March 1955

Dwight D. Eisenhower is president.  

Billboard Magazine didn’t start publishing the top 100 until the end of 1955 and instead had three other charts; Best Sellers in Stores, Most Played by Jockeys and Most Played in Jukeboxes.   “Sincerely” by the McGuire Sisters was the top in all three categories in March of 1955.  “The Ballad of Davy Crockett” by Bill Hayes was sneaking up on it by the end of the month.   (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_Hot_100)

The View From Pompey’s Head by Hamilton Basso was on the top of the list for fiction best sellers.  It spent 40 weeks on the best seller list.  The best seller for non-fiction was The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vicent Peale.  It spent 186 weeks on the best seller list.  
 
Popular TV shows included Father Knows Best, Dragnet, Twenty Questions and The Lone Ranger.
 
The March 1955 Workbasket's subheading says "Home and Needlecraft for Pleasure and Profit". The earlier years of Workbasket seem more focused on ways to make money instead of home arts.   

Almost every page has some kind of advertisement for women to make extra money.  These include selling Stainless Steel Cooking Utensils, women's and children's clothing, hats, Flexiclogs, jewelry, stationery and hosiery.  Make a profit by making rugs, learning shorthand, growing and selling orchids.    All that before you even get to the "classified" ads.  

This issue also had more crochet patterns than knit patterns.

You get to choose from the Colorful Hot Dish Mat and the Boy’s Hat with Visor.   The Hot Dish Mat uses one-inch bone rings and size 20 thread.  I’d use size 10 thread and then figure out what size ring I need. 

​The Boy’s Hat asks for three-fold yarn and a size 4 steel hook or you can use a size 3 bone crochet hook to get a larger hat.  I have no idea what three-fold yarn is or how bone crochet hooks are sized so I might have to a little research for this one.  
 

Should I make the Hot Dish Mat or the Boy's Visor?
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