Mollie Makes!

A new magazine landed in the Halfpenny Home post box last week and it's caused a huge amount of excitement amongst the crafty persons around these parts...
The cover shows some lovely crochet used to make these pretty apple jackets! I'm not usually found hooking as I'm more of a knitty girl but I was inspired and using some string made a little basket which will no doubt end up housing some buttons at HH HQ sometime soon!

The step-by-step linen eggs also got me going! Jacqui and I had discussed offering up these old linen bundles before - perfect for small projects and lovely to adorn with embroidery and buttons!

Meanwhile any visitors to HH HQ just lately will have noticed the abundance of colourful hand-painted knitting needles everywhere - the new colours are lovely with this deadly shade of purple...

the ever popular red and blue (Halfpenny Home colours...!)

AND my favourite colour green!

Aren't they gorgeous? Nic x

The Felting Bug!

Last weekend, on a gorgeous sunny afternoon, I got out my bike and happily pedalled my way down to Halfpenny Home for Rachel's felting workshop, eagerly anticipating what the afternoon would bring. As soon as I walked upstairs to the newly created workshop space I was greeted by a riot of colour - baskets full of wool rovings in every colour imaginable!

Clearly I am not alone in wanting to learn the process of wet-felting as the workshop was full. First things first, we all were provided with mugs of tea whilst we got acquainted and Rachel chatted about her passion for felting. It wasn't long before we were all fired up and raring to go. Rachel even treated us to a little recorder music before we made a start!
The project for today, was to make a tea-pot stand. So first job was to decide on a design and colours for our masterpiece. Having done so, with Rachel's help and guidance, we started with the job of making pre-felt.
After laying out our wool rovings, it takes nothing more complicated than water and washing up liquid, some tea-towels and bubble wrap - plus a good dollop of elbow grease to create pre-felts, hence we are all standing on the job! We were concentrating hard.

And here are the results, drying outside in the courtyard - the colours looked amazing all laid out in the sun! These will be used for the design once dry.

Nic had an old campaign bed that she set up especially for the job! Perfect!


A little wooden chair in a lovely shady spot beckoned, but we had more felting to do!

Now onto our backgrounds for our felt mat, which involved layering the wool roving in opposite directions. It looks really delicate and feathery at this stage and it's hard to imagine it will become such a hard wearing material. More tea on the go......

As I sat on the floor making a template for my design and cutting up my pre-felts I felt transported back to childhood. Felting is a very expressive craft and it is very exciting as the materials morph from one texture into another and you're not quite sure (well, at least I wasn't quite sure) how it would all turn out. Bit like a science experiment though hopefully not as potentially explosive!

I'd decided on a branch and pear design and to incorporate a little bit of ribbon for the branch into the design.....just in case you are struggling!!

Lisa's finished piece, depicting irises, was a triumph. And below, is my finished pear branch! I'm not sure that many of them will end up as tea-pot stands though. I think everyone was so chuffed with their pieces that they want to frame them and display them as art - which they truly are!

The time went really quickly and before we knew it, it was time to leave. However, Rachel was so keen to impart her knowledge she still found time to tell us how to use up all our little bits of left over pre-felt from our designs, to make felt balls. I couldn't resist having a go when I got home.....

I am contemplating making a cherry brooch with some of them, but couldn't help thinking these look like the old fashioned rosy apple sweets! A truly inspirational afternoon and, as Rachel said, "you've got the felting bug"

Jacquix

Rural Collusions - Part Two!

Samantha Hayes, a Tudor re-enactor who every Summer becomes Peg the Dyer at Kentwell Hall missed all the excitement at the Launch of Rural Collusions at Thornham Walks on Easter Saturday. Sam (along with Jane and myself) dyed a lot of the textiles used in the work so it was about time she saw the fantastic creations of Jane Southgate finally displayed in their beautiful surroundings.
We popped over there for a walk and straightaway spotted something fantastically fungal that is exactly the sort of thing that gets Mushroom Jane so excited and inspired...

I loved seeing the weaving again - the yarns are such beautiful colours and some are dyed with plants that grow nearby. The moss round the base of a tree is particularly beautiful to look at with so many different yarns used and all knitted in moss stitch - it looked a quite different in the woods to when Sam last saw it all being sewn together at Wednesday knitting!

The second part of Rural Collusions is at Lackford Lakes, near Bury St. Edmunds in Suffolk and again we spotted some inspirational fungi shortly after arriving!

Surely the inspiration for these incredible bracket fungi that we've all become so fond of at HH HQ...

Woad-dyed cotton for the 'gills' and felted Gedgrave Flock fleece which has been dyed with madder for the tops of the fungi.

