In defence of the headscarf

Today I have been accused of "copping out" by wearing a headscarf to work.  Apparently the be-headscarfed 40s look is cliche and lazy and wasn't really that common.

So, in defence of the headscarf, please enjoy the below:

On the needles: Flossy and Dossy quickknit 40s style sweater

I always seem to have a few projects on the go at one time, at the moment I’ve got a couple of unfinished 4ply things languishing in the knitting trunk (must get back to work on those this weekend) and have also just started a work knit. This is a piece of knitting I keep at work to occupy me at lunch time so that I don’t spend the entire hour staring at the screen.

A work knit needs to be fairly simple (no fancy laces) and quick working (stops the inevitable comments of “you’ll never finish that” from sarcastic colleagues), so I tend to pick easy patterns in a thick wool.

I started my current work knit yesterday and it is this marvellous 40s style jumper from wedding dress designers, Flossy and Dossy. While the finished article on their site looks complicated, this is actually knit in a deceptively simple twisted rib.

I say deceptively simple, but I did have a little “logic fail” on knitting up my swatch and followed the pattern instructions to K2, P3 when actually, if I’d looked at the rib I would have started with the P3. Just me being a dumbo though.

In any case, it is knitting up beautifully now in a lovely hot pink Aran from the King Cole Merino Blend range. I adore this yarn and cannot wait to see how it washes.

It doesn't matter how I post this, it still comes out upside down.

Right way up in "my pictures" dammit!

This would be a great first sweater knit as it works up very swiftly, I seem to be knitting at just over 1 inch per hour. It is also easy to resize as the pattern repeat is 5 stitches which - give or take a little - corresponds to one inch. You don’t have to be too precise with resizing a ribbed sweater as there is so much natural give to the stitch.

Right, its lunchtime here. Time to get knitting!

Old lady rinses a go-go!

So, I promised a brief post about my new gingery-ness and here it is.

I’ve been blonde for a long as I can recall, I was naturally white blonde as a child and it darkened to a medium blonde by my teens, when I started dying it back to a lighter colour. I started with highlights (ugh – how I loathe highlights) and slowly built up to the flat platinum I’ve sported over the past 5 years or so.

I’ve flirted with different colour rinses, from a subtle ashy tone to blue to Mrs Slocombe pink. How I loved Mrs Slocombe pink – but sadly it isn’t really conducive to a work environment, even one as relaxed as mine...

Anyway, lately I’ve been hankering for a change, the problem with the blonde is that it looks very ratty when unwashed / when the roots start showing and, not being as well heeled as Ms Monroe, I can’t really afford weekly touch ups! As a result I’ve been considering a darker shade or *gasp* going back to my natural brown. Not that I know what my natural brown looks like anymore, but I’m assuming something like this.

Full of the wind of change *parp* I wandered along to my fave hair salon, the amazing Rockalily Cuts in Shoreditch and spoke to the delicious Lucie Luella about my options. Lucie, being a sensible girl, explained to me that going dark from my current white blonde would be very difficult to do and impossible to reverse if I didn’t like it, so we decided to look at what else we could do. I’ve always had a predilection for the "old lady" rinse look and so, on googling I found this:

pic shamelessly stolen from http://notyournormaldoll.blogspot.co.uk without permission, apologies

Lucy explained that this would most likely be possible as the effect of a red dye on my blonde would be similar to this red dye on the lady in the pictures naturally white hair. Now the only problem is that this dye doesn't really exist in the colours usually stocked by the modern hairdresser. Not to be discouraged however, my intrepid coifeusse set about concocting her own blend of colours.

Fuelled by two bottles of Stella Artois and adrenaline I let her apply the stuff to my hair and lo and behold – it worked. My hair is a glowing, unrealistic, apricot. I feel like fashion icon space alien - superhero.  Rawr!

Both completely unreal in tone but within the realms of realism by just enough to prevent my employer commenting.
I love it. So much I took pics of myself on the way home and sent them to my friends.

So much so I posted pics on here.

So much so I wrote this post and added this pic of me in the toilet cubicle at work.

Frankly, I’m in love. And a little scared to wash my hair as I know the colour will fade as reds are wont to do.

I can wholeheartedly recommend Rockalily cuts. So far they have given me my best ever cut and my best ever colour.

Thanks Lucie, Ree and Elly!

Knitting my brow

I have spent a good few months tracking down the knitting pattern for this little number.

