Mellow Fruitfulness...

Hurrah! We're out of our blog hibernation, the weather is distinctly autumnal and our minds are turning to cosy knits and warming food. We've just enjoyed our first batch of scrummy home made pumpkin soup, topped with chives and sage leaves from the garden and a nice dollop of creme fraiche to finish it off! Yum!

And this Knit Collage yarn, with the delectable name Buttercup Glow, was just perfect for an autumnal knit! A lovely cosy hat, with anticipated pom pom topping!

And how about these beautful hand made glass buttons, which have just arrived at Halfpenny Home?

As well as being in gorgeous autumn colours, we reckon they will look fab adorning our latest creations.

We've given our fab and very wide ric rac a starring autumn role too!

And here's one of our favourite images of Autumn, a humungous pumpkin stash at Alder Carr Farm.

We hope you're enjoying a creative and mellow autumn.

Jacqui & Nic

xx

Summery Christmas!

It's a very strange feeling wrapping Christmas presents in September, and though in many ways it feels completely wrong even acknowledging that the festive season is anywhere close on what is a very warm September day here in Suffolk, us crafters know that it is never too early to start planning!

Of course, I didn't really need much persuading to use some of this lovely ribbon ...for display purposes of course, you understand! I was out with the stamps, luggage labels, brown paper and string without further ado.

And it seems, we weren't alone in our thoughts turning to the festive season.....we've already put in another order! To our delight, we also received a lovely email this week from Caitlin, an HH customer, with these beautiful photographs of her Christmas card makes, incorporating her HH purchases!

I particularly love the button bauble card - no surprise given my button fetish really..

Caitlin also made these pretty little wire button bracelets using her purchases. Aren't they gorgeous? And would you believe, Caitlin is 13 years old. Very inspirational - a future crafting star!




And, here's another Christmas creation, demonstrating yet another use for the lovely woven Christmas ribbon, as well as incorporating HH buttons and little bells. Caitlin has been a very busy girl! 

As well as the recent arrival of the Christmas ribbon, we've also indulged in some more gorgeous bias bindings!

So I thought I'd share a few of them with you to end on a more summery note!

Yum!

Jacquix

WOAD!

We love visiting the Museum of East Anglian Life, there's so much to see and always something to learn about the fantastic part of the country that we are lucky enough to live in!
The annual Steam and Craft fair is a brilliant event with so many steam engines and crafts people from far and wide...Jen (pictured above) is a dedicated volunteer, fund raiser and a (quite brilliant!) Wednesday knitter!

We set up our stall in the pole barn and it was clear to everyone as we donned our aprons and got the pots warming on the stove that this was no ordinairy craft fair...

There were the brilliant colours achieved through the microwave technique - a little bit quicker than the natural dyeing that we do...

...and the chance to see the famous Needham Market fire engine a recent acquisition for the museum!

So, happy that all the pretty bias bindings, ribbons, ric racs and knitting needles were displayed at there best for the day we got busy with the woad!

We had a lot of fun doing the woad dyeing section in A Green Guide to Country Crafts and all think back fondly to Gavin Kingcome's fascination with the whisking!

Woad creates a rich blue dye by reacting with oxygen so although the surface bubbles here are a gorgeous shade of blue if you part the foam you can see the very yellow dye bath below!

The colour starts to develop as soon as the items are removed from the bath! You need a lot of people around to help 'air' the skeins of yarn and silk scarves so each 'dip' ended with the shout of 'WOAD' and the ringing of a great big handbell that Lisa Museum lent to us for the day!

Here they are drying on our line and yes that is a skein of green yarn there - it's what you get when you 'over dye' yarn that has previously been dyed with Dyer's Greenweed - it's Lincoln Green!

Now it's time for a little bit of an apology - the reasons for the LONG gap between this post and the previous one, my trusty old laptop gave up! It had worked hard and written many a blogpost and luckily as it was coming up to my 40th birthday my very lovely and brilliantly supportive parents bought me a new one! How lucky am I?

It was definitely party time at HH HQ last week and Wednesday was also the day that BBC Radio Suffolk came to visit the knitters and as it was also Wednesday Wendy's birthday we had a little party. Tina made these amazing cakes and as you can see they didn't even hang around long enough to get a snap of all the letters!
They were amazing, thank you Tina!

Jo Lea, knitting moss for an ornamental hanging basket and quite determined to teach Jon from BBC Radio Suffolk to knit!

Just one of the very brilliant birthday presents - a marvelous book by a brilliant knitter! This is my bed time reading...

The lovely birthday gifts will get a proper blogpost all of their own after I've written my thank you notes...but this one deserves a special mention as it was tracked down by Mike the Glassman and it's a beauty!
I LOVE glass as much as I love yarn and there had been much plotting, texting and consultation with The Good Wives of Sew and Crow to find a piece of glass that would make me go giddy and I know that Mike is particularly pleased with himself for finding this Martini jug by Holmegaard glass...

...he takes his glass seriously and being charged with this task made it tricky for me to pin him down in order to pick a winner for Country Buntkin bunting giveaway!

BUT, I finally got him - comment 7 is the winner! Congratulations Cath, send me some details halfpennyhome@googlemail.com and the bunting bits and bobs will be flapping their way over to you!

