Kat in the Hat

The title of this blog is a little misleading because although I have finished Kat’s second 30th Birthday present of the vintage bobble hat I have not yet given it to her and it is indeed me modelling the hat!

I mostly crochet this item on the way to and from work on the train. It’s brilliant ‘dead’ time to use up doing something productive. It works out well with crochet in particular as you need even less elbow room than knitting requires which makes it a perfect project for commuting.

Crocheting whilst standing up on the DLR - also possible

I had to modify the pattern slightly as using the original number of stitches gave me a hat that sat somewhere on my shoulders. So I reduced the number of stitches and thankfully it has worked out and as shown in the original picture from the 1940’s pattern it perches nicely atop my head.

My Mum bought me some personalised clothing labels for Christmas so I have added a little ‘Made by Purl Princess’ label into the back of the hat. I’m planning to put these in more of my finished items from now on as I think it’s nice finishing touch and really marks how proud I am of each creation I add one to. Therefore beware of creations without a label – they may not have been well loved!

I have now moved onto something else… can you guess what it is yet?

Boobalicious

A friend at my local knitting group asked if we could knit some boobs for the breast feeding counselling classes she is running and I jumped at the chance!

The knitted breasts not only provide an effective ice breaker for the people attending but more importantly help to demonstrate how a baby should latch on, feed and even how a mother can express their milk.

I think they’re a great idea and as the pattern was so quick to knit up I ended up making five. You only need one per person, so I’m not being lob sided! 

I probably could have made more if I hadn’t run out of materials to stuff them with.

The free pattern is from the Lactation Consultants of Great Britain and you can get it here. 

I’m not sure exactly how you can find out who needs the knitted breasts, but there are contact details for your local councillor on the website, which seems like a good place to start.

Happy boob knitting!

Post Christmas Catch Up

After Christmas you always think that you’ll have loads of time to do all of those things you’d promised to do in the New Year, like getting round to starting that project, go to the gym or in my case writing some more blog entries. Clearly I have failed as it is now twenty days into January and this is the first chance I’ve had to sit down and write!  The cruel hand of January wins again.

There are two projects that I finished over Christmas and didn’t get a chance to blog about. The first was the completion of the vintage leaf scarf which I made for my good friend Kat. She chose the pattern and yarn so all I had to do was knit it.

Over all it was an enjoyable project however the embroidery on the leaves, once the knitting was done, was quite tedious for me; I clearly am a knitter and not an embroiderer. I only made one modification which was to make the scarf longer upon Kat's request. The finished item looks lovely and I’m pleased with it. Kat seems to enjoy wearing it too so if she’s happy, I’m happy! I’m working on the second of her birthday knits now, but I’ll save that for another blog.

Florence needed a cardigan to go over her dress for Christmas day and instead of buying one I thought I’d whip one up. Although in the grand scheme of things it only took me nine days to make, I always feel like giving yourself a deadline ruins the enjoyment you get from the knitting bit. To make it worse it seemed to be quite big on her despite me checking the finished size on the pattern and making sure I got the right gauge. The good thing was that the tie front meant that I could just drag it in more to make it fit her a bit better and at least it will fit her for more than just that one day.

We had a really lovely Christmas this year. As Flo gets older and starts to understand a little bit more of what’s going on the magic of Christmas just grows and grows. Next year I expect she will understand it all and as a consequence we’ll all explode in a cloud of fairy dust. New Year was similarly exciting as we rented a town house on the sea front in Margate with friends. Lots of big hearty meals round the table together, crazy German board games and walks on the beach with Flo made it another one to remember.

Oh, and if you’re thinking – Margate is rubbish – you’d be wrong! The old town has a while host of cute vintage shops and the amazing tea room called The Mad Hatter is to be recommended. We also loved the new Turner Contemporary Museum there which had a great free exhibition on about teen culture. We even were able to get Flo involved in a free kid’s art club that was going on and were able to bring her ‘art’ home with us.  Margate is the place to be!

Reflecting on 2011

Kicked off the year in Burnham on Crouch with good friends and little Flo.

