretty china. Here’s some of the gorgeous fabric…

..and there are kits…

…and ribbons…

…and more ribbons…

…it was all absolutely…

I do rather think I need that cushion!

And there was a dachshund!

Behind all this gorgeousness I found a Craft Lounge offering workshops in Lampshade Making, Knitting, Crochet, wet Felt making, Sewing, Quilting and Silver jewellery making. It’s Norwich’s answer to the Makery in Bath!

I had just established that there were no Needlefelting classes on offer when the owner returned from lunch and after ten minutes of nattering and comparing notes we had a cunning plan.

I regularly get emails asking if I teach Needlefelting Classes, and mostly I just teach private groups. Finding a good venue that people can get to easily has been the main drawback and Norwich has good routes from most places these days. So the Craft Lounge at Arts Desire, just off the centre of the city will be the perfect place to hold Needlefelt Workshops.

There are no dates as yet but it will be after Open Studios is over from the middle of June onwards. If you are interested please follow this link and leave your contact details (mentioning Planet Penny/needlefelt) in your message and we will keep you up to date.

Don’t despair if you are tempted by all this loveliness and live too far away because there is also an online shop and a Facebook Page so there are lots more goodies to drool over!

I will be back on Sunday with the results of the draw for the Ruth Cross book ‘The Knitted Home’. There’s still time to enter if you haven’t already, just leave your knitting story in the comments on the post here.

I will also have details of yet another great prize which I have been given to offer to you, so don’t forget to call back to take part.

See you soon…x

Sunshine and Flowers

Suddenly it’s Spring! It’s such an overwhelming change too, after a winter which seemed to go on forever. The daffodils at the side of the road, resolutely green and tight budded, responded to the sunshine so immediately you could practically hear the sound of popping as they opened. There’s now a definite green tinge to the brown twigginess of the hedgerows, in a few days Spring will really be busting out all over!

It’s been another busy week, which started with a trip to London. I went to meet the Pinterest Team, who came over from the US to organise a campaign with selected bloggers. And they selected me! Very honoured by that, and very surprised! Anyway, it all happens in May and I look forward to telling you all about it then.

With a little time to spare, I wandered round and went off to see St Paul’s, knowing that in a couple of days I would be seeing it on the news during the coverage of Margaret Thatcher’s funeral. I was too late to go inside, but it is a very beautiful and imposing building, especially with the blossom and late afternoon sunshine.

Back home, Open Studios is fast approaching. We’ve picked up boxes of brochures and postcards and tomorrow we’re off to the Forum in Norwich with our pieces for display in the Taster Exhibition which is on from Tuesday to Friday. I mentioned in this post that I was making a website for our Art Trail so if you would like to know more about us call over to the Two Rivers Trail (and watch out for the gorilla!)

I’m longing to find time to get out in the garden like some others I could mention…

…and Higgins isn’t the only one enjoying the sunshine out there either…

…but at the moment I tend to just wander round with a cup of tea and a camera in my tea breaks.

These little Grape Hyacinths have survived remarkably well considering they are on one of Higgins’ routes round the garden and he’s trodden on them regularly for months!

I’ve done nothing in the vegetable patch, so this little pansy has taken advantage and moved in…

I skived off from working for a couple of hours this morning to visit the beach. We’ve not been for ages as we’ve had weeks of Arctic winds blowing straight of the sea and I didn’t think it would do my sinuses much good! It hasn’t done the beach much good either, as our miles of pale gold sand has been scoured off and deposited elsewhere. The level of the beach must be about 15 feet lower, and there are pools and stretches of clay.

The huge chunks of granite which are part of the sea defences and normally partially hidden in the sand are exposed, and it was quite a feat of mountaineering to get over the top and on to the next stretch of beach.

Higgins really enjoyed the pools…

..and also discovered the most revolting bit of flotsam…or even jetsom..in the shape of a baby’s dummy. He smelt it from about 20 feet away, made a bee line for it and carried it all the way back to the car to put in his toy box!

So this is why I haven’t finished the project that was going to be my Hand Made Monday feature! I’m sure you don’t begrudge me a trip to the seaside though, and I will get back in the next few days when it’s done. I have also taken deliver of a fresh batch of Planet Penny yarn which I need to get back on to the Etsy site so it really is busy, busy, busy at the moment.

Don’t forget, there is still time to join in with draw for a copy of The Knitted Home by Ruth Cross. Just visit the post here, and leave your knitting story in the comments. Do take a moment to read some of the stories which have already been left, some of them really raise a giggle.

Back soon…x

Waiting for Spring

Happy Easter! It seems strange to start a post entitled ‘Waiting for Spring’ that way but we are really stuck in some topsy turvy weather at the moment. Hard to credit getting up on the first morning after the clocks change for British Summer Time to a sprinkling of snow! We’ve actually got off lightly here in Norfolk as far as snow goes, the pictures of devastated farmers digging their sheep out of snowdrifts in other parts of the country have been heartbreaking. We’ve just got the Arctic blast coming straight off the North Sea and hitting us sitting on the exposed lumpy bit sticking out of the East of England to contend with.

So I’m sharing a pretty Spring like picture to cheer us up…

Higgins is not a fan of going out in the cold and I’ve had a running battle with him over the building of dachshund ‘nests’ out of the soft furnishings. He’s only really happy when he has buried himself and if he finds himself on the sofa with no available ‘blankie’ he will grizzle until he’s been covered up.

