Baby animals!!!

So the big excitement around here lately is that a baby bunny is coming to live with us!

I picked her out a few weeks ago but have to wait until she's eight weeks old, and weaned (around the 22nd) to bring her home. It's so so hard to wait! I've always wanted a pet rabbit of my own so I'm really excited to be getting one.

She's a mini lop so her ears will eventually flop over, although I've heard it sometimes happens that one ear flops over and the other doesn't, which would be so unbelievably adorable!

Names currently under consideration: Tailsie, Hoppy, Trixie and Cricket.

Do the Hucklebuckle

Every Wednesday I broadcast my own radio show on our local college radio station. It's great fun, definitely the highlight of my week!

The show is called Vintage Party and I play music from the 40s-60s, my favourite music. There's no limit to the genre but it has to be fun music that I think you can get up and dance to - hence the name. Every week has a theme - last week was jazz guitar, and the week before that I talked about Sun Records.

Yesterday's episode was about fad dances, which is something I've wanted to do for a while. I started by playing some swing jazz from the '40s and talking about the Lindy hop, since it was one of the biggest dance crazes of the decade. For the '50s I played the Stroll and the Madison. But the thing I really wanted to get to was the novelty dances of the '60s! It's so funny to dance the mashed potato, the monkey, the swim and all that.

One dance I'd never heard of was the Hucklebuck but I found this amusing and instructional clip from the Honeymooners:

I think the Hucklebuck is really nothing more than a glorified version of the Twist but of course for comedy's sake they really elaborate on it here!

What about you? Do you like to go out and dance, and do you ever do any fad- or novelty steps?

PS You can listen to Vintage Party every Wednesday at 7pm (GMT +1) at www.studentradion.com. If you're in North America that's some time between 11am and 1pm depending how far West or East you are!

Betty Crocker's Cookbook for Boys and Girls

Golly! I grew up cooking out of this book and I just discovered it was reissued a couple of years ago. Looking through the preview on Amazon I'm finding I remember so many of the recipes and the quotes from the kid recipe testers off by heart, like "If I were a mama I'd cook all day!" Actually I recall that I found that so amusing that I made a cross-stitch sampler magnet out of it as an eight-year-old. Odd kid I was.  It has terrific recipes like "Bunny salad," "Zoo cake" and as I recall the chapter on campfire cooking is positively mouth-watering.

 As a kid I had my dad's old copy (from when he was a kid) but it's in a box in Canada right now. I think I spy an amazon purchase in my near future...

fantasy outfits for autumn

As you might know, I'm a Canadian transplant to Sweden. I've been here for a year now and I love almost everything about it. Almost! The one thing I don't like is that my sewing has suffered since I've been here. I have a great sewing machine, a Husqvarna from the '60s, but I have not figured out the fine art of fabric shopping a la Sweden. Fabric is sooooo much more expensive here! I have a fantasy of going to Canada for two weeks with an empty suitcase and spending the whole time sewing and eating Canadian pizza and doughnuts (another thing I miss).

This whole year I've only sewn one blouse, a dress, and a pair of shorts. To satisfy my sewing itch I spend a loooooooot of time on Etsy looking at patterns and imagining what I want to make. Here's a look at some "perfect outfits" I've put together recently.

 I've been admiring this pattern for ages. Oddly enough I ran into a friend a few weeks ago and she was wearing exactly this outfit! (the blouse and red slacks). This confirmed that it looks equally good in real life.  Find it here if you want to snatch it from my fingers.

Summer is very emphatically over and the only thing that could possibly help me to cope with/enjoy fall is the introduction of a Pendleton into my wardrobe. Failing that I could use this pattern to make my own knock-off. From wearevintagesewing's etsy store.

This versatile shirt pattern would work with my fantasy-Pendleton and I love the sweater trims! Imagine how great they'd be for all those sweaters I always imagine myself knitting! It's here.

Speaking of knitting sweaters...

I adore this fair isle! Knitting sweaters actually seems like a more economical prospect here than in Canada, actually - I'm always finding wool on sale - but my slow knitting skills and total lack of stick-to-itiveness when it comes to big projects means this one will almost certainly remain in the realm of fantasy.

Sigh. A girl can dream...

Have you been sewing much recently? What's your fantasy outfit of the moment?

dresses and dinners

I'm all curled up on the couch this evening, worn out after spending the day in Stockholm at the Vintagemässan. It was great fun! I didn't buy anything, somehow I was satisfied with just looking today. Sometimes when I'm in a place where I want to buy/wear everything I compromise by buying nothing. Sigh. I saw so many lovely lovely dresses and was seriously tempted by, among other delights, a short-sleeved, robin's egg blue cashmere sweater, but it was just too big on me. Great fun anyway! It's on tomorrow, too, so if you're in the area you ought to go!

Now that I'm home and all tuckered out I'm taking advantage of the time by planning this week's meals. What are your favourite vintage cookbooks and/or meal planning tips? Have you seen that Amy Vanderbilt's cookbook is available on archive.org? It's got lots of nice recipes and I especially like the menu ideas, though I have to vegetarian-ize most of it. I shouldn't really call myself a vegetarian but I avoid meat almost all the time. In the summertime I indulge a bit more. After all, a grilled hamburger with chips and a coke is my favourite meal of all time, I think.

Gee I'm going to stop writing now. Apologies for this oddly stilted-sounding post. I haven't blogged since July and it would appear I've gotten rusty.

a promise to my oft-neglected blog

Oh my dear little blog. I really to want to be a good blogger, really I do. It's just that, well as you can no doubt see - sometimes weeks go by in which I want to do anything but blog! I'm going to try again though. Good blogs are so fun to read, and bloggers seem to meet so many wonderful people and get great opportunities via their blogs - and I want that too! So I'll try a bit harder and see how it goes.

Saturday at the beach

Finally, finally, finally the sun shone and it was swimming weather! We drove south to a tiny town in Halland called Frillesås, to the beach at Vallervik. The water was warm and beach was all sand and no seaweed. It was perfect!

I have seriously been waiting all year for this.

After swimming we went to another, slightly less tiny town, Åsa, and picked up some bread at a bakery. We drove out of town to a church with a beautiful lawn and gardens and a view of the ocean for lunch. This picnic basket is getting some serious use lately!

Ahhhh. I was tempted to begin a career in the church so that I can live here with this view.

And then it was back to Gothenburg. But the sun has continued and tomorrow we plan to go to the ocean again!