I wrote a letter

On Sunday afternoon, we decided to go to one of my favourite bookshops ever Much ado books in Alfriston in East Sussex. It's a real delight full of quirky, old and new books and has a great section on crafting and design as well as cookery and the famous Bloomsbury Group who lived nearby in Charleston House.

As you come in there is a covered courtyard to greet you with shelves of old books which never cease to delight the likes of me. I could spend days hours looking at all of these, from their design to their smell to their contents (Yes, I love the smell of books)

Some Spring flowers to delight the senses too before going into the shop.

I bee lined to the beautiful selection of cards first as they have a wonderful array of Ravilious prints as cards and this pleased me no end for we are great admirer's of this artists work.

It was warm and cosy in the shop despite the breezy chills in the afternoon air and we spent what felt like hours there admiring, paging, drooling over the books.

I just love all the owner's attention to detail and secretly pipe dream about owning a quirky bookshop myself and what I would do to make it interesting and encouraging people to read.

Anyway, back to the letter writing. The owners just happened to be celebrating national stationary week upstairs in their beautiful extended bookshop and open studio. Well, who can resist the offer of a choice of delicious stationary, cards, stamps and pens to put pen to paper? I know i can't.

Because the letter had to be to someone in the UK, the only full address I could remember was my own(!)and a friend of mine who lives down the road. A bit sad I know, but I decided to write to card to Alice just because she knows about the joy and excitement of receiving post beyond emails(!) and to Janie my friend whom I know will appreciate some pen on paper too.

Alice got a Dottie Angel card and Janie got some beautiful paper with my ink writing on it. It was so relaxing just sitting and thinking in the sunny studio upstairs, a really welcomed break from the hub bub of everyday life.

I wrote a little list to Alice, just because...

Much Ado Books have promised to send our letters, so we will hopefully see this land on our door step sometime this week.

All in all it was a most satisfying afternoon and we came away with a couple of beautiful books too which I will no doubt be showing you over time. The absolute cherry on the top was meeting Janie's new puppy on the way home. Her name is Purdy and she is too sweet for words and has that lovely new puppy smell. He she is...

I hope you are all enjoying the changing seasons. Talking of change it's May day tomorrow and that just happens to be my day of birth too all those 43 years ago. I'm loving that its a Spring time day full of new life and a new year to look forward to.

Wishing you all a week full of new life and joys

xox

Penny

Hearts and bows

It's all hearts and bows here this weekend. Hope you are having a good one x

17/52

This week has flown by for me. I've enjoyed the warm sunshine so much and have found myself cycling on getting home most days and a longer cycle last Sunday which was gloriously sunny. I like to stop for a cup of tea and relax before cycling home. Tea revives you don't you know :o) I had my cuppa at Plenty in St.Leonards-on-sea. I love these cycles on my own, just me and the sea, the breeze and my thoughts. 

Finishing knitting these fun wrist warmers for Jen who is leaving us to spread her wings in another job. I got given the knitting supplement from a paper that my mother-in-law reads and recognised that it came from this book which I have had my beady eye on for a while now. Knitting in the round has to be one of my favourite pastimes. I had to make a hole (a bit like a button hole)as this pattern was only meant to be knitted on 2 needles and stitched up the side leaving a hole for the thumb.

With the sunshine comes more salads and my favourite nut burgers. Yum! 

Oh and I made a mini bunny-boo for Jen too. Simple, sweet and a little bit of happy.

Other things that kind of made me smile this week was getting in a local paper for raising awareness of Bowel Cancer for work, going for a run with Alice in her new trainers Papa bought for her, listening to Andy playing some of his Chameleons vinyl and writing more lists to make me smile.

Thank you as always for all your lovely comments and conversation and welcome to some new followers. I hope you have little rays of happiness in your weekend.

See you all soon

x

Penny

Mini crochet

I got a little bit silly with excitement when I finished making my mini crochet cherry necklace last night. It's such a triumph for me as I really had no belief that I could do it BUT was desperate to have teeny tiny crochet things to put in my hair, hang on my wrist and around my neck. So, with gung ho determination I just plunged right in and proved that I could actually handle such skinny cotton and a tiny hook. I am a little bit chuffed with how this pair of cherries turned out. Wanna see?

Stuffing these teeny crochet cherries was a challenge followed by closing them up, so much so you have probably spotted some of the hollow fibres sticking out of them. I have pulled these all out now and hopefully no more will appear.

It is the sweetest thing I have ever made, I just love it so. If you have been visiting here for a while you might of read this post about where the pattern comes from for this delicate crochet. I'm excited to get making more now that my confidence has grown with this.

Here is my hand again to give a little perspective to the size of the cherries. Some of you noticed my wedding ring in the last post about my tiny crochet. I did blog about my ring way back in 2011 here, it's weird looking back at my old posts. I don't tend to look back, however if you want to a little read about my ring, please do x

Alice very happily wore it to school today, it was a mufti-day for raising money for a charity, a perfect opportunity to enjoy a little creation by her mum.

