Sunday 30 March 2014

My Easter hen and other makes

Happy Mothers day to all you precious mums out there, I hope you get thoroughly spoilt and looked after on this celebratory day! I have found a little window in my day to post about my needle felting workshop I went on last Saturday. The aim was to make an Easter hen. I have never needle felted before and I was excited to learn a new crafting technique as I have always admired the beautiful things that can be made with this material.

It all began with a hairy, woolly ball and some very sharp barbed needles and a lot of stabbing and shaping which was a great stress release!


Then we got to admire and choose from lots of woolly colours



And learnt how to shape wings and make polka dots and flat pieces of felt to make my hens crown and tail.


And so, my Easter hen Harriet was born...




Everyone's hens turned out differently and it was wonderful to see how each one of the 5 of us made different hens from the same materials.



We got to bring out little starter kits home and I have made a polka dot heart since then. I hope this will be the beginning of a beautiful crafting relationship :o)

Lastly I thought I would show you what little pins (and an extra crochet covered pebble)I made for my blog swap with Hannapat of Cosmos and Cotton organised by the lovely Jo of Three Stories High




You can see the gorgeous gifts I received from Hannapat in my previous post of collages. I love this sweet blogging community of generous and loving people.

Have a wonderful Mothering Sunday everyone
xox
Penny

Saturday 29 March 2014

Goodbye March

Is it really heading towards the end of March? It all feels like it's been rather busy for me and doesn't seem to be getting any easier and I don't think I will be blogging as much as I would like to in the coming weeks as we are hoping and praying that we might be able to sell our wee house for another lovely home we have found. I will try and pop in as much as I can, but work has become more manic and there just never seems to be enough hours in the day does there? Hey oh, the sun is shining here on the south east Coast and I am loving hanging my washing out and airing the house with fresh sun kissed breezes.

Here are some of my Instagram pics from March to show you a little of what I have been up to...

I am doing a little crochet a granny square workshop at the end of April and so have been rolling lots of little balls of different coloured balls of yarn and making sample granny squares to show and explain the process

We have been taking advantage of the Spring sunshine and having tea beside the sea

Playing with pretty pastel buttons

Sipping pink lemonade for a sore throat and tidying up the house to have photos taken by the estate agent

Finishing off my March read for #theyearinbooks whilst drink love mugs of tea


Treating myself to a pretty ceramic birdy necklace and beginning to crochet a jute bag which is rather stiff and ouch fingers to make, but hopefully worth it in the end :o)


Doing a fun swap organised by Jo and swapping with Hannapat, it was so delightful to get happy snail mail with Easter chocolates, little CK soaps and not one, but two handmade pins from Hannapat. Thank you so much it really was a delight to come home to see the package waiting for me.

Last, but not least my funny little needle felted Easter hen I made last Saturday which was great fun and I will show you more in my next post, together with some chopping up of fabrics and enjoying the beauty of crochet doilies


I do hope you are enjoying the warmth and energy the sun is giving us at the moment and thank you always for popping in

xox

Happy Days!

Saturday 22 March 2014

A few good things

Life can be frantic sometimes and This last week has left me feeling rather squeezed from all angles, wrung out is how I feel this Saturday morning. Despite this, I cannot imagine a week going buy without seeing the beauty, the beauty of my world and what helps me through the messy stuff. So, here are a few of my good things to remind me that I can cope with whatever comes my way.


Pretties growing in our little space

Pretties growing in our little space

Alice and all her rehearsals for her show

A new exhibition on at the De la Warr Pavilion

Enjoying cups of tea by the sea in the sunshine, oh the glorious sunny shine I do love you so

And a spot of baking brownies with my girl

Making more pretties

Admiring Alice's wrapping a little box to gve a ring to her friend for her 13th birthday

And last but not least admiring some beautiful colour and pattern

I hope you have been able to see and experience a few good things too? Here's wishing you all a wonderful weekend, I am off to my very first needle felting workshop this afternoon which I hope to share with you

xox

Monday 17 March 2014

Sorry for ignoring you, but I did knit a shawl

I have been very distracted with a number of things over the past 10 days or so and have found myself almost forgetting about my blog and all of you who come and visit. Please forgive me for not popping in to say hello, how are you doing in your blog space. You see the most addictive distraction happened to me, I discovered "Breaking Bad" and have been really curious about watching it for quite some time now and after subscribing to Netflix there was no stopping me. I am ashamed to say that in record breaking time I watched the entire series in 9 days flat, I lost myself for a while and watched while I made the tea, before work in the mornings, while I was bathing, late into the night and any other time I could without forgetting to be mum and wife :o) addictive is an understatement, I haven't seen such a good series for such a long time and it definitely was easy to knit my latest shawl whilst being engrossed in the characters and plot. So here she is, my adaptation of Stephen West's Boneyard shawl, my breaking badyard shawl...

I so loved cooking knitting this shawl, I do hope to be back in the land of real life again and look forward to catching up with you xox

Sunday 9 March 2014

Crochet pebbles

Have you had a lovely relaxing sun filled weekend? We have been blessed with warm sun shine here on the South East Coast and it has been blissful just to feel such a sense of hope for the Spring and Summer ahead of us. My favourite sign of this hope is when I hang washing on the line for the first time after the Winter and today was that day. I love sun dried clothing, it feels and smells so fresh and comforting and always reminds me of my childhood.

I have been on the beach pebble collecting this weekend and have enjoyed doing a little decorating with crochet. Not only do I love the smoothness of the pebbles and all their individual colours, I just love the way they feel once I have covered them in cotton with some pretty crochet stitches.

I decided to use white this time, I have used various other colours to crochet over pebbles in the past, but this weekend I wanted pure and fresh white only.

Making these is fairly easy if you know the basics of crocheting and have access to some pretty pebbles. There are plenty of patterns on the net and I followed a couple (as seen above)from this lovely book which I got out of our local library.

I was rather pleased to make up my own design for this black pebble, it just kind of happened once I had finished the two patterns. I'm rather pleased with it.

They look rather sweet together and are very comfortable to hold.

Last, but not least I was thoroughly spoilt with winning this wonderful giveaway from the lovely Lazy Daisy Jones who can be found here. Thank you so much Daisy, you have thoroughly spoilt me(sorry I have just realised I forgot to put that yummy crochet hook and hand gel in the photo!). I am so looking forward to doing some seriously chunky crocheting xox

Enjoy your week ahead and thanks for visiting

xox