It’s Women’s History Month, so here’s a little gem from the October 1943 Better Homes and Gardens.
The small pic at left links to a much, much larger one.
Use Kotex – for the war effort!
Emily got some nice presents for her birthday. She got books, a DVD, and some toys including a Playmobil playset that she’s really enjoying. But the one gift which she’d been specifically asking for for months was a cuckoo clock. I kid you not. The kid really, really wanted a cuckoo clock. And so, now, in her room, direct from China by way of eBay, is this genuine plastic 14″ tall cuckoo clock. She’s thrilled. It plays a recorded cuckooing sound on the hour, once for every hour. She really wanted us to have it continue cuckooing all night, but we said no. “It won’t keep me awake!” she protested. Finally, I said, “well, it might keep us awake!” She slowly grinned and said, “That’s funny.” Yeah, Daddy and I are crazy that way.
I nearly jumped out of my skin when 8am rolled around this morning and that thing started cuckooing eight loooong times. Steve’s going to rig up either a toggle switch or some kind of photovoltaic cell, or possibly both, for it so that we won’t have to deal with this constantly.
But is it worth it for the joy that it brings my little weirdo? Yes.
This morning: knitting, stamping boxes, writing notes, and rustling up more straw. It’s the Jayne stuff that’s knitting-adjacent that slows things down sometimes.
Hats up for: Troup TX, Rock Hill SC, and… unknown. Hm. Guess I better contact that guy.
At the moment, we are unable to send e-mail, so bear with me if you don’t get a response to something you’ve sent me today.
Today, we’re having a birthday party for my daughter. She turns nine on Monday. I’ve written before about the Saddest Birthday Party Ever but this time, we have actual CONFIRMATIONS! Woo!
We had hoped to have it at a local park, but it’s chilly and extremely windy today, so that’s right out. So yesterday morning, I went into a cleaning frenzy. Gone are the narrow paths of bare floor between towering mountains of junk. Now they’re extremely wide paths between lightly rolling hills of junk. In other words, I’m no longer barring the door to people who might stop by, but will let them come in with a little “sorry about the mess.” I’m not exaggerating when I say it took me all day to get the house to this point.
I can’t do anything about the cracked tile or the peeling wallpaper right now, so I’m letting those go. The house is hygenic and there’s room to roughhouse a little, so that’s good enough.
Later this afternoon, if all goes according to plan, five Girl Scouts will descend on the house. There will be pizza and cupcakes and ice cream. There will be a pinata, the one thing Emily wants with all her heart and soul. There may be pin the tail on the donkey and a ring toss game. Most importantly, there will be kids. It’ll be interesting, because Emily won’t be able to leave the situation as much if she gets overwhelmed, but she’ll be on her home turf. But she’s been wanting to have friends come over, so I think this is going to be a good day for her. It’s certainly a big milestone in her social development.
As for me, I dreamed about the party most of the night. I’m alternating between freaking out and reminding myself that it is no big deal to have a few friends come over. Wish us all luck!
ETA: One girl and her sister cancelled because she’s under the weather. And then there were three!
E (again) TA: A good time was had by all. Post to follow later. I’M QUEEN OF THE WORLD!!! WOOOOOOO!!!
Meet Jennifer!
Yarn: Dale of Norway Baby Ull for doll, panties, and dress. Crystal Palace cotton chenille for hair. Embroidery floss for face.
Needles: #3 for the doll, #2 for the dress
Doll pattern: Basic Doll from Toys to Knit by Tracy Chapman
Dress pattern: Me!
Turtlegirl76 suggested eyelets on the waist of the dress with an eye toward running a ribbon through. I decided not to do the ribbon, but I liked the eyelet idea.
Notes: This is the third one of these dolls I’ve made. This is not because I have any great love for the pattern. In fact, I think it’s rather poorly written, but my daughter seems to love these dolls. She picked out the color for the hair and dress. She specifically requested a dress, not a skirt and shirt, and asked for a purple heart. When the doll was done, she elected to find a scrap of Jayne hat yarn and make it into a hair tie.
At this point, I don’t have a whole lot more I can say about the pattern beyond what I’ve said about the previous dolls. Also, I’m tired and my wit has preceded me to bed. I’ll be joining it in a moment.
Here’s Emily’s original concept drawing. The main difference is that she picked out hot pink hair when we went to Charlotte Yarn, but I think that’s mainly because she felt like she had to pick whatever color they had, and that was the closest to red. Once she’d picked it, there was no swaying her to any other color. She also made sure to tell me early on that the dress should be sleeveless, unlike the drawing.
Emily chose the name Jennifer in the same way she chose her other two dolls’ names – by getting me to go to a baby names site on the web so she could pick one from a list. She tells me that Jennifer is older than Taylor but younger than Elizabeth. The three dolls have already had some pillow fights, so it looks like Jennifer is fitting in just fine.
