I'm off on my Holidays...

See you when I get back.......



Toodle Pip....





For the Love of Knitting

What Ho Sweetie Pies

Off I went this morning to met Kay the lovely patient lady that was going to attempt to teach me to knit and so she did.... I was amazed how much I remembered from my childhood....

I will be spending all of my free time now practicing and when I finally feel I am ready to knit a jumper I will post the results.

Toodle Pip

A Bit of A Kniter.........

What Ho


I have finally booked myself a learn how to knit class / lesson and can not tell you just how excited I am.
I was taught as a small child how to knit by my Big nan and also at Girl's Brigade but I was never really able to knit.
I can crochet , after a fashion but have never really got the hang of knitting and to be honest  it is the wonderful three hour jumpers that Lisa http://smuterella.blogspot.com/
and Jeni of http://jennyjenny-yesterdaygirl.blogspot.com/ have completed recently has finally got me motivated.

I also have a small collection of vintage knitting pattern, why I hear you ask seeing as you can't knit ... well.... because I love the pictures and thought may just maybe one day I would learn, well that day has come... well it's next Tuesday really at 11 am, have I said I can't wait.
                                                           
                                                       This Gal looks awfully tickerty
                                                       Boo don't you think.

And I would just love to be able to knit and wear this cardigan...
You never know one day maybe ...never say never...




I will let you know how I get on and you never know I may even knit one of the now famous three hour jumpers...






Toddle Pip.

Charlston Stomp......

Ello cutie pies

As you know Shady Ray & I go Swing, Lindy and Charleston dancing on a Monday night in Preston.
I thought I should share this video with you, this is us on Monday night doing the Charleston Stomp (kind of) I am hidding in the back row.
We all had a hoot of a time dancing the Charleston Stomp and Anthony is a great teacher. 

It was a case of Gin & it's alround afterwards .....
Enjoy.

Chin Chin.

Hair Glamour Haze.

What Ho ...

I found myself in a bit of a pickle this morning, having completed my make up I went to do my hair and horror decided it really could have done with being washed, it was fine last night, it was as if the grease imps had slept on the top of my head.... Ahhhhhhh..

So there I was hunting in the rather large vanity cupbard in my bathroom looking for a tin of dry shampoo, a few squirks later and nornality resumed.... well noramlity of a kind... my kind.


Then I got to thinking and suddenly remember that when I was a teenager I use to use talcom powder on my hair some morning before going to school for the same reason greasey roots... yuck then and yuck now.
                                                                                                                                                               
Nice to see some thing never change and you guessed it tonight I will be washing my hair.....
Toodle Pip.

Wash Day Blues...

What Ho ..

I have spent the morning hand washing, I just love this job and have a two vintage laundry bags just for items of clothing that require loveingly handwashing.
I wash all of my girdles,stockings, tights, petticoats and the majority of my vintages dresses, scarves and gloves... Oh the joy... love it love it love it....
     
                                                                                                                                  

Traditionally washday was Monday, it was a task that few women looked forward to because until recently and well within the lifetime of my mother washday was a real chore, a chore that has largely disappeared from Britain today.
Even if the adverts of the time attempted to tell housewives other wise. I can rememeber the little Rickett's Blue packets and have used them myself when hand washing.However, until a few years ago washday entailed a full day's hard work, today we just put the clothes in the automatic washer and forget about them until it's done, but it was not always like that. 

I can remamber my nan and my mum using  fairy house hold Soap, iether as it was on the block on to shirt collars and cuffs or having been gratedstraight into boiling water.

      Back in my nan's day the weekly wash was done in a zinc tub with a wooden three legged dolly to agitate the clothes .The cloths were then wrung out through amangle, the excess water went back into the tub, nothing was wasted.      And every memeber of the family did their bit, I can remember do this with my sisters and often as not getting pretty wet in the process.
                   

   But today I have done all of my hand washing because I wanted to and enjoyed doing it and yes I am even looking forward to ironing it all as I also love ironing, strange I know but true.

