Spring clean

Rose captured outside Liberty yesterday in London on my way home from a meeting

 

Here's wishing you all a very blessed and peaceful Easter.

 

This morning started with some serious Spring cleaning in our home. Firstly sorting out the linen chest at the end of our bed. We live in an old Victorian house and have no real cupboards other than the one under the stairs which is full of our camping and DIY stuff! After a little moaning and push by Andy, I agreed to face the linen chest which I actually sorted out about a year ago and recycled LOADS to charity shops then, I was in a ruthless mood then, so lots went, however I didn't expect much would go today.....I am a sentimental old fool when it comes to memories and fabrics.

 

Ok, so I have to admit I love old linen, 100% cottons as bed clothes and Indian patterned cloths, African fabric and lots more....

 

I thought it might be fun to log some of the fun bits of fabrics/curtains/pillow slips/sheets etc here on my blog.

 

 

 

 

I think it's fair to say I like pattern a whole lot.

 

 

 

 

Much to Andy's despair, only half a black bag for charity has been filled. Well, at least he can see which pillow slip to choose from the 60+ pillow slips next time the bed needs changing! 

 

 

Last, but not least here is the Miffy I crocheted up for Alice at Christmas time (pattern found here) I think she looks a little sad but Alice loves her and made sure she has the number one place on her bed for Easter bunny time.

 

Thanks for coming by, welcome to new followers and enjoy your weekend.

See you all soon

xox

Penny



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Time for a little jig

Sometimes, my dearest bloggy friends I just have to sew a needle and thread in and out of fabric. I love the process of choosing fabric, scissors snipping, colours coming together and although not perfectly matching, being sewn together to create a work of pretty patches. Each with their own secret history and magic harmony.

One side Spring,the other side Summer. A perfect calling to mother nature to change her ways here in the northern hemisphere. I hope almost 3 year old Maddy likes my first ever patchwork cushion cover.

Please note that a little jig of joy was done when I realised that some of the patches joined just about perfectly!

Enjoy the rest of your week and see you all soon

xox

Penny

12/52

This past week has been a bit of a topsy turvey one,one minute up, next minute down kind of thing. Life really, nothing too surprising in that.

I have managed to keep on track with photographing some of the simple happier moments of my week. My camera goes everywhere with me these days, sometimes I feel like a mad woman possessed by that camera!

Firstly, I bought some pastel yarns, some Debbie Bliss baby cashmerino and some millamia. I am not normally a pastel yarn loving girl but somehow these soft colours were just calling me. It might have had something to do with one of my colleagues telling me she was 18 weeks pregnant. I started thinking soft sweet baby skin and pink bunnies and so, this yarn was bought with my last few pennies before payday. I have been playing around with it, but will soon hopefully be inspired with what to make. Do you ever do that? By yarn just because?

My sweet Alice had a sleepover party to go to this Friday and so she rushed home on Thursday after school and before her musical theatre class insisted on making George (Georgina) a cake. She chose pastel decorations too! She is very thoughtful little girl and loves to spoil her friends.

Other than that it was a fun moment of buying some body butter from the Body shop (reduced from £13 to £5). I was instantly attracted to this colour of the blueberry butter and the smell, oh the smell is divine.

Alice painted a little birdie for granny and grampa in South Africa, we are planning a little parcel for Easter time.

Oh, and I indulged in my favourite sweet EVER. Double salted liquorice from the old fashioned sweetie shop in town. So bad for my teeth, but so tempting. I had a friend at school who had Dutch parents and whenever she went to Holland she would bring me some "drop", Dutch liquorice which I would eek out forever and never share! Fortunately for me, a lot of people don't like this sweet, so sharing really is never a problem :o)

Last, but not least I casted on at the beginning of the week and casted off (in bed yesterday morning)a sweet little cardigan for my niece who will be one in April. When I have done all the buttons and finishing touches I'll pop it on the blog. Such an easy, fast and satisfying little thing,definitely a pattern for beginners (pattern found here)

I'll say cheerio for now, won't mention the weather and will look forward to another week of simple happiness.

See you all soon

xox

Penny

The bright side

Hello

Firstly can I say thank you for all your lovely comments on my last post, I can happily say I am feeling much better as the week has gone on. Sometimes these deep dark blue days appear for reasons I guess, and its better to ride with them knowing they too will end.

