Look what I got!

My mother was cleaning out a bookcase yesterday and came upon a few old crochet books. I'm proud to say that they now live in my bookcase. I know that they are old enough to be public domain, and I plan to scan them all in the near future. And I will not be charging $8.95 a piece to share them with the rest of the world.

From vintage

I also got most of another book of edgings. There's no cover; it goes from page 3-14, then 19-30.


What's most interesting to me is that amongst all the edging patterns there are several pages without instruction. I guess the author just wanted to inspire crocheters with really complicated designs? Or maybe she just wanted to show off? I wonder if that might be the key to finding out who the designer is...

Fisharoni Surprise

It's no secret that I have a deep love for vintage craft magazines. They are glimpses into 20th century American life that you just can't get anywhere else. Lately I have a developed a particular fancy of The Workbasket, for it was not just a craft magazine, but also included gardening and cooking.

The garden section was ever filled with great information about how to store tuberous begonias for re-planting the following spring, and how to prune wisteria so that it will continue to bloom well. But then sometimes it would have a great tidbit like this:

Q. What is the vegetarian diet for venus fly trap plant? -- Mrs. R.G.H., OH
A. As these grow best in living sphagnum moos which decays with fertilizer, give each leaf of fly trap a tiny piece of lean raw beef each week.
(April, 1976, p. 28)

The cooking section relied heavily on recipes sent in from readers, for which they were paid. In 1953, a printed recipe was worth. In 1970, they were still paying $2 for recipes. (They did raise the reward to $5 by 1973 though. Housewives were apparently on to their game.)

While there are lots of good knit and crochet patterns in these volumes, my true enjoyment comes from those $2 recipes. My family and faithful readers will remember my foray into bacon cookies, which came directly from The Workbasket. And upon getting a 1966 issue given to me (thanks, Joy!), I immediately found this gem:

Fisharoni Surprise
1 (1 pound) can salmon, flaked you know, I haven't eaten canned salmon in probably 20 years. I could go get a can to try this out
1 medium can baked beans really? maybe I should rethink this recipe
1 medium size can tomato soup oh hell no
2 cups cooked macaroni thus the "roni" in the title. should I really be surprised?
1 medium size onion, chopped and sauteed in butter
2 tablespoons butter or margarine
salt and pepper to taste

also in that same issue was a recipe for Rosy Ham Loaf, which was a combination of ground ham and ground pork, mixed with tomato soup (of course!) and dry mustard, and topped with pineapple. I think that if I ever made this one, I'd need to serve Rosy Perfection Salad from Weight Watchers as well. (go on, click the link. you won't be worry)

Mr. Deplume has come up with the idea to have a dinner party wherein each guest must bring a dish made from a Workbasket recipe. The dishes must be prepared exactly as written. Everyone I talk to thinks this is a grand idea. I think that I would need to have a lot of pizza in the freezer in case we ended up with a inedible table full of canned soups and frankfurters. Look for your invitation in the mail!

Bacon Cookies. (I wish I were kidding)

Who: me
What: Breakfast Cookies, from Workbasket magazine, Sept 1973
Where: my kitchen
When: this morning
Why: God only knows.

Being a fan of all things vintage, I bought a bunch of Workbasket Magazines from 1973, expecting granny square afghans and ugly sweaters on models with hair helmets and bad sunglasses. I found all that. But I also found that there were recipes. Lots of recipes. I would have skimmed past them if it weren't for the captions on the 2-inch-square photos. The first one I came upon was something about a zesty tomato and frankfurter sauce served over macaroni. I started reading them out loud to Mr. Deplume while he was driving us somewhere, and we had some good laughs.

Then I came upon this: "Why not have a cookie at breakfast time? Bacon, cereal and orange juice flavor these."

bacon? cereal? orange juice?

I looked at the recipe. It also has raisins. I immediately thought of the line from one of my favorite movies, Better Off Dead, "It's got raisins in it. You like raisins."

After Easter dinner, I showed these magazines to my family, all of whom also laughed. No wonder the 1970's were so screwed up: look what we were eating! In the course of that Easter afternoon, I came to realize that I must make the bacon cookies.

And I did.

The recipe is simple: mix flour, nut-like-cereal (think Grape Nuts), sugar and baking powder, then add butter, egg, orange juice concentrate, bacon and raisins. Mix. Bake. Enjoy.

And enjoy, I did not.

