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.

The young chemist at work

Now, I was never very good at Chemistry at school (miraculously scraped an E in my O Level) but I can confidently say that that is an enormous test tube full of copper sulphate. When we used copper sulphate in our Chemistry lessons, it was only ever dispensed in tiny, tiny quantities. Maybe that's because I went to a comprehensive school. This lad must be reaping the benefits of a private education: enough copper sulphate to bathe in.

I don't like the way he's looking so smug about it. Nice 4-ply hand-knitted v-neck jumper, though. I can't imagine hand-knitting school uniform these days.

Norwegian sportswear

Now this is what I call proper sportswear. If the racks in JJB Sports were full of nothing but hand-knitted Norwegian-style jumpers and bobble hats like these, I would sign up for the loyalty card.

Any guesses which sports the couple are about to partake in? Something that you can do while wearing tweed trousers and full make up... is posing by a sports car actually a sport?

This late 1950s pattern from P and B gives directions for his and hers jumpers and hats, worked on dinky little size 11 needles, using 4 ply yarn. The Norwegian patterning is beautiful - if you were knitting this you would tackle a band of Norwegian twiddliness at the start of your project as you begin at the base of the main body, then a calm period of inky blackness, before finishing with a flourish of more twiddle at the top. A good combination of yin and yang.

The Queen is a shape-shifting Reptilian

The Queen is a shape-shifting reptilian. One way up, she's a respectable monarch - but turn her upside down and pull her skirt over her head and she magically transforms into her true form: a reptilian entity who has come from another dimension to enslave you with fear.


You can knit the shape-shifting Queen using scraps of DK yarn on 3.75mm knitting needles. I'll email you a simple to follow PDF pattern with many colour photos and clear step-by-step making-up instructions. First page of pattern is shown as a photo.

This double-ended doll is a potent reminder of the dark side of power that lurks within every leader. She's approx 7.5 inches tall when completed.


You're buying a PDF pattern only, not the completed doll - pattern will be emailed to you within 24 hours, usually quicker. Buy my shape-shifting Queen doll pattern now on Etsy for £3.50!

True vintage

This picture pleases me because it is sailing in the opposite direction to the current prevailing vintage crafting style. The modern definition of vintage equates to folksy, chunky knit or felted cream-coloured natural doodads photographed against a distressed white wall and scrubbed wooden floors. There may possibly be an artfully inclined black bicycle or 1940s wooden packing crate lurking in the background, too.

However, for me, true vintage is summed up by this page from a Patons Bazaar booklet, circa late 1960s. Brightly coloured acrylic cushions having a fight with some inflatable clown heads over who is going to sit on that rocking chair. It was a challenge to find a background colour that would clash with every single cushion but by heck, Patons managed to pull it off.