Monthly Archives: March 2015

Throwback Thursday

Being one step behind the times, I just heard about throwback Thursday recently. It is my sister Nicky’s birthday today. She is the second youngest of my 6 sisters and today she turns 51. I would wish her a Happy Birthday on the blog but she is one of the non followers. Mum found this picture of 5 of her 8 kids in a drawer recently and sent us all a copy. Sorry about the quality but it is a picture of a copy of a 30+ year old picture…what can I say.

from left: Philippa, Charles, Me, Nicky and Penny

from left: Philippa, Charles, Me, Nicky and Penny

Alan has always loved Paddington. With the movie coming out recently, he is back in vogue I guess. When we were first dating over 30 years ago, I made this sweater for him, one of my very first attempts at designing in knitting. Heather found it in the attic a couple of years ago. She says that it is one of the 5 pieces of clothing she misses wearing most since becoming a clothing minimalist. I am glad something I made made the cut.

Heather in the Paddington Sweater

Heather in the Paddington Sweater


from the back...

from the back…


If I had it to do over again, I might move Paddington higher on the back, although I am not sure. I put him in the same number of rows up from the ribbing on both sides so that it would be like looking through the sweater from the back, but I did not realize until the sweater went together that the back is actually taller than the front because of the collar. This way he does look more forlorn from the back though, so maybe it is ok.

Montgomery’s Inn..the 40th anniversary (of the museum, not the building)

I spent a wonderful day yesterday with my historic cooking friends in Toronto. It is a bit of compensation for the fact that I will not be seeing my living history friends at the Civilian Symposium at Harrisburg this coming week. Mongomery,s Inn dates from the 1830’s and was turned into a museum 40 years ago this week. As well as a barroom, a ballroom and lots of bedrooms, they have two separate open hearths, both of which were animated yesterday. It also has a small bake oven beside one hearth and a larger bake oven outside. Yesterday the smaller bake oven was in use.

This is the first time I have been in a period costume since I went down to Gettysburg and made my slippers, so I got to take them out for a spin. I still need to get some roving and stuff the toes to make them a bit more square, but I wore them all day and they were very comfortable:
gillianknits.com

I made “Another Vegetable Soup” from Maria Rundell’s A New System of Domestic Cookery, 1806 for the volunteer cooks to eat for lunch. What’s not to like…a bunch of vegetables and 1/2 a pound of butter!

Cutting up my veg (Sarah in background)

Cutting up my veg (Sarah in background)

Stirring my soup

Stirring my soup

I then helped Sarah (B.Hood) make Cider Cake from Lydia Childs’s The Frugal Housewifes Manual, 1840, using a bake kettle. I must say I actually understand the bake kettle a lot more this morning than I did yesterday morning. Learning curves…you gotta love ’em!

Putting the coals on the bake kettle

Putting the coals on the bake kettle