My three-year-old boy actually found them to be tasty. I'll pass them out to adventurous friends and family, and will share their reactions here, in case I'm just imagining that they are bad. The texture is actually pretty good. And the raisins aren't really even noticeable. But one thing is clear to me: orange juice and bacon should NOT co-mingle.

not. not. not.

See, even the cover model think they look like a bad idea. She's giving me the "look" and clutching that cardigan, planning to use it to protect her from the hickory smoked horror.



I have found out that there is another, modern, well-thought-out bacon cookie recipe out there, the bacon maple cookie, although the idea of chocolate chips and bacon sounds bad to me, too. But I'll probably try them someday, too. I'm still holding out hope, as I'm a true fan of bacon. It really is a wondrous meat-like substance.

Vintage Craft love

I adore old craft books. I really do love them. Each time I walk into the crafty section of my local charity shop, I hope that there is a new tasty morsel of yellowed goodness for me to buy. Many times, though, I look through every book and pamphlet, only to find piles of books on:
- Macrame
- ways to cut paint and sew an ordinary sweatshirt, to make it look like it's not a sweatshirt that has been cut, sewn, and painted.
- decorating your clothing with liquid beads. (On title I noticed today was "Glitzy Lady"

But this week, I found some real gems. I got an old Alice Brooks Designs pineapple-motif cape pattern. There's no date on it, but the envelope had 4.2 cents potage on it. I suppose that puts it somewhere in the late 1950's. There was another Alice Brooks mother-daughter poncho pattern, but I mainly only bought it so it wouldn't be lonely at the store without its friend.

There were Workbasket magazines from 1973, I think the whole year. I also picked up a Columbia-Minerva "Learn To Crochet" book from 1976 with patterns for everything from booties to granny-square vests, all made with bulky yarn.

I thought I was done, I had snapped up all the good stuff, when I spotted something on the bottom shelf, behind a Christian cross-stitch book. It was titled "Fashions made with the Heir-Loom™", published in 1971. On the cover was what looked like an informal wedding dress, whose bodice is made with yarn daisies. And then I opened it up, and the first page my fingers showed my eyes was this:


Obviously, I had to have it. The out loud snort and guffaw was $.35 price tag alone. It is one of the most gloriously perfect examples of the egregious fashions of the early Seventies. Eventually, I'll get the rest of this book scanned in. There are other goodies in store here. folks. I haven't even opened most of the Workbasket Magazines. Who knows what treasures lurk in there.

I hope everyone has a happy and peaceful Easter, and I'll see you on Monday, I hope. :)

I love my thrift store.

I love vintage stuff. Unfortunately, there isn't enough room in my home for every old thing I find lovely or interesting. But books I can find a place for. It started out with some old crochet pattern books my mother got at an auction for next-to-nothing (meybe even nothing, I never really asked). I ended up selling a few of them, as I cannot crochet, nor will I probably ever learn. But those books were so fun, that I started looking in the craft book section at my local charity shop.

Most of the time, the only books there are 1980's instructions on how to crochet collars onto hand-painted sweatshirts. There are usually a few afghan books too. And macrame. But this time there were knitting books. With flair. And they leaped into my basket.

Vintage knit pattern books
Originally uploaded by robinmommy21

First three I found were quite nice. I might actually make something from one or more of these.

Vintage Doll clothes patterns
Originally uploaded by robinmommy21

Next up were these lovelies, titled "Mary's Dollies". I'm not into dolls or their clothes, but maybe someday I'll pass them along to someone who will use them.

Mod knit pattern booklet
Originally uploaded by robinmommy21

And then I found this beauty. Columbia Minerva Leaflet No. 2510, "The Super-Sonics," promises handknits that will "fly off your fingers with supersonic speed." It was originally 25 cents. How much did I pay for it? 25 cents. I felt it wrong to quibble about money on such a wonderful find. The clothes. The hair. The gauge. I'm relatively sure that I'll never knit any of these. Maybe I'll frame this and hang it on my knitting studio's wall. (No, I don't actually have a knitting studio. But a girl can dream, right?)

Detail of mod knit dresses
Originally uploaded by robinmommy21

"The Portobello," the dress on the right, has a stitch gauge of 6 stitches to 5 inches on sz 50 needles. I tried to come up with something witty to write about that, but all I can seem to manage is to chuckle and shake my head at it. And that doesn't translate to the written word so well.