Girls' Fashions, Then And Now

Then:

And now...(fill in the blank for yourself:)
Progress or degradation? What do you think?

God Gave You The Right

Probably the most popular article on my blog is this one:

The Advantages Of Being A Housewife

I posted it last year and it still gets a lot of hits from all over the world, including Asian and African countries. Apparently there are many women who consider becoming a housewife, and yet this is one female occupation which you practically never hear promoted by the MSM, government officials or schools, and even many people who call themselves "conservatives" or even "antifeminists" fully expect most women to work outside home.

Just to prove my point, another Google search which brings people on my blog is are housewives lazy or lazy housewives. Housewives are unfairly vilified, and women are often discouraged from becoming one, sometimes by their own family, or even worse, their  husbands. In reality, it hardly matters whether housewives are lazy or not (some probably are, while some others aren't). It doesn't matter what they say on the TV or whether your girlfriends support your choice.

You have the right to become a housewife, because God gave you this right. It's right there, in the New Testament, Titus 2 verse 5: keepers at home. You don't have to ask the permission from the government. God gave you the permission to stay home and keep the home fires burning. Your marriage gave you this right, as the wife is entitled to her husband's financial support.

In practice, there are few husbands who will insist that their wives work outside home, if there is not a dire financial need. It's more often other family members who will give you a hard time for choosing to become a full time homemaker. In this situation you should be polite but firm and ask them to respect your choice just as you respect theirs.

It also helps to avoid modern mass media, including certain internet sites and blogs which specialise in attacking housewives. There is hardly any point in arguing with those who are so prejudiced, and their opinion isn't really important. It doesn't matter what they say, or what some Christians say or do, it's only what the Bible says that matters.

Remember, God gave you the right to stay home and it can't be taken away from you.

Why didn't they ask Evans?

Why didn't they ask Evans is a novel by Agatha Christie, who is, as you probably know, one of my favourite authors. Written in 1933, it features neither Hercule Poirot nor Miss Marple, for a change. In fact, it's more of an adventure and love story than a mystery, which was typical for her pre- WWII books.

Bobby Jones, 28 years old, is the youngest son of a country preacher who just returned home after being discharged by the Marines due to health problems. He is planning to start a garage together with an old friend, but in the meanwhile he just enjoys life as it is and spends his time hanging around which profoundly irritates his father who is of an opinion that young men should have some purpose in life.

One evening Bobby goes out to play golf with Doctor Thomas and becomes a witness of a deadly accident. A stranger obviously takes a wrong step and falls from the rocks breaking his back. The doctor urges Bobby to stay with the dying man while he himself goes to the village to get help. Just a moment before he dies, the stranger opens his eyes and says: "Why didn't they ask Evans?"

And so the story begins. At first, everybody is sure that the death of the strange man was really just an accident, but Bobby changes his mind after a murder attempt on his own life. Luckily, there is someone who can help him discover what really happened. It's an old childhood friend, who happens to be a daughter of an earl - Lady Frances Derwent, or Frankie, as Bobby used to call her.

Together they experience many adventures, find out who was that mysterious Evans and what connection this person had to the death of the stranger, and what is probably the most important, find  true love, but not before both are deceived by some unscrupulous characters.

The story has its own charming scoundrel who manages to escape justice and flee to South America while his accomplice is evidently going to hang. Life isn't always fair, but Bobby can't complain as he wins both the girl's heart and the good will of her father who provides him with a well-paying job in Kenya. The story which started with a murder ends with a wedding.

To sum it up, Why didn't they ask Evans is a highly entertaining book and I would recommend it to everyone, young and old, but especially to those who like everything British.

More Links For March

I have been a bit busy lately so instead of writing a blog post I'm leaving you with some links instead:

Lydia Sherman explains that meekness doesn't mean weakness
(scroll down below the tablecloth pattern)

The Radical One gives her opinion on double standards
(they are actually a good thing!)

Jesse Powell discusses the difference between masculine and feminine responsibilities

Matt Walsh argues with liberal feminists

Vox Day points out that with "free love" comes free disease

One man looks at domestic violence industry

Will S. gives a cautionary tale of 'open marriage'

And one more post by Lydia Sherman on dressing like a lady

Where There's A Will...

or a whip, there's a way!

For those of my readers who lack motivation with the beginning of the working week, may be this could help:)

Yes, You Can Do It!

How many times have you heard the prase "it's impossible nowadays to live on one income"? I have personally lost count of it. Yet is it really so? As Christians, we are supposed to follow the Bible, including the "difficult" verses, unpopular nowadays, such as Titus 2 admonition for (married) women to be "keepers at home". A lot of people will actually agree with it in theory, but then turn right around and say that it all was very well in the times of Paul because life used to be so much cheaper, but it's impossible now.