Since he’s eaten the corners of all the old cushions he now has a cushion of his very own, and a fleece blanket he can do whatever he likes with. Unfortunately, he feels these are just not good enough, and compare very poorly with the fluffy throw I have draped over the back of the sofa, and the new velvet cushions in anemone colours I rashly bought a few weeks ago.

Every time my back is turned, this happens…

…and he might look guilty…

…but that doesn’t mean he’s going to move!

I’ve reached a bit of a hiatus on Planet Penny just now. It’s always slightly problematic judging stock levels with the Planet Penny cotton because I don’t have a huge amount of space to store it. Unfortunately an unexpected rush of orders has coincided with a couple of colours being out of stock at the suppliers so it’ll be first come first served on the few packs remaining until the middle of April.

But…

There are some changes afoot. I’ll be trialling a new pack, which some of you have been asking about for a while AND I have a new venture in the pipeline which I will tell you about later on in the year, so I’m not standing still by any means.

Meanwhile, Open Studios is on the horizon and I have started an ambitious needlefelted piece for exhibition so a lull on the cotton front is probably a good thing. There are only so many hours in the day! It’s refreshing change to be doing something creative and challenging just for me, I hope it turns out looking at least a little bit like the image in my head.

Just a reminder, the Bunny crochet pattern offer ends tomorrow, Easter Monday at 5pm UK time. After that it will be available through the Etsy shop, but for now it’s still yours for FREE!

I changed the yarn to make this version, a big soft squidgy version as a baby toy…

I’m off now to dig Higgins out of his latest nest, put on his coat and march him round a field or two…

…and then get back to my felting needle. Don’t forget to nip over the Handmade Harbour to see what’s going on for Handmade Monday this week.

I’ll see you soon…x

A Bug in the System

Hello! So sorry I haven’t been around for a while, and thank you so much for the lovely Get Well Soon messages which were very much appreciated. I usually have to cope with a bug in the computer system, but this time the virus has been my very own!

The last few weeks have been flagged up for ages as the busiest of the whole of 2012 but I had thought I would gallop out the other end triumphant carrying a banner (or a stream of bunting!), not stagger out with a box of tissues under one arm waving a white flag!

In the space of month there has been:

A Wedding (Proud Mama #1 (with hat))
A Book Launch (Proud Mama #2)
CSSD Student daughter left for Mumbai as part of the Morni Theatre Collective (Proud Mama #3)
Norfolk and Norwich Open Studios- three weekends (Working hat)
Another Wedding (Proud Aunt (with another hat))
Most of my best-beloved family either visiting or staying (see items 1 & 5)

In amongst all this, Planet Penny decided it was not possible to wait another month to become a business rather than a hobby, which has involved finding a business account, an accountant, taking legal advice….and so on….and so on….

Perhaps it’s not surprising that a rogue bug decide to join the party, but I really haven’t appreciated having such a nasty little gate-crasher!

Today is the first day I have actually found two brain cells to rub together so I’m gradually trying to get my studio back into working order whilst thinking my way round all the ‘stuff’ which has accumulated whilst I (as in ‘my brain’) have been ‘off line’. so while I’m doing all that, I’ll share a few of the photos taken over the last few weeks….

There has been of course Open Studios, and this is what Planet Penny looked like in ‘exhibition space’ mode…

There were times when you couldn’t see all this though…

…and times when we were playing host to our local MP!

Just down the road our neighbour was hosting her first Open Studio, complete with a herd of Alapacas…

and a yurt!

Hands up who is joining me with serious ‘Yurt Envy’!

A fabulous time was had at the book launch at Heffers Children’s Book Shop in Cambridge…

Not often you have to queue to speak to your own son!

And as the rain fell, the garden carried on growing…

…and growing…

…and growing.

But now it’s back to normal time. I’ve already re-jigged one set of display shelves to accomodate the latest Planet Penny Cotton Club delivery…

…and it’s heads down sorting out the next pattern and kit. The packs are for sale on Etsy, follow this link or the the Shop button at the top of the page to find them, plus the Rainbow Mouse kits, Mini Mice Fridge Magnet kits and patterns.

See you again soon! x

Open Studios for Handmade Monday

I’m sitting in the garden outside the studio typing and listening to the birds singing whilst we wait for our visitors for the Norfolk and Norwich Open Studios.

Kit is working on a lino cut at the other end of the table…

and in the middle is a little furry helper…

It’s been fairly quiet so far today but the visitors we have had have been lovely and we’ve both made sales. Open Studios isn’t just about selling, but it would be nice to cover the entry costs and then anything else is a bonus.

My studio is looking great, so tidy! You wouldn’t believe how much I’ve got stashed away in boxes and hidden…

And it’s so lovely to be able to sit out in the garden and just enjoy the fresh air after all the wet and miserable weather which has gone on, and on, and on…

As you can imagine, I haven’t got any thing new in the way of textile creativity to show this week after all the preparations have been taken care of, but I’m still linking up to Handmade Monday over on Handmade Harbour so you can follow what’s going on on all the other creative blogs which take part.

If you only visit once a week, you may have missed the guest blog post from the Young Adult Fiction writer Thomas Taylor. There’s a chance to win a signed copy of the book and still time to enter so please don’t miss out.

Open Studios continues for another two weekends, so if you are in North Norfolk over the long Bank Holiday or the weekend after, it would be lovely to see you…

Planet Penny

Crafts, Needle Felting, Crochet, Patterns & Tutorials