Vintage Holidays - Halloween

Image from the Graphics Fairy.

Possession Is Nine Points Of The Law

(Of course, they're napping at 4pm so they can tear around the house like demented midget race car drivers at midnight).

Caturday!

Quote Of The Day

Superstition is a part of the very being of humanity; and when we fancy that we are banishing it altogether, it takes refuge in the strangest nooks and corners, and then suddenly comes forth again, as soon as it believes itself at all safe. ~ Goethe

Grrrsday

Butter Wouldn't Melt In Her Mouth

Crochet - Lace Edging From 1952

Another potential Christmas project, "Points and Squares" crocheted lace from the December, 1952 Workbasket.  Two pages of instructions can be downloaded from my Flickr account.

Vintage Advertising - Colgate's Talc Powder

From Woman's Home Companion, April, 1915.  Six months' worth at Google Books.  Wish talcum powder still came in pretty painted cans like this.

Chocolate With A College Education

VASSAR FUDGE. 2 cups of white granulated sugar, 1 cup of cream, 1 tablespoonful of butter, ¼ cake of Baker’s Premium No. 1 Chocolate. Put in the sugar and cream, and when this becomes hot put in the chocolate, broken up into fine pieces. Stir vigorously and constantly. Put in butter when it begins to boil. Stir until it creams when beaten on a saucer. Then remove and beat until quite cool and pour into buttered tins. When cold cut in diamond-shaped pieces.

SMITH COLLEGE FUDGE. Melt one-quarter cup of butter. Mix together in a separate dish one cup of white sugar, one cup of brown sugar, one-quarter cup of molasses and one-half cup of cream. Add this to the butter, and after it has been brought to a boil continue boiling for two and one-half minutes, stirring rapidly. Then add two squares of Baker's Premium No. 1 Chocolate, scraped fine. Boil this five minutes, stirring it first rapidly, and then more slowly towards the end. After it has been taken from the fire, add one and one-half teaspoonfuls of vanilla. Then stir constantly until the mass thickens. Pour into buttered pan and set in a cool place.

WELLESLEY MARSHMALLOW FUDGE. Heat two cups of granulated sugar and one cup of rich milk (cream is better). Add two squares of Baker's Chocolate, and boil until it hardens in cold water. Just before it is done add a small piece of butter, then begin to stir in marshmallows, crushing and beating them with a spoon. Continue to stir in marshmallows, after the fudge has been taken from the fire, until half a pound has been stirred into the fudge. Cool in sheets three-quarters of an inch thick, and cut in cubes.

From Chocolate and Cocoa Recipes by Miss Parloa and Homemade Candy Recipes by Mrs. Janet McKenzie Hill, compliments of Walter Baker & Co. and available as a free download from Project Gutenberg. Why molasses should be associated with Smith and marshmallows with Wellesley is anybody's guess.

Caturday!

Alas, this is not something we're going to see here at the Little Grey Bungalow anytime soon.

Quote Of The Day

You keep using that word.  I do not think it means what you think it means. ~ Inigo Montoya

Tatting -- A Doily Edging from 1952

Another Christmas project from the December, 1952 issue of Workbasket -- a wild rose edging for doilies.  Three pages of instructions are on my Flickr account.

Honest, Ma

I was jus' lyin' dere wif my paw stuck out an' he runned into it!

Caturday!

Quote Of The Day

image from Pinterest

Tobacco, coffee, alcohol, hashish, prussic acid, strychnine, are weak dilutions; the surest poison is time. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Quick Brown Dog Jumped Over The Lazy Blue Sofa

Twice, this morning.  Must be something in the water, because I have also had to pull Sheba off the curtain rod where she was chinning herself.

I Love Danger

Minnie and her amour fou.

Edited to add: Sheba's taking a more subtle approach.

Knitting - A Rug From 1952

Another Christmas project - fire up those needles and your bag of leftover partial skeins. One page of instructions on my Flickr account, for this knitted rug from Workbasket, December 1952.  

Caturday!

A Show Of Hands, Please

Everyone who has ever tried to make a bed with kittens helping.

Quote Of The Day

image from tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns. ~ George Eliot

The Online Bookshelf - Five Little Mice

An odd little book with some interesting Victorian illustrations, available on archive.org.

Crochet - An "Heirloom" Doily from 1952

From the December, 1952  Workbasket magazine, a doily to crochet.  Three pages of instructions are on my Flickr account.

As we start the needlework count-down to Christmas, I'll be posting one project per week from this issue, starting with the ones I figure are going to take the longest. There are eight projects in all.

I particularly wanted to get this copy scanned as it is falling apart.

Vintage Images - Advertising Poster

copyright-free image from Dover

I was awakened at 0600 by Minnie chewing on my earlobe.

Sheba has discovered the delights of shredding the toilet-paper roll.

Reserve Cat is still in a snit.

Caturday!

In other news, Sheba has learned to play hide and seek with Chunk, and Minnie is obsessed with Reserve Cat and started stalking him.

Addendum: He's been hiding in my closet for two days and just moved to my lingerie drawer.  It's only a matter of time before she tracks him down.