And finally...how proud were Jacqui and I to see a good friend of Halfpenny Home, Polly's Textiles featured in Oh Comely magazine?!
Well done Danielle, your 'Beautifully Purposeful' hand screen-printed fabrics are gorgeous and your aprons are definitely a favourite of ours and featured in one of our favourite magazines too!

Phew! Think that's about everything...Nic x

A Taste of Summer!

I love Lavender, it just screams "summer" and I thought it was time to do a spot of baking with some I picked from my mum's garden - she has absolutely loads so I think the bees will forgive me for cutting just a small amount for my recipe, plus a bit extra for a vase too!

These biscuits are super easy to make and so I thought I'd share the recipe with you...

300g / 10oz butter

180g / 7oz caster sugar

450g / 1lb plain flour

2 egg yolks

about 2 tablespoons of fresh chopped lavender leaves

about 1 tablespoon of lavender flowers

drop of milk (if required)

You could always halve the quantity - as you can see, this makes quite a lot - depending on what size cutters you use! I couldn't resist making heart shaped biscuits!
Method:
Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Then add your lavender leaves, most of the flowers and your flour and egg yolks and mix well. Knead your mixture into a soft dough and, if necessary, add a drop of milk to get a nice smooth ball. I then popped it in the fridge for half an hour before rolling out to my desired biscuit thickness, about 1/2 cm. Cut your biscuits out using your biscuit cutters and place on a greased baking tray. You can press extra lavender flowers into the top of each biscuit if you like. Bake in the oven at 160 o centrigrade / 320F for about 15-20 mins, or until firm.
Leave to cool in the trays for a few minutes to firm up before using a palette knife to remove and place on wire cooling trays.

Then settle down with a nice cuppa to enjoy a little taste of summer!
The biscuits keep really well but if you make enough, why not share them with friends -they look really pretty presented in a clear cellophane bag and tied with ribbon and a parcel tag.

Jacqui x

Take Note!

The lovely (and very talented and patient) Lisa (Museum) had the brilliant idea of getting us all making fabric covered notebooks at Sew n Crow. It's a fab way of using up small pieces of fabric and so much nicer to use than a boring old plain notebook. The results were fantastic and all so individual.

I loved Amy's gorgeous gingham design - she used the same fabric to make her bias binding and I think it works brilliantly. Check out the beautiful wooden button too!


And Sam's gorgeous fabric with contrasting interior! She found just the right colour ribbon at HH to use as a tie!

And here's my own (not quite finished attempt). Unsurprisingly with a scandi feel. A leftover piece of fabric from my bathroom blind! There's plans for a ribbon tie - but I need to find just the right colour, and of course, a button. A nice mother of pearl button I am thinking!

Pat's gorgeous farmyard fabric with gingham bias binding - lovely.

And.....am I allowed to say this? My favourite of all, Michelle's carefully thought out and beautifully executed design, made as a present for her God-daughter.

Michelle even added a tinkly bell and ribbon bookmark and one of HH's motif's. Just beautiful. If the conversations are anything to go by, there will be lots more of these being made over the coming months for presents.

It was a fab way to spend an evening - productive, creative and not forgetting the icing on the cake - literally - coffee and walnut cake and raspberry and white chocolate brownies - mmmmm. Washed down with liberal helpings of tea.

Jacquix

PS. Don't forget to enter our giveaway for the fabric bunting kit as seen in A Green Guide! Scroll down for the details.....

Road trip!

What's Tammy the HH 'Twinfit' dress form doing in a hall full of lovely artwork then eh?
Keep scrolling down and all will be revealed...

I get a lot of comments about all the stuff that I manage to cram into my lovely little basket with the green and orange handle. But yesterday we were grateful for all the odd bit's and pieces that lurk amongst the crochet-covered fruit, mp3 player and pliers...
We were heading over to Burnham Overy Staithe where the Norfolk Arts Exhibition 2011 was being held.
Look at all the lovely bunting!

Helen Brown and Paddy Peters along with some other great artists organise this event every year and this year the committee invited Halfpenny Home to showcase A Green Guide to Country Crafts!
Helen and Paddy are great friends of both Jacqui and I and their 'Old Piggery Pottery' is one of our favourite places, Helen makes the fab mugs that we use at HH HQ! We are also allotment neighbours but I won't bore you with seed talk right now...

Another great friend of Halfpenny Home is Danielle Wade of Polly's Textiles and her 'Dutifully Purposeful' items are wonderful so it's no wonder that the committee had also invited her along too!
We sell Danielle's hand-dyed and screen printed fabric at HH HQ and so we decided to make the long journey up to North Norfolk together!

We had a lot of fun displaying the lovely items that Danielle makes from her fabrics...

The suitcase that is usually at the bottom of the stairs crammed full of beautiful cushions!

Country Crafts open on the page showing Samantha Hayes wearing a Polly's Textiles Apron!

One of the beanbags that Danielle has just to started to produce sits alongside a Roman Blind that I made for another exhibition, we had this on display in HH HQ for a while and everyone loved it, the pleats show off the print perfectly!

Let's hope the visitors to Burnham Overy Staithe Village Hall, North Norfolk PE31 8JD between today - Saturday 16th July and Sunday 21st August like our crafty wares...Nic x