I wanted to show you a bright, happy thing that happened to me last week. I received a tin box of surprises from a gorgeous bloggy friend Lisa of Bobo Bun in the post. We had arranged in the wings for one of her daughters (Little Bun) to do a little postal swap with Alice and decided that we didn't want to miss out on the action so to speak and threw in a little surprise for each other.

Much to my immense delight I opened up the tin to find so many little treats neatly packed into the vintage Dick Whittington tin. 

I was overwhelmed with all the thoughtful little bits and bobs from a fox notebook to a wee mini hexie patch and a homemade crochet cherry brooch (I love this so much Lisa)

The surprises just kept coming and coming, a sweet pile of vintage sheet fat quarters(definitely for my patchwork duvet cover)and a gorgeous old vintage hexagon patchwork with the most pretty of pretty fabrics.

How incredibly spoilt I felt, thank you so very much Lisa. This is the such a beautiful treat for me and I am overwhelmed at the generosity and kindness that you have shown. No doubt these pretty things will be appearing here and there on my blog.

I sent Lisa a very little homemade with love parcel in the form of some colourful mini bunting made from my Planet Penny cotton stash.

 Happy Days mini bunting

I made this with every colour of the Planet Penny Cotton and ended up with two spare flags so crocheted a couple of roses for between the words "happy days".

You can see it hung up in Lisa's home here. It was really easy and good fun to make and I can't resist a few stitched words on felt.

Making crochet triangles is a good way to practice decreasing. I just made this pattern up, starting with 15 ch + 1 ch and then dc into each of the 15 ch stitches, decreasing every row (by one) at alternate ends till I reached the tip of the triangle. I then crocheted a long single chain and attached the triangles with a slip stitch. Simples :o)

Here's wishing you all happy, bright days

See you soon

xox

Penny

Three colours

I'm not myself today, feeling a bit blue and sad. I woke with the heaviness of life, fear I think. I remember this feeling all too well in my early twenties, fear can be so ridiculously debilitating at times. I remember fearing weekends in my early 20's because that meant that I would have time to think and become introspective and depressed. Work was a welcome distraction. And so, this morning I had to say hi ho hi ho it's off to work I go and a bit of the "feel the fear and do it anyway" kind of attitude helped me. The day got better and I've achieved a lot and now I can just return to the cocoon I came from this morning.

Tomorrow will be a brighter day, it will be ok in the morning.

I'm pleased I managed to make this cushion* cover over the weekend. These three colours are some of my all time favourites. I love mustard a whole lot and the combination of these three have comforted me in a sweet way today. That and cups of chai.

Thank you for letting me be me here in this space.
I'll see you soon on a more cheery note no doubt.
Cheerio
xox
Penny

* the cushion was bought here

11/52

Some more finger less crochet gloves made for my friend Helen, her hands were freezing a couple of weeks ago, so only one thing had to be done :o) Made with a skein of Manos del Uruguay and some left over tweedy and cashmere yarn. 

Some of the sweet gifts received from Alice on Mother's day. She is a bit of a fan of Lush handmade cosmetics and I am pleased to see that she is starting to read up about and understand a little more about using cosmetics free from animal testing.

A polka dot jug from Age Concern charity shop for £1.49 to pop some Spring flowers in. My goodness its been dismally grey and wet this past week after the snow, I needed a colour injection like this.

See what I mean when I say its been grey!

Waking up to a huge bunch of opened daffodils from Helen's allotment and enjoying reading the Brighton Festival program which came through the post this week.

Enjoying seeing some of the daffodils reflected in the mirror of my mosaic I made last week. I think I'll be hanging this up in the bathroom, its sitting on the mantel piece for now while I make a final decision.

After the snow at the beginning of the week, some hints of Spring in my pot plants.

Parcels in the post and a tin full of sheer delights which deserve a blog post of their very own next week.

Last, but not least, two more printers "A" letters to add to my collection for Alice. I adore these and am always delighted to find different A fonts for our girly.

I hope your week had some little joyful moments in it too. I like doing this weekly recap and taking my camera about with me as it encourages me to notice the little things that I might not have if my week is a tricky or difficult one.

Thank you for taking the time for coming a sharing a few snippets of my life and for your lovely conversation. Always really appreciated. 

See you all soon

xox

Penny