The idea that people in the times of the Roman Empire had it so much easier is hilarious, to say the least. There is a book on Project Gutenberg which compares the life of an American worker in the beginning of the 20th century to that of a Roman laborer in the times of Diocletian and comes to the conclusion that  

For the urban workman, then, in the fourth century, conditions of life must have been almost intolerable, and it is hard to understand how he managed to keep soul and body together, when almost all the nutritious articles of food were beyond his means. The taste of meat, fish, butter, and eggs must have been almost unknown to him, and probably even the coarse bread and vegetables on which he lived were limited in amount. (Diocletian's Edict and the High Cost of Living)

When we look back and compare our life to what it used to be in the years 1900 we realise how much wealthier we are and yet, in the year 2010 in the USA more than 60% of white married women were in the workforce compared to 2.2%  in 1890 (source).

The above statistics make one think that the reason so many married women nowadays work outside home is not extreme poverty, but a total change in society's attitudes towards the traditional woman's work within the home. The good news is that if you want to live on one income, you can do it!

We live in a thoroughly consumerist society where economy is the only thing that matters and the government encourages people to "shop till they drop" presumably to keep the said economy going, but I suspect to collect more taxes for their social engineering programs, but you don't have to live this way. Western countries are still quite different from North Korea and nobody holds a gun to your head telling you to spend your money on stuff. If you don't want it, you don't have to do it!

People don't lack material wealth nowadays, they lack the courage to follow their convictions. They lack faith. They read the Bible passages about God hating divorce and then they go and divorce on a whim. They decry the moral corruption of the modern entertainment but don't have the backbone to forbid their children to watch TV.Women all gush about period dramas with beautiful costumes (which is really a great part of their attraction) and yet will wear jeans day in day out and so on and so forth.

The truth is, you can do it! We still live in (relatively) free countries. As a woman, you can wear a dress, and nobody will stop you. It's not forbidden by law to dress femininely. You still are allowed to stay home with your children, and you don't have to ask the permission from the government. You are allowed to be a housewife. And yes, it's quite possible to live on one income. You can do with less. We all can do with less. There are things which are the necessities of life: food, clothes, shelter and I would add, basic medical coverage and transportation. All the other things are wants.

It's possible to live with one car. It's possible to raise you children in an apartment, instead of a detached house. It's not really necessary to go on luxurious vacations 3 times a year. One doesn't need a plasma TV to survive. Your children can do without various Play Stations and the games which cost 50euro each. You can learn to cook from scratch and clothes can be bought cheaply from a Goodwill type of store.

When you watch old TV series, like I Love Lucy, you see that people had time for each other. Women who stayed home during the day visited neighbours, organised ladies' clubs and were actively involved at school. We used to have a society where people were neighbourly and had time for family and friends. Today people live isolated lives. Children grow up in daycare, the elderly are locked up in nursing homes. The neighbourhoods are empty during the day as everybody works.

In the evening every family member is busy with his or hers electronic entertainment so that they hardly talk to each other. Mothers don't bother to cook so that the family often won't even eat dinner together. Some call it progress, I call it degradation. Our society is falling apart before our very eyes, but apparently as long as the debt-fuelled economy keeps going, it must be OK.

We can change things for the better, though, one family at a time. People are more important than things. As we go through life, we should try to build relationships with those around us as we are not meant to live in isolation. Also the family is not only father, mother and the kids. It's also grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, nephews and nieces. Traditionally it always fell to the women to maintain the social contacts as they were those with most time. As they left home, the world around them literally fell apart.

It's up to us to rebuild the society, and yes, we can do it!

TYR

Tyr was the Nordic god of war, a son of Odin and one of the twelve gods of Asgard. Tuesday was named after him, as another variant of his name was Tiu. It is said that war prisoners were sacrificed to him and he was also the patron god of the sword, so that every sword had to carry a rune representing his name. Tyr had but one hand, as he lost his right hand to a wolf called Fenris, one of Loki's children, but he killed his enemies with his left hand with an equal success.

And now after this historical note comes a musical interlude (specially for Will S:)) That's about the only song I like from this group:




For those interested, here is the original text and the English translation. 

Fan Mail

Posted with permission. That's an email I got from the lady who owns "What's Wrong With Equal Rights?" blog:

Sanne,

I just finished your book and it was amazing! Very modern with cars and cell phones yet with completely traditional values. Very anti-feminist and strictly patrilineal families with women never being allowed to take on masculine jobs/responsibilities. I loved at the end Lennart wouldn't accept any money she inherited from her late husband because he wanted to provide for his family. It was an amazing book. :) I wish there where more out there like it! I also liked the little touch of Star Wars in it. 

Sincerely,

The Radical One

How It Should Be

Let's talk about manners today! Are you sure you know the correct way to do things? In the 1930s, ladies' magazines actually used to teach the rules of decorum and give useful advice instead of publishing celebrity gossip and feminist propaganda. So here is a series of pictures featuring a rather impolite couple who keep shocking others by their lack of good breeding. First we make acquaintance with a young woman invited to a dinner at someone's home. What is she doing wrong?

She is wiping her plate with her napkin, something which is only permissible in a restaurant (though I wouldn't do it there, either), which is clearly insulting to the hostess (suggesting that her dishes are probably not that clean).