Not forgetting the rather pretty puffballs in a variety of colours...

My favourites though have to be the Reeds - made in a combination of Colinette Point Five yarns and cotton dyed with reed heads (one of our favourite seasonal dyes) giving a lovely green colour despite being so very, very purple!

Hope you enjoy seeing the photographs but to get the full effect you really ought to pay a visit, I may even bump into you there as I shall be returning to see them fairly frequently throughout the year!
Nic x

Clever Knits!

You may well wonder why such an amazing piece of fabric knitted and hooked to resemble moss is doing at the base of a tree in Thornham Walks, Thornham Magna, Suffolk and why it is being left to degrade, have real moss to grow on it and hopefully have insects living on it and in it! Read on...

The most fantastic part of Halfpenny Home is how it attracts such a great bunch of talented people through it's magical blue doors! We never know who is going to turn up but we can almost guarantee that they will have something interesting to say and hopefully something to show us!
I first met textile artist Jane Southgate last Spring, she came in and with a cup of coffee in one hand and a copy of Selvedge magazine in the other started to tell me all about her work...

Jane has been working with Ruth Richmond to create Rural Collusions - we've all enjoyed seeing (and in some cases helping to create!) some of the work taking shape before our eyes! The mushrooms were particularly popular and has led to Jane sometimes being referred to as Mushroom Jane...

We've had a fantastic time helping Jane to scource natural yarns and fabrics and dyeing fibres with plant dyes with the help of Samantha Hayes, who is a Tudor Re-enactor at Kentwell Hall every Summer.

Just love the colours on this piece of weaving! This is the first of Jane's pieces that you will encounter on the walk through the woods and it is breathtaking!

Can't possibly have a blogpost without a break for cake...Lady Galula's newest creations - raspberry cupcakes with glitter icing in exactly the same shade of pink as the sunhat I'm knitting for my niece!

Another artist who is a frequent visitor to Halfpenny Home HQ is Amy Louise Nettleton. Amy currently has some work on show at the Waterfront Gallery in Ipswich.

I went along to the Private View and loved the selection of work on show and it's all by local artists.

Although these photos are great you should really go along and see the work yourself - it's a fabulous space in such a beautiful setting! It will be there for all to see until 11th May, Nic x

Going to work on a (scotch) egg!

By now you will have (hopefully!) seen our beautiful book A Green Guide To Country Crafts published by CICO Books Ltd. and chock full of gorgeous photographs by Gavin Kingcome (pictured above) all taken around the lovely part of the world that we are so lucky to live in!
We had a lot of fun during the photo shoots and made the most of the brilliant beach and picnic projects - essential for any picnic is the scotch egg!
I started making these as a way to use up a lot of eggs and was inspired to do so by my mate Maria Matthews, she quite often adds herbs to her sausagemeat but I leave it plain - the instructions here are my quick and easy adaptations to many online and printed recipes...you may have to jiggle the timings a bit as I get giant eggs from my ex-battery hens and teeny eggs from Button and Zsazsa the Silkies!

Jane Southgate - textile artist - and I got together to do some dyeing and whilst the rhubarb leaves were cooking we made a couple of these for our lunch - so here we go!

Boil your eggs

I use my little and very old Le Creuset pan that I got from the Sue Ryder shop next door...

About 6 - 8 minutes should give you a good yolk but as Jane and I were eating them straightaway we soft boiled them for runny ones! Take them out of the boiling water and sling them straight into a big bowl or sink of very cold water - if you get the timing right you wont get that grey line around the yolk...

Roll the peeled eggs in some flour seasoned with salt and pepper and set aside while you get on with the crispy, crunchy crumbs...
Blitz some old bread in a food processor and then toast them, I use a big griddle pan for this.

Watch them and keep turning them - I usually have to do this stage twice as I get distracted by a cake or knitting blog...

Grab your sausage meat - quarter of a pound for big eggs - squash it flat and wrap it right round, you don't want holes and dampening your hands first will make it easier to do!

Get a couple of eggs and beat 'em up! Rolling the sausagemeat wrapped eggs in beaten egg makes all those scrummy crumbs stick on fast and then you should end up with something like this!

Deep fry in some sunflower oil for about 8 minutes...being very careful and taking all the usual warnings about deep fat frying into consideration etc.

Turn them carefully and frequently so that they are evenly cooked and gorgeously golden brown!

Ta da!

Absolutely the best thing to do with eggs and they will make grown men weep with joy! Knitters, artists, cake makers and photographers are pretty keen on them too...

with love from Nic x