Reports of my death slightly exaggerated, mainly by me

Turned out not to be pig flu - just a rotten cold which has left me wheezing like a portable church organ. Ah well. Gave me some bed-time to do some knitting, listen to some audio books and go through old patterns I had filed and weed out the unworthy. In doing this I had a chance to have a proper go over some vintage patterns I bought last weekend in Greenwich Market.

Isn't that great? It reminds me of this blog where she tells stories based on the illustrations of dress patterns from around the same era. It's a good blog and worth dipping in to every now and again. Going back to the booklet it has that pattern and some wonderful embroidery ideas too. I am thinking of doing it for my mum for christmas. Apart from the patterns what I like most about these types of things are the adverts. Reflect, for a moment, upon this one:

What is it, exactly, that would have been 'soluble'? The mind boggles. Or what about this one?

I find this a bit confusing. There is no date on the magazine but it does have adverts relating to coupons and the war so it must be somewhere before rationing ended. I guess it must have been after the war ended and is celebrating that because we don't need to produce airplanes anymore we can put that steel back into knitting needles?!

And then this one just goes to show there is nothing new in marketing. They were playing on the "but I thought it was white" paranoia of parents even half a century ago.

Not being a parent myself I find it hard to believe most parents actually worry about this. Should I ever succomb I am certainly not going to dress the enfant terrible in white. That's just asking for trouble. It's bad enough with pooch.

One of the other patterns is especially twee.

Looks like two broomsticks wearing booties and a fake head. But the booties are rather cute!

A while back I reported that my foliage plant thing has unexpectedly flowered. well, it's now gone into overdrive and has not just flowered, but mutant flowered. Is this normal?

I have no idea and the internet seems as suprised as I am.

Tutley asked about the shoe painting. The original article which got me interested was in the now defunct CRAFT magazine but there is a "how to" here. The paints are Lumiere and you need to use some kind of floor sealant (?) as a varnish which makes sure the colours don't run and is flexible so won't crack. I actually got my paints etc from the website whose owner wrote the article but they don't seem to ship to the UK. I am sure you can get similar at hobbycraft or by googling and at least the sassyfeet website gives you names of everything you need. I wore my painted shoes last week and received many (two) compliments. Very pleased with them.

Lastly, having not been outside for 2 days and having spent most of that thinking I was going to die any minute, what would a girl do but decide to dye her denise needles. It is well known that I *love* my Denises. I have long been interested in dyeing them and have often considered getting another set just so I could get these. But then I joined the denise diva group on ravelry a while back and recently caught up on this thread about dyeing your denise needles. The people on there were largely american so I decided to try about some Dylon. Lo and behold....

I used the little tins (which on investigation they don't seem to do anymore. I assume these are the same?) and a good blob of salt in some tupperware that I had no intention of using again. Mixed it with boiling water. Chucked in the needles. Microwaved on high for 2 mins. Left to cool for half an hour. Zapped again for 30 secs. Left to cool then rinsed. I used a whole tin of Madonna Blue. Am going to be getting some more colours next week to do the rest!