Saturday 16 April 2011

Acorn buttons


A very cute idea from The Brownie Annual, 1960 - how to make buttons for your cardigan using acorns glued into their cups, or small conkers.

1960 was clearly a bit of a low point for British women, who were deemed incapable of boring two holes in an acorn or conker. Brownies were warned that "you must ask Daddy to bore two holes in each to take the sewing thread".

Mummies were most likely to start crying or sever a limb or two if asked to do anything as taxing as poking a darning needle through a conker. Luckily, times have changed and these days you can ask either Mummy or Daddy to help you. Hurrah for progress!

Tuesday 5 April 2011

More disembodied heads


Yes, gentle reader, it's time for more disembodied heads. These two are probably the offspring of the two ladies who made their own Airlyne stair carpet. The girls have learnt to hover, ghost-like, above their knitted or crocheted ponchos worked up in ethereal cream. You'd certainly be in for a fright if one of these apparitions drifted through your wall, with no sound save for the gentle rustle of acrylic fibre.

Interested to see that this Twilley's pattern came from the Wool - Baa in Chadwell Heath, Essex. Was this a 1970s relative of Worthing's premier knitting shop, The Wool Bar? Or is it merely proof that there are only a certain number of wool-related puns in the world which we are destined to experience over and over again until we are released from this mortal coil and drift off to who-knows-where with a rustle of ponchos...