May Round Up

I’ve been rushed off my feet lately so have been sadly neglecting the blog. But the Jubilee weekend is giving me the chance to regroup, so here’s a little round up of what’s been going on for Purl Princess.

It was my birthday and I got some lovely presents. Best of all was an amazing ceramic bowl by artist Anette Bugansky. She uses hand knitting to print onto the fine porcelain clay and make cups, tea lights vases and bowls. It was a lovely gift and I’ll be keeping it as far away from the mucky little destructive hands in our house as possible!

I’m still working on the baby blanket for my sister in law, which has been crawling along due to me being so busy for the last month. I started the inside border and decided that it was too ‘old’ looking and that the blanket didn’t really need it (plus it was taking ages to make so I thought I’d save my self some work, ahem!). So then I started the outer boarder which is much more modern looking (and easier to knit, ahem!).

Pompom magazine popped through my door last week and I like it. It’s small but perfectly formed with a couple of interesting articles to read along with an embroidery project, bellini cocktail recipe and 5 knitting patterns to choose from. I like to try and support new knitting ventures so was happy to pay the £9.50 (plus postage) for the magazine, but am not sure if I’ll be able to afford it every quarter. I might pop into stockists Loop or Ray Stitch, both in Islington, next time to have a little browse before buying next time.

I have been branching out into bread making and made this Scandinavian tea ring. It reminded me of something you used to be able to get in all the supermarkets and bakers when we were kids. We called it a bun round and it was like lots of little round iced buns that your tore off. The centre one always had a cherry on top and I would always fight with my brothers over who got it. Do you remember them? As they don’t seem to exist anymore I tried this recipe and although it was much more like a Danish pastry in texture and flavour it was really good to get to grips with making the dough, kneading it and leaving it to rise etc. and it bought back a few memories too.

Knitting in the sun and appearing on the tele

A couple of weeks ago the grandparents took us on a lovely beach holiday to Teneife and so I took along the baby blanket I'm making for my Sister in Law. I assumed I'd have lots of down time to do a couple of rows each day, but I was fooling myself. Holidays will ever be what they used to be pre-child. Those days of having a week of total relaxation are gone. Instead we had lots of fun with Flo, running about on the beach, smashing sand castles and having the odd dip in the hotel pool.

I did manage to get, I think, 4 rows done in total during the entire holiday, which was an achievement to say the least! To give you an idea of the scale of this project, each row takes me about 10-15 minutes to complete so that was a good hour of knitting right there. I had the Mr. take this photo to prove that I actually did manage to find some time to work on the blanket. Flo was of course sleeping at this particular moment, which enabled it to happen!

Now we're back the project is growing steadily and I have now finished over half of this middle square of the blanket. I'm thinking of starting at least one of the borders soon, just to give me a bit of variety as knitting  the same stitches for over a month now is getting a little tedious and there's still a long way to go.

In other news Flo and I are appearing in the new Great Ormond Street Charity advert. You can click the image above to watch it or watch it on YouTube.

While we were in the hospital they asked if we would take part and we were more than happy to help such a good cause. At the time Flo was still in intensive care and very much fighting for her life each day, so seeing the ad come out now when she's doing so well really speaks volumes for the work GOSH does. We'll also be appearing on their website shortly. Just in case you're not sure, Flo's the tiny baby, with the big breathing tube taped over her face and yes, she has a cup (protecting a cannula) taped to her head too.