The winning pattern is the Cardigan with a Twist!  

For the cardigan, the pattern materials are; 6-10 skeins of Bernat Saluki and a J hook.  Bernat Saluki is a discontinued 3-ply acrylic yarn that’s about 150 yds per skein.  I’m going to use the size 10 version of this pattern so I’ll need 1050 yards.  I’m going to use the Bamboo Pop I got at an estate sale that’s a DK weight.  I have 4 skeins at 292 yards per skein.   One thing I've already noticed about the pattern is that the sizes are not supplemented by measurements so a 1980s size 10 might be different from a 2019 size 10.  

Even though the hippo lost, Bree from Bree’s Crochet Boutique has offered to make it.  She's made tons of amigurumi so it will be fun to see how this turns out for her.    You can see her work here.   

This month is the one year anniversary of this blog! To celebrate, I’m going to give away some of the projects that I made over the last year.     Here’s a roundup of the patterns I made and the years we spent some time in.
 

April 2018 – We went back to 1979 and I made a popcorn purse and added a lining in Star Wars fabric.  It won an award at the county fair and I ended up selling it.

May 2018 – Off to 1982 where I made a capelet in Lion Brand Jeans yarn.   This sits at my desk to keep me warm in the winter.

June 2018 – Just one year back to 1981 to a very odd little bear was the pattern that month.  He went charity so a kid could love him.

July 2018 – We went all the way back to 1966.  This time I made a Barbecue Mitt that turned into a creature.  I gave this one away in a contest.  

August  2018 - What would 1978 be without a scared squirrel? Hopefully a kid will love this.  It also went to charity.

September 2018 - This time it's 1985 and some super cute leg warmers that went to charity.

October 2018 – 1963 was one Holly Glass Muff without the Holly.  I have this around a jelly jar and it holds tools.

November 2018 – 1978 was a semi-traditional scarf with granny squares on the ends.  It sold at the annual November sale.

​These last four are the ones I still have and will be giving away:

December 2018 – 1980 – The angel
January 2019 – 1981 – A place mat made of motifs
February 2019 -1965 – The pillbox hat
March 2019 – 1955 - The baby’s visor hat
 
We’ll give away the angel first.  To enter you just need to comment on my blog, Instagram or Facebook post this week and I'll draw a name on Saturday, April 6th. You get one entry for each location so up to three entries per item.  Good luck!

We’re back in 1981 for the third time since I started this project a year ago.   Ronald Regan is president.    Valerie Bertinelli and Eddie Van Halen got married.  The space shuttle Columbia was launched for the first time and the Brixton riots began.
​
In April of 1981 we celebrated Easter at my grandparents’ house with two of my cousins.   I think I’m the only one wearing jeans instead of a dress in this photo.    I still have the crewel work that’s hanging on the wall behind us.   

​I distinctly remember hearing Rapture by Blondie in my grandmother’s kitchen because it seemed so out of place.  Here are some of the other songs on the top 40 that month.

• “Woman” - John Lennon
• “Kiss on My List” – Daryl Hall and John Oates
• “Hello Again” – Neil Diamond
• “Just the Two of Us” – Grover Washington Jr.
• “While You See a Chance” – Steve Winwood
• “Morning Train” – Sheena Easton
• “Angel of the Morning” – Juice Newton
• “Celebration” – Kool and the Gang
• “Her Town Too” – James Taylor and J.D. Souther

On the fiction best seller list The Covenant was finally edged out of first place after being there for at least four months.     Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith moved into first place and stayed there for two weeks.
The non-fiction best seller list has some interesting selections; Never-Say-Diet-Book by Richard Simmons was at the top of the list, All You Need to Know About The IRS was number nine and Betty Crocker’s International Cookbook was number twelve.
​

​The April 1981 Workbasket has five crochet patterns.  I ruled out three of them:

• The Keepsake Boxes – I thought about these but they’re pretty little and I really didn’t want to deal with stiffening thread this month.
• The Bunny Pin – very small and simple and a little frightening…
• The Crochet Shawl – Kind of an odd photo.  I’m not sure what this would look like in real life.

This month you will choose between the Happy Hippo and the Cardigan with a Twist:

​What do you think?   Should I make the Hippo or the Cardigan?
 
Next week:  April is this blog's one year anniversary!  Next week I’m going to start giving away some of the things I made over the last year.   Check back to see how to win and what I'm giving away!

About the pattern:
 
This is a very quick pattern to make and is a more open and lacy style hat.  It uses what I call a V-stitch and they call a shell stitch (double crochet, chain 1, double crochet) to increase the circle.  There are only has 16 rounds before you get to the band and brim.  The band is single crochet, chain 1 around and the brim uses single crochet and half-double crochets to get the rounded shape.  