And this evening I am going to have a Pimms and go dancing with Shandy Ray, so I am  off to start getting myself and the evening meal ready.....

Toodle pip......
    

Sheila Jackson. R.I.P.

Sheila Jackson costume designer for the Upstairs, Downstairs TV Series, artist, illustrator and writer, died peacefully on 4th February 2011. 

 
Shelia worked on all 68 episodes of Upstairs, Downstairs (1971-75).
The series, which covered the period from 1903 to the 1930s, was a virtual encyclopedia of the way the British classes lived and dressed, and Jackson received a Bafta nomination for her costume design.     

Shelia's costumes designs gave us a true glimps of how the British classes lived and dressed.         


   
Shelia was born in Walsall, in the West Midlands, the daughter of a pharmacist, she attended Paignton school, Devon, and then the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London
Her television career started in the 1950s with the BBC’s set-design department.
Then, when commercial television started in 1955, she stirred first to Rediffusion, then to London Weekend Television, where she worked on all 68 episodes of Upstairs, Downstairs (1971-75).




Shelia was also a well published and respected author.
Simple Stage Costumes (1968) and Costumes for the Stage (1978).
Shelia disliked the practice of copying wardrobe items from illustrations in ancient theatre manuals she urged designers to look for inspiration from their day-to-day lives and look more carefully at old postcards or the designs on china.                     
                                                                           

A true inspiration in the world of costume design and TV.

  

Saucy Smalls !!!!!

Ello one and all.
I had a quick wonder round my local village today in the rain before and after having my hair done.

Whilst taking a quick look through the knitting patterns in one of the local charity shops I found these little gems Health Vest for the Family knitted in Coats Musica Health Vest Cotton.

How amazing, I remember my dad always wearing  what he called a singlet /string vest.
But I am certain that his were always shop bought.




And then I found this pattern.

Football legion from the 1950's / 1960's  Bill Brown was happly having his photo used to sell Health Vest knitted in Twilley's No 1 Health Vest Cotton.
Bill Borwn started his career with Dundee in September 1949, with whom he made 214 Scottish League appearances and won the Scottish League Cup in 1952, before joining Tottenham Hotspurs on June 22, 1959, for the then amzing transfer fee of £16,500.

I wonder how much he got paid by Twilley's ? 

TTFN.

Jolly Hockey Sticks & Lashing and Lashings of Cream Soda.....

What HO...........


Do you fancy being swept back back in time to parallel universe where every other sentence ends in an exclamation mark. Jolly good show! Hard cheese!  and every thing is just too marvellous for words!


Yes.....  Oh Jolly good show then join me and listen to the new BBC Radio 4 series Good Show Clarrisa!


Joanna Lumley and Helen Mirren, together with Cranford’s Lisa Dillon, are to recreating a world gone by of classic girls’ school stories of  midnight feasts, of climb out of a window in the middle of the night to eat…?”

“Hard-boiled eggs. Tongue sandwiches with lettuce. Gingerbread cake and lashing and lashings of Cream Soda or Ginger beer........



Helen Mirren will be reading from A Midnight Revel by Angela Brazil.
Joanna Lumley, a boarding school girl herself, has plumped for an Enid Blyton story.
Lisa Dillon reads from Jemima Gets Them Guessing by Hilda Richards.

I will be listening curled up in my favourite chair with my hot chocolate drifting off in to a warm and cozy place ........

Chin Chin .........

Schmoozeing and Crooning.

What Ho


Life has been some what hectic of late hence the lack of Blog update, apologise for that,
However I thought I would share with you a recent night out that Shady Ray and I had at a wine bar called Schmooze a classy little joint  just of Penny lane (Liverpool) - that knows a think or two about swing which is why the amazing  Dominic Helpin & The Honey B's play there on regular monthly basis.



Schmooze was packed with friendly jazz / swing fans and the atmosphere was warm we managed to find space to dance and ones again had an excellent night.
I must admit I was glad to get home and hang my dancing shoes up for another day..... and I slept like a baby...zzzzzz

TTFN.