I hope you all have a fabulous sunshine filled week

xox

See you all soon

x

Penny

16/52

Have you all had a good week lovely people? It's been a busy one for me, but boy have I been soaking in the sunshine and Spring weather with all those blues skies on my home visits and moving between NHS sites for my job. 

I have this habit of taking my knitting with me in a basket in the car, its very handy when I end up eating my lunch in the car if I am out and about and gives me 10 or 15 minutes of knitting depending how long it takes me to munch on my sandwich.

So, this first photo is taken in the sunshine of my car seat of my current wrist warmer knitting for Jen at work. She is leaving us soon and so this will be her parting gift from me. I managed to get her crocheting again and helped her with a few stitches along the way and so I decided to knit her something in the hope that she may take up knitting too :o)

It's also good to be using left over yarny bits too.

We also got to go to a local nursery last Sunday and I was overjoyed at all the pretty flowers and went a little crazy with my camera, sure sign of lunacy in public.

My daffodils eventually opened their sleepy heads on the outside windowsill and they were a welcome sight to come home to each evening.

Experimenting with my new teeny crochet hook and skinny yarn

Getting a little excited at my new phone, my old one was the most basic Nokia phone which I have had for years eventually died a good death and now I feel like I am in this century much to Alice's delight.

Last but not least, buying some of this most delicious Elderflower cordial to celebrate Springy evenings after going for a run or cycle.

Thanks always for your sweet comments and visiting this space. I wish you all a glorious sun soaked weekend with sprinkles of joyful moments.

See you soon

xox

Penny

Chunky or skinny?

Hello again

How are you all? I can't quite believe it's Thursday evening again, where does time go? It's been a pretty eventful and busy week for me at work and so I guess this makes time fly by together with trying to get out most evenings with the sunshine we have been having and the joy of the sun setting much later these days. Glorious is it not!

I wanted to share with you my new crafty book that I bought at the end of last week when we were in Brighton. Originally, it was on my Christmas list for 2012, however Santa did not deliver! Well, I've been itching to buy it for so long BUT promised myself that I would not buy it online until I saw a copy first. Believe me, every possible bookshop and knitting/haberdashery shop has been ransacked by the likes of me for this beauty. Alas, to no avail, UNTIL....last Friday!

Oh my giddy goodness, Ms. Mooncie I heart you and your gorgeous patterns. My eyes nearly popped out when I found it in this stunning little shop full of independent artists and crafters hand made beauties amongst other beautiful goodies.

  

 My heart skipped a beat in all seriousness when I spotted the crochet book I have been coveting for months.

And, so my lovelies, life is downsizing here for a bit while I play with my new teeny crochet hook sizes (0.75mm -1.5mm) and the skinniest DMC cotton in the world...well that is what it feels like to a DK+ size girl living at this here blog!

I've made a cherry brooch for one of Alice's friends over the weekend and am now working with the teeny 1.25mm hook to make a cherry necklace...eesh it's so minute, I think I might need a magnifying glass to help me along.

Just to put some perspective on the matter, here it is in my hand. My fingers feel rather chunky in comparison :o)

Super tiny, but so exciting to have conquered my "fear" of such small hooks. I never normally go beyond a 2.5mm hook. Hopefully, I'll have this finished soon and I can show you my humble efforts. Somehow, I think a lot of practice will be needed here. 

Vanessa Mooncie is one of my crochet heroine's, you can see more of her work on her website Kissy Suzuki where she also has a shop if you fancy purchasing something.

You may have seen my hearts I made from her book on my last post and I simply had to attempt a daffodil too with it being Spring and all.

Not the brightest daffodil going but I love my tweedy Rowan yarn and couldn't resist.

So, what are you my friends? 

Chunky or skinny?

I like me a bit of both me thinks 

xox

See you soon

x

Penny

The beauty

In the late afternoon I sat at the dinning room table to assemble my crochet heart with banner that I made yesterday whilst watching the rain coming down. Boo to yesterday's rain and this morning too, but this afternoon we had sunshine to gloat in and I was determined to soak up as much as possible. After hanging up the washing outside (hurrah) and going for a long cycle with my girly Alice. I sat down to listen to this radio program where Will Self looked at Prozac at 25 years old and The Prozac Economy. 

It saddened me somewhat when they were speaking about young teenagers and depression.

It resonated with something Alice said about what a friend's young daughter (she is 13 years old) had shared with her and her peers at Church this morning. What she shared took courage and strength and I wanted to remind her of something so true. Simply, her beauty, inside and out and so I embroidered "beautiful" on felt and sewed it onto the crocheted banner and will wrap this heart up and give it to her this week.

I so hope you all have a great week and see all the beauty

xox

See you all soon