This was originally going to be a post called “What the Hell is wrong with people?” but I find a lot of the fire has gone out me. No pun intended.
Last Monday, we pulled up to my daughter’s school to drop her off and noticed that the playground was roped off with yellow tape. Apparently over the weekend, it burned. And that’s really all I know for sure, “it burned.” The blue plastic slide is melted. The yellow vinyl covering the metal skeleton has scorched and peeled away in the places closest to the heat. If Salvador Dali designed kids’ equipment, this is what it would look like.
My daughter’s teacher says, “We don’t know if it was accidental or on purpose. Apparently, there is not enough evidence to know.” But how can this NOT be deliberate? I’m having trouble coming up with a scenario in which a vinyl, plastic, and metal playground spontaneously combusts. Lightning strike? Fire sprites? Personally, I suspect someone was fooling around up there with matches or a lighter and things burned a lot faster than they thought. At least, I hope it was stupidity and not deliberate destruction.
The teacher says, “This was a playground that was donated to us from an outside sponsor.” Our school proudly displays the oversized novelty check for 10 grand that we got from a corporation in or around 2003. Since our school is not exactly swimming in cash, there’s no way they could have afforded it otherwise. The teacher continues, “I assume that the damage is covered under our insurance, but I don’t really know any details about the possibility of it being replaced.”
I try to come up with the bright side to everything, but I’m having a hard time finding the plus to someone destroying a playground at a children’s school. The culprits hopefully learned that things burn fast? They understand what guilt and remorse feel like? I can’t even be sure of that.
It’s been more than a week since this happened, and now there’s orange mesh around the playground. That’s all the progress I’ve seen. The kids still have four swings and some other playground equipment, albeit older and ALSO with a messed up slide from earlier vandalism.
I’ve asked Emily if she knows what happened. She doesn’t. That’s going to be a tough one to explain.
Ah, early Spring in North Carolina. The bulbs have peeked their heads up, and we’re all enjoying the first color of the season. Pictured to the left are daffodils from my mother’s front yard. From the photo, it would appear that about half the flowers are blooming.
Actually, until a few days ago, they were all blooming. And here I have to quote my mother. “Someone stole up on the daffodils in the front yard, armed with scissors, and cut half of them off for their own nefarious purposes.”
Did you catch that? They were cut, which means that someone had to notice them, admire them, go home, get a tool, come back at night, and snip the ones they wanted. I’ve watched enough Law and Order to know premeditation when I see it.
You’ll note that only half are gone. My mother and I have two theories as to why that might be. My first thought was that the thief thought they were being nice by only stealing half. My mother’s thought was that they only took half so that it wouldn’t be so obvious that any had been cut, and could more easily cover their tracks. The perfect crime!
Unfortunately, “perfect crime” is likely right. I can’t imagine how you would go about identifying the culprit. Perhaps she could look out her window this evening to see if there’s anyone in a black catsuit and ski mask out for a pleasant stroll. If they happen to be carrying gardening shears, that could also be a clue.
If she has any neighbors who have long, thin mustaches that they like to twirl while cackling evilly, that might also be a good place to start.
We obviously moved from outrage to amusement pretty quickly, but I still think I should find some police tape and cordon off the crime scene. We can’t let these blossom rustlers get away with this!
My camera’s back, so let’s get caught up!
Pattern: “Fuzzyfeet” by Theresa Vinson Stenersen from Knitty.com
Yarn: Lamb’s Pride Worsted in M05 Onyx and Noro Kureyon in colorway 52
Needles: size 10 1/2 (6.5mm) 16″ circular (2 circs for toe decreases)
Notes: Well, I’ll say this: I got a lot of knitting done in the hospital waiting room. The Jayne hats flew by with no problem. I can do those in my sleep. But I was distracted by family and concern and fouled up the toe on these not once but twice. The first time, I carried the body of the foot too long before decreasing, so I un-knitted back to the proper point. The second time, I forgot that I’d made the toe on the first one strictly in black, so I striped the second one up to the end. I ripped back and re-knitted it to match the first.
However, these did give us something to talk about. One aunt liked the way these looked so much she asked about commissioning some for Christmas gifts for relatives. Unfortunately, this pattern cannot be used for profit. She’s dear family, though, so I’ll see what I can do for her as a gift.
Everyone who saw me knitting these said, “you know, the stripes aren’t the same color.” I know, it’s deliberate. I think it adds some nice visual interest. I was more concerned with how the Kureyon and Lamb’s Pride were going to felt. LP felts much faster than Kureyon. However, it only took one trip through the washing machine for these to felt to exactly the point I wanted. They fit perfectly.
I’ve made many of these for others, but this is the first pair I’ve made for myself. I’m very happy with how they turned out.