Her transgression against the rules of good breeding, however, pales in comparison to the real black sheep of the article, a very thoughtless young man, who proceeds to make not one, but several unpardonable mistakes:

After arranging his napkin in a really peculiar manner, this particular young man, starts eating before the hostess gives a signal to commence. Notice the look of total disbelief on the faces of his two neighbours. Far from being embarrassed, he then starts drinking while the master of the house is still busy pouring himself a drink! As if this were not enough, he lights a cigarette while his neighbour (a lady from the first picture) is still eating.

Since the two obviously have much in common, our young man apparently invites her to go to a restaurant with him. In the picture below we see him with a bunch of flowers, but our lady is apparently late, while a really well-bred woman will never keep a gentleman needlessly waiting!

In the picture number 6 his fair companion is attending to her make-up during dinner. Now it's his turn to look embarrassed. The young man, however, seems to be really determined to win the competition of the most impolite character of the year 1940. At the next party he is invited to, he shows his lack of manners in full:

Can you see what exactly is he doing wrong? Talking to a woman with a cigarette in his mouth and sitting quite comfortably while the lady is standing!
 

 This particular "lord of creation" as the article calls him, finally proves that in spite of his fine clothes he is really not a gentleman, by doing this:
      

Have you seen it? In total violation of all the norms of the civilised society, he offers his hand to a lady, instead of waiting for her to do it first!

The clothes they are all wearing may be old-fashioned, but the rules of etiquette basically didn't change, it's just that less people try to follow them. Here at Adventures In Keeping House, we are trying to keep people informed so that I hope that none of my readers will ever find themselves in such a situation:)

Should Women Be Appreciated For Doing Housework?

I'm talking here about housewives, not women who work part- or full time and still do (some) domestic chores.

As human beings, we all want to be appreciated. Mrs Andelin points out in "Fascinating Womanhood" that women should appreciate the efforts of their husbands to earn the living, even though by earning the living the man does nothing more than his duty. The same goes true for women. We all like it when our husbands compliment us on our housekeeping or our cooking, give us flowers and the like. However, should the husband's appreciation be the only motivation for the wife to keep the house? I believe not.

Look, if you are a housewife then keeping the house is your job. You are supposed to do it in the best way possible, whether your efforts are complimented by others or not. Women nowadays are all paranoic about men taking them for granted if she does as much as bring her husband a beer, yet they aren't afraid of their bosses taking them for granted, it seems; though I doubt they get rewarded for simply showing up in the office on time or doing anything at all work-related. It's pretty much expected of an employee to perform his tasks, so why should a housewife feel different?

There is something sinister in the idea that we only should do our duty because we expect compliments and rewards. It shows the degradation of society when people expect compensation for just being a decent human being. I suspect next people will start demanding bonuses for not stealing or not murdering someone, but it's a topic for another discussion.

For me, having a clean house isn't only a matter of duty, though, it's more a matter of self-respect. As my Grandma used to say: "I keep a clean house because I respect myself too much to live in squalor." She had an internal motivation to keep things neat and tidy which didn't depend on  others. It was similar to not looking slovenly; taking a shower, brushing your teeth etc. It was just something which a decent woman did, because she was, well, decent.

The fact is, when people come on a visit and see a mess, they won't think worse of your husband, they will think worse of you. You may disagree with it, find it sexist and unfair, but it won't change the way things are. Screaming at reality doesn't make it disapear, it only makes one look stupid. It's better to accept it and try to make the best out of it.

My friend and I are big fans of a British TV Series "Keeping Up Appearances." Though it mocks Hyacinth with her pretensions, it hardly shows Daisy and her family in a positive light. I mean, would you rather have you house look like Hyacinth and Richard's or Daisy and Onslow's?

We can't all of us live in an upscale neighbourhood, or have an ideally looking house all the time (it's essentially impossible with small children), but I think we can all make an effort to have a reasonably well-organised household. As a housewife, you owe it to your family, but most important, to yourself.

Mrs Andelin On Men Who Won't Earn The Living

In her book "Fascinating Womanhood" Helen Andelin points out that there are two thing which the wife has a right to expect from her husband: fidelity and financial support. In the case of the husband who strays from the right path Mrs Andelin first suggests that the wife examines her own behaviour and corrects her own mistakes by applying Fascinating Womanhood teachings but if it doesn't help, the wife has to place him before the choice as it is "...morally wrong for a woman to continue to live with a man who is immoral" (p. 53, F.W., Bantam Books 1992).

She also encourages the wife to try and win her husband from another woman if it is at all possible: "By winning him back, you save not only a marriage but a soul!" (idem.)

Unfaithfulness is a serious sin which can and often does destroy marriages, and Mrs Andelin's advice goes against everything what modern women are taught, and yet sometimes it's better to forgive and forget, especially if children are involved. I can understand though that some women probably would be unable to do it, depending on the circumstances and yet in the times past wives were taught