Patsy's Reflections

Patsy's Reflections is a spiral bound paperback from the early 1950s, collecting together a series of strips that ran in the Daily Mirror newspaper. The strip's heroine is Patsy, a young housewife struggling to learn to cook and manage a house under wartime rationing conditions. Most of the strips focus on her culinary adventures ("Dad's GI friend told me about these Franconia Parsnips - sit you down dear, and watch!") but later in the series, Patsy becomes pregnant with her first child and the recipes make way for baby care advice.

Above, Patsy and her mother discuss the most economical way of clothing the new arrival - "don't buy too many things - why not make them? Nicer, and cheaper too!" Patsy and her mother didn't have a global sweatshop industry manufacturing clothes for them at very little cost.


Love the big knitting-related hug in the last panel. That baby is going to be very well clothed.

Woolworth's knitting advert

Happy, happy knitters from a Woolworth's advert, 1970s. "Strong yarns, wool yarns, nylon yarns. Yarns for babies, grannies, families, Winfield yarns, the best yarns".

The lady with the huge bag of wool seems to be knitting something white and tiny for a baby, whereas granny is creating a huge, stripy blanket. Or maybe it's one of those freeform jumpers for a grandchild that 1970s grans used to excel at. The ones where the sleeves went on for around a third longer than they should have done. The ones that barely fitted over your head.

Bonus points to the photographer for capturing gran's classic Carry On expression, and double bonus points with chocolate topping for taking the picture just as the bus was going past a Woolworth's store.

If you're a fan of 1970s knitwear, keep an eye out for second-hand copies of Woolworth's Knitting Magazine, which is a treasure trove of brightly coloured acrylic knitting and crochet patterns.

Spot the mistake

Wonderful scene of domestic bliss from an early 1950s Sylko thread advert, but can anyone spot the mistake?

Answer: the Siamese cat is sitting peacefully on a cushion, rather than rummaging around in the work basket / pulling all of the threads out onto the floor / trying to eat the buttons / destroying the man's newspaper / knocking those nice-looking ornaments off the shelves / yelling and yelling and yelling at the lady because she is sewing, rather than paying attention to me, the Siamese cat.

It can be hard to craft with kitties around, it really can.