Me and Brooke got to the final on Pointless

Started going to the NCT Redbridge knitters and made some lovely knitting mum mates

Flo turned 1

Flo broke her arm

Got kicked out of our flat and moved in with my parents for 5 months

We had a couple of sunny seaside trips to Southend and Leigh on sea

Flo learned to walk during the Royal wedding

Went Crafternooning at the Creative Biscuit with local mates

Went back to work after maternity leave to one of the most pointless jobs I’ve ever done

Flo started nursery

Karaoke, fish pedicure (eww) and Michelin starred dinner for my Birthday

Day out in Greenwich

Rex Manning day

Bought our first house

Got broken into 2 weeks after moving in

Decorated Flo’s bedroom

Started a new job which was MUCH better than the previous one

Brett passed his driving test

Visited Kew

10 year anniversary of being together with Brett

Brett turned 30 and had a ‘surprise’ party, which he tired to sabotage

Shan and Marc’s wedding

Centre Parcs

Digs continued to record our lives in photography

Filmed Brett and Flo for a Dad documentary at work

I dressed as a Smurf, and then Mick Hucknall

Held a kids Halloween party and kids Christmas party

Made a lot of cake

Knitted the following:

Hap Blanket

Stripey cardi for Inez

Blue lacey top

Flo crochet dress

Isla’s camo pants

Nola Jane

Free Rapunzel

Custard pants

Leaf scarf

Cardi for Milan

Christmas Bolero

And I made 2 quilts


Excellent 2011. Bring on 2012.

Quilt and cake

So the Christmas quilt got finished just as the tree was put up last weekend and now the flat now feels very festive indeed. I am really happy with how the quilt came out and in the end I'm glad that I hand quilted it instead of doing it by machine. It really gives it a bit more of a home made feel and spending so much time on it actually makes it feel like more of an heirloom than if I'd done it all on the machine. 

Back of the quilt - made of scraps

This and the quilt I made for Shan's wedding have to be my biggest crafting achievement this year. Most of all I am glad that I managed to get it finished before the season was over. The Mr and I have been happily snuggled under it for the last week and I have been constantly bundling Flo up in it as she has a horrible cold at the moment.

She won't thank me for this photo

The finished quilt and tree going up called for some mini mince pie making and so I bought out the trusty Nigella recipe from her Christmas cookbook. Although it takes a bit of extra time to make these following her recipe I loved the outcome of flaky pasty. But the 36 I made really didn't last that long as they're so small you can just pop them in the mouth and they're gone!

I also made a batch of cupcakes for the local NCT group party. My piping skills weren't that great but I got to use my Christmas cupcake cases and edible snowflakes again.

Festive YUM

To top it all off they are repeating the episodes of Pointless that I was on earlier this year with my sister in law. We're on again tonight 5.15pm BBC1. Catch up on iPlayer if you fancy seeing me embarrass myself on TV.

It's here!

I haven't got the tree up yet, I think it's a tad early for that but I did receive my first Christmas card and make some Christmas cup cakes; two batches, ahem!
Got the cute edible snow flakes from Lakeland and Christmassy cases too, so I had to test them out.

Now, back to all the crafting I have to do!

Relaxing in the Parc

Wow, it’s been a whole month since my last blog! November has indeed been a busy month and I suspect that December has the same in store. I like to be busy but also like to have that kick back time. Thankfully the Mr, Flo and I got just that at the beginning of November when we took our first family holiday to Centre Parcs in Elveden forest!

I had never been to Centre Parcs before but have to say that I loved it. It is the perfect holiday if you have kids. There are so many things they can do and everywhere is child friendly, so you never have to worry about that is-my-shouting-child-ruining-someone-else’s-holiday feeling. The bikes were a particular hit with Flo who loved her ‘HAT’ or helmet as it’s normally called.

Hat Mummy Hat!

I managed to get some knitting done while kicking back on the drive there and back as well as some quilting done during the cosy nights in at our lodge. Let it be known, the Christmas quilt is nearly done! Just the border left to sew on, so there is a chance that it will be finished by the time I put the tree up! 

During the sewing I did at Centre Parcs we also discovered that the quilt has magical powers to induce sleep. Each night the Mr. fell asleep under it’s magic spell as I stitched away. To demonstrate this picture was taken at 9pm:

Zonko

Knitting wise I have been working on a vintage leaf scarf pattern as my friend Kat’s 30^th birthday present. I offered to knit her something instead of buying her a generic gift and she chose this cute vintage scarf and some red yarn. 

This photo looks pretty vintage!

The 4-ply yarn has meant it’s taken me longer than I thought it might so far, but I would love her to have it to wear before Christmas. All that is left to do is to knit the last leaf and do some decorative stitching, so it should be possible. She also chose the cutest crochet vintage hat which I’m going to have a go at once the scarf is complete. Watch this space.