Take it further challenge (February)

Posted by Sharon B,

Since it is the first of the month it is challenge day! So without further fuss here it is. This month the Take it Further challenge concept is a question. What are old enough to remember?

How did I come up with the idea. As regular readers know I am hand stitching a charm quilt and the small fabric scraps have been triggering memories. As I stitch I am constantly aware of how the world has changed in my lifetime and I am not that old! (I turn 52 this month)

It occurred to me that some of these scraps are older than the invention of rotary cutters. As I write I realise that I learnt on to type a typewriter. Now I have WiFi and a laptop. I can remember when a portable transistor radio was a big thing. I was given one with its leather case for my 14th birthday and I took it to the beach every day. Of course I remeber vinyl records too. Now I walk, garden and do the housework plugged into an ipod! We used to write letters home but now it is email.

I can remember when ‘equal pay for equal work’ came in for women. My wage packet increased a third! I can remember the big things like man walking on the moon, John Lennon being shot, the fall of the Berlin wall but what about all the little things that changed our life so much? I can remember bread, vegetables and milk all being delivered to the door. I can remember the bottle man buying our bottles and scrap metal merchants buying metal. Who said recycling is a new idea!

Who else knows how to pack the wood on a wood stove that so that it will burn evenly long enough for a cake a rise? That’s right as a country girl I was taught to cook on a wood stove. Now I have a gas stove and a micro wave oven. In winter the warmest room in the house was the kitchen and we had hot water bottles to take bed now we have electric blankets, which to be honest I never turn on because I don’t like them - much to my husbands dismay.
I remember washing that involved a copper and hand wringers then in my teens I had a really modern invention - a twin tub washer! Automatic washing machines were the height of luxury. I also remember out door toilets and how in winter had to grab an umbrella to dash down the path to visit it.

So this month stop and think what are you old enough to remember. You do not have to declare your age - but simply what you are old enough to remember.

Here is this months palette should you choose to use it

I've decided that the best way to approach this is over a bottle of wine tomorrow night. Since Ian and myself are the same age, I thought we would trigger memories from each other. Many of the things mentioned by Sharon ring bells from my childhood so who knows what else may surface. Wait and see.