The pattern just arrived and, hells teeth, it is K1,P1 rib all over, on 2.75mm needles and what seems to be lace weight yarn. It is also tiny in the bust.

Resizing it, then knitting it...I don't think I have either the knitting knowledge nor the stamina.

In any case, feast your eyes on it and on some other delights from Stitchcraft, May 1938.



Yes, it is sideways, No, I can't be bothered to rotate it right now.



Jam to-morrow

Well, actually, jam to-day, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday.  Lots and lots of jam.

A good chum at work was kind enough to bring me in a huge bag of foraged damsons and so I decided to have my first try at jam making, as a good way to use my every increasing pile of sugar ration.  Damson jam is the easiest jam to make as the fruit contains a lot of pectin and so it was the perfect choice for my first foray into preserving.

So, what I've learnt is that jam is all about ratios, with damson jam you need an equal amount of fruit to sugar and just enough water to cover the fruit.

The recipe I used is linked below. 

Jammin'

It really was ridiculously easy, if messy, and I now have enough delicious jam to last me, well, forever. 


A pictorial history of my first jam experiment:

Just the damsons and the water.  Look at my shiny new jam pan.

Damsons boiling away.  Look at my messy kitchen

  

So pink!

Getting the stones out was the most bothersome bit.

Jam. 

Rationing, week 3: corned beef!

Well, I had a naughty weekend, as the chap took me out for dinner and I had mussels and delicious boeuf bourgignon, so I'm entering this week with renewed Wartime zeal and starting my week with corned beef rissoles.  Yuk you may say, but I actually love corned beef so I'm very happy.

Corned beef was rationed, it formed a part of the meat ration and was part of my initial weeks shopping that went unused.

The recipe is pretty flexible, you just smoosh up a tin of corned beef with an equal amount of mashed potato (you can add any left over cooked veg too), some herbs and spices, Worcestershire sauce and some breadcrumbs to bind.  Shape the mixture into sausage shapes, roll in remaining breadcrumbs and bake in a hot oven for 15-20 minutes until crisp and hot through.

 They ain't pretty but they sure as hell are tasty.

I'm serving mine with baked beans.  These weren't rationed and were a great source of protein.

No comments about lack of vegetables, I had at least 6 portions of veg in today's lunchtime salad.  Salad was a wartime staple.  Leaves with everything.

Look at the glory of this though...basic, but reminiscent of the dinners of my youth.

Omnomnomnomnom.

Cravats Amore

Hello again lovely chums,

I think I'm finally getting my blogging groove back, and, having decided to worry less about writing informative educational type posts and spend more time having fun with this thing, I thought I'd treat you to a little outfit post.  When I say treat, its really just lots of pictures of me, so that all depends on how much you like looking at my big ugly mug really.

Anyway, Autumn is here.  Hurrah! Time to stash the cotton frocks in tissue paper and dig out the tweed.  To celebrate the start of the tweed and wool season I have spent most of this weekend finishing up a huge pile of knitting projects that have been building up over the Summer.  The jacket in the picture is one I've been waiting to finish for some time, I just had to sew on the collar and the buttons, but for some reason (read: sheer laziness) its been sitting on my dressmakers dummy for months.

The yarn is some vintage pure wool Aran I picked up from eBay and its terribly warm if just a bit prickly.  It is going to be perfect to see me through the coming season.  The collar looks a bit wonky in these pics but I think thats my posture rather than the garment.

I paired it with a 70s Viyella skirt and some Norwegian shoes picked up from a charity shop along with a  beret with an embroidered bumblebee (I keep thinking it must be an insignia of some kind but google isn't bringing anything up so perhaps it is just decorative) and a most delightful cravat sent to me by the kind chaps at Swagger and Swoon. 

It really is a lovely piece in pure silk, cotton backed.  Deep green with purple and gold paisley.  I'm quite in love with it and I think it adds the perfect 30s country "butch" style to my outfit.  I feel just like Honoria Glossop from the Jeeves and Wooster novels.  Never a bad thing in my book.  I may have to pick up a few more of them as they really set off an outfit.  

Anyway - that's all for now.  Off to pretend I'm clay pigeon shooting or something equally Honoria-like.

Toodle-pip!

Edit: totally reattaching that collar. I did it completely wrong. That's what happens when you lose your copy if the pattern between knitting and making up!