Retro Friday!

Something a little different today, a trip back to 1954 to see what ladies were making for their kitchens with cotton thread and their crochet hooks. The cover shows unusual placemats in a bright red and yellow that match the glass cozies and seat covers. Also included are patterns for the cafe curtains and for the fruit basket (sans fruit).

My grandmother was always crocheting something. Sometimes it was a tablecloth or bedspread, sometimes smaller items. She trimmed a handkerchief for my sister, and also made doll clothes for our favorite dolls without a pattern to follow. I don't know what happened to all those bedspreads and tablecloths, perhaps they were given as gifts or were sent to my aunt because, now that I think of it, I only saw the production and never the completed object. However, I still have the doll clothes packed away somewhere.

The next page shows dishtowels with crocheted edgings and potholders made to match the towels. I like the way ladies crocheted around a bone ring and attached it to the pot holder to make a handy hanger.

Back in the day when people drank a lot of 'pop', the bottle caps must have accumulated and here is something you could do with them! This must have made a very sturdy hot plate mat when made with the metal bottle caps of the time. The brown and white mats use two sizes of bottle caps. What were the bigger ones from, milk? No, wait, reading the materials list I find that the bigger ones are from jars of baby food.

These mats, though similar looking, are made with crochet over bone rings. I wonder what those rings were made of in 1954, since the description says that the mats are heat-resistant. Real bone, some kind of resin, plastic, celluloid?

This page shows little crochet items for shades, lamps, and curtains. I like the larger floral disks that were made to have crochet around them. They are called 'floral plastic shade pull' and 'floral plastic tie-back pins'.

The back cover shows a kitchen rug, pot handle covers, an oven mitt, another crocheted basket, and various cute potholders.

I see that the doves have come back to their abandoned nest to raise yet another family. At least I assume it is the same pair, but they do all look the same to me. In addition to watching the birds, I am now having a war with a band of marauding squirrels who have decided to knock all of my apples off the tree. They live next door in the huge redwood trees but like our yard for food and fun. When I see them up in the apple tree I run out there and shake the rake at them or squirt water near them to scare them away. They obviously don't take me seriously.