Buzz from Beas

Bea’s of Bloomsbury is probably the best cake shop in London. This tiny little cafe is easy to miss as you speed though the Holborn area, but once you’ve found it you’ll never forget how to get back there.

For the best experience book a table for afternoon tea and enjoy gorgeous cupcakes, mini brownies, beautiful scones with clotted cream and jam plus a few other treats. Free hot water refills for your tea and the quirky Blaue Blume tea service table wear makes your stay a most pleasant one. You get tons of amazing cake for your money, so I would advise that you miss your lunch to make room before your visit.

The carnage of my latest trip to Bea’s, with a few of my fabulous friends, can be seen in these pictures of the cupcakes before and after. Thanks to Jessica and her mega camera for the yummy photos.

KIP daily

A couple of years ago I created this pattern for Knit in Public day. I missed KIP day this year but for me every day is for knitting in public!



This is a really good summer project as there's not much knitting involved, you can have lots of fun with the design and it's really practical to take to the park while the weather is so nice.



The pattern is hosted on Cut Out and Keep which is a brilliant crafty website where people can share tutorials on how to make a plethora of crafty goods. Anything you can think of is on there from recycled jewellery to dress making. The tutorials are also a great place to gain inspiration and you can upload your version to the site once you're done.



Enjoy!


See Sit Upon and 1000's of others - or share your own on Cut Out + Keep

Daddy's day

Happy first ever Fathers day to the Mr!

We celebrated with a trip to the cute park at the end of the road where Flo had her first go on the swings with Daddy.

Even managed to fit a few rows of knitting in today - go me! The Purl Alpaca's skirt is beginning to drag now, but the end is in sight. Only a few more repeats of the patten to go and then I can start on the waist band. Hopefully I'll have the strenth to stick with it and not revert to a new project, which is what I usually end up doing at this point.

Celebratory socks

Last Christmas I successfully knitted Brett a pair of socks completely in secret i.e. without him knowing. They took me a couple of weeks to make and then I decided to use the leftovers to knit a tiny pair of matching socks for the impending baby. It was a real Hallmark moment when he opened the present and realised that he not only had a lovingly hand crafted pair of socks for himself but that the little one had a little matching pair so that they could be just like daddy.

Florence came home from hospital this week... YAY!!!! And so this morning we celebrated with matching socks.

Put your mitts up

Flo has just one tube in now, which is lovely considering how many she had just a few weeks ago. Her remaining tube is her feeding tube which goes into her nose and down into her tummy. We’re hoping that in the future Florence will be able to feed orally and so we can get rid of this, but for now it is essential to her survival, delivering her food and medicines safely and reliably into her belly.

However Florence doesn’t really appreciate this and thinks that the tube is very annoying and simply must go. Several times she has hooked her tiny fingers under the tube and whipped it out of her nose quicker than you can scream ‘NO!’ She’s very pleased with herself until she realises that it has to go back in, which isn’t that pleasant and sometimes involves a trip to x-ray afterwards to check it’s in the right place. What a palaver. So something had to be done.

We first tried the common little cotton scratch mitts, but these dwarfed Flo’s tiny hands and with one quick wave of her fists they were flying across the room. Of course I found the solution in knitting. It took less than an hour to make a pair of Flo sized mittens and they managed to stay on her hands successfully so I thought I’d share my super basic pattern with you just in case you know a tiny baby that likes to scratch or pull out important tubes.

Premature or small baby scratch mittens:

Yarn: Oddments of Rowan Fine Milk Cotton
Needles: 3mm and 3.25mm needles
Notions: Tapestry needle

Pattern:
Using 3mm needles CO 10st loosely
Knit 6 rows in K1 P1 rib
Next row: K1, M1, K3, M1, K2, M1, K3, M1, K1 (14 St)
Next row: Purl
Continue to stocking stitch for a further 32 rows
Next row (RS): K1, K2tog, K2, K2tog (x2), K2, K2tog, K1 (10 St)
Knit 6 rows in K1 P1 rib
BO all stitches loosely.

Stripes are optional.

Finishing:

Fold strip in half and sew side seams using cast on and bind off tails at the rib edge.

Laura had a little Lamb

Obviously I’ve been spending a lot of time around the Great Ormond Street area for the last few months and just round the corner from the hospital is Lambs Conduit Street a really cute shopping street with various independent shops, restaurants and cafes. There are so many lovely places to go on Lambs Conduit but the following are well worth a mention.

Tutti’s cafe has nice cake, coffee, Panini’s and staff. It also has the all important free WiFi which is just one of the reasons why I keep coming back to this lovely little independent cafe.

We’ve been here so long now that I’ve had to have a haircut and I randomly chose to try Badlambs. This lovely little hairdressers/ barber shop displays digital art prints to buy on the walls and has a retro feel with old style barber shop chairs and furniture. It was a lovely experience and a good hair cut too! I usually hate all my hair cuts that I have to pay for, so this really is a genuine recommendation.

There’s also The People’s Supermarket, a community focused food store, which is due to open shortly. It is a fascinating concept for a shop, where the store is owned and managed by its members. Basically anyone can join up as a member for £25 a year. You volunteer 4 hours a month to work in the shop and as a member you get a discount at the till. The idea is that without having to hire staff the groceries can be cheaper and so benefit the shoppers and local community. Either way it’ll be better than giving your money to the fat cats at Tesco or Sainsburys.


There are loads of other great little places to visit on Lambs Conduit, so if you feel like straying away from the station one day then take a walk and discover a little Bloomsbury gem.