January 1981

​We’ve moved ahead an entire month!   It’s January 1981.
Reagan is now president.  The minimum wage went up to 3.35/hour.
 
January’s Top 40 included some of the same songs from last month and a few others;

• “Hungry Heart” – Bruce Springsteen
• “Hey Nineteen” –Steely Dan
• “9 to 5” – Dolly Parton.  The movie was the number one film at the box office for all of January.
• “The Winner Takes it All” – ABBA
• “Keep on Loving You” – REO Speedwagon (I had this album)
• “More Than I Can Say”– Leo Sayer
• “The Best of Times” – Styx (I still have this album)
• “Games People Play” – The Alan Parsons Project
• “Seven Bridges Road” – The Eagles

 
The Covenant by James A. Michener was in still in the number one slot for fiction best sellers having held that spot since the beginning of November.  The  number one spot for non-fiction is held by Carl Sagan with Cosmos.
 
Hill Street Blues and Dynasty debuted in January 1981.

The Workbasket issue we’ll be choosing from this month had nine crochet patterns for me to choose from!  

These are the patterns I narrowed down:

• Warm Glow Afghan on the cover – cool but way too big to do an a few weeks
• Popcorn Bedspread – it uses 13,000 yards of yarn! 
• A doll pillow – you might think it’s a pillow for a doll but nope,  it’s a pillow where the pillow is a skirt and a doll is stuck in it.  It reminded me of my doll cake from 1975: 

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• Woven tea cozy and eggwarmers – this is weaving, crochet and lining and seems like a lot of work for eggwarmers..
• A kitchen witch doll – I didn’t love how this looked and I haven't loved how the other toys turned out from these magazines
• Hexagon Hot Mat – this uses size 30 thread and I not only don’t have that but I don’t like working with thread that small
• Bright Stripe Pillow – I also considered this one – it’s has a color photo and looked nice.

Ultimately, I chose two fairly easy projects for you to choose from:
 
Coffee Mug Caddy – This looks like a coaster you can attach to your cup.  The pattern uses scraps of 4-ply yarn so I’ll try a few different yarns to see what works.  

​Place Mat/ Table Runner – The place mat uses two colors of a discontinued yarn called Bucilla Tempo.  It’s a fingering weight acrylic but I have some Cotton/Bamboo that might work.

​Let me know which one you think I should make this month!  You’ll have until December 29th to vote.