​

​How it went:
 
This was very easy to make.  I used some pretty green sock weight yarn with no label from my stash for the hat and white for the pom-poms.  I’m pretty sure the green yarn is wool.   I think I finished it in two nights so just a few hours before the pom-poms.
 
The “pompons” were the most difficult thing to make on this.  The directions have you use a piece of cardboard and I tried that but couldn’t get it to work right.   Then I said, “Fork IT!” and used the fork method to make little pom-pom.
 
Mollie Makes has an excellent tutorial for little pom-poms if you’re wondering how make them.

​Next week:
Voting on the April pattern will be up!  

I love reading these old recipes and occasionally trying them out.  I didn’t get to try any of these out this month.  I don’t love seafood though I was sort of intrigued by the Shrimp Oriental.  They don’t say who the food editor is but the writing style for the food section is fun. 

This issue has three sections for recipes; Reader Recipes, Fish and Seafood for Lent and Sauce Adds a Touch.  
​
Reader Recipes
Back in 1955, Workbasket paid $2 for each recipe published and say this at the beginning of the Reader Recipe section, “ The WORKBASKET pays $2 each for recipes for your family’s favorite dish published in these columns.  Address Food Editor, The WORKBASKET, 543 Westport Road, Kansas City 11, Mo.  We regret that we cannot publish every recipe and cannot return those not used, nor correspond about them.  The decision must be left to our judges.”
These are the three they chose for Reader Recipes:

Fish and Seafood for Lent

The Fish and Seafood for Lent section has an introduction that is almost poetry.
​
"These ‘Lenten twins’ whether from sea water or fresh offer you endless challenges.  They can be  served a la natural, but cooked of course, to the delight of family and guests alike.  Paired with     various sauces and cheese or a staple such as rice or macaroni their versatility begins to unfold like the good spring suit that can be dressed up or down for an occasion.”
​
The recipes include:

• Crab Rarebit – a white sauce with crab meat and celery, served over buttered strips of toast and sprinkled with Parmesan cheese and parsley flakes
• Fillets in Orange Sauce
• Oven Fried Fish
• Shrimp Oriental – This uses a sauce made flour, chicken broth, curry, salt and pepper.  Then they add two bananas cut in halves lengthwise and crosswise and cook until tender.  Then the shrimp is added and cooked until the shrimp is done.  Serve over rice.
• Tuna Dinner – A classic mixture of tuna, cooked rice, cream of chicken soup, lemon juice, sharp cheese and Worcestershire sauce.

Sauce Adds a Touch
According to Workbasket, “many is the time, too, that a sauce can make the meat!  Sauces add that special touch to other dishes too – meats, vegetables and desserts.”
And they shared these sauces:

• Quickie Cheese Sauce –  ingredients are ½ lb processed American Cheese and ¼ cup fresh or evaporated milk.
• Lemon-Parsley-Butter Sauce
• Custard Sauce – corn starch, sugar, egg yolks, milk and vanilla
• Pineapple Whiz Sauce – sugar, corn starch, salt, 1 ½ cups unsweetened pineapple juice, 1 tsp lemon juice, ½ cup drained crushed pineapple.    They say, “Delicious over sliced bananas, for ice cream sundaes-or serve as an accompaniment for ham.”

​
Do any of these sound like something you'd make now?

The Boy's Visor was the winner!   

(Why is it a boy's visor?  All kids could wear this -  even some adults could rock this hat!)

​About the materials:
 
The pattern asks for one ounce of three-fold yarn and a size 4 steel crochet hook or a size 3 bone crochet hook for a larger size.   Plus some contrasting yarn for the pompoms.
 
From some quick research it seems like fold was used to mean ply so three-fold yarn should be the same as three-ply yarn.   Three-ply yarn is usually somewhere in the light fingering range so I’m using a yarn from my stash that looks like light fingering yarn.  I got this at our guild de-stash event without a label so I have no idea what it really is or what it’s made out of.    It feels like wool and it did burn so it isn’t acrylic. 

​The suggested size 4 steel hook is a 2 mm hook but what is a size 3 bone hook?  I found a conversion chart on Antiquepatternlibrary.org that had ivory and bone hooks included.   The chart says it’s probably a 3.25 mm hook. 

(Antique pattern library is a great resource if you’re interested in older patterns.  They have information on knitting, embroidery, quilting and other crafts including old patterns that have been downloaded.  They even have a few older Workbasket Magazines that have been scanned in.)
 
The size difference between the hooks seems like a lot for a size change so I may have to try a few hooks to get the size I want.  There is no gauge in the pattern for either of the hooks.

​About the pattern:
 
The beginning of the hat is a basic circle done with double crochets and chain stitches.  If this is as easy as it sounds I might try to make an extra one in a different size.
 
Next week I’ll share some of the interesting recipes in this issue.   There’s one from a reader in Minnesota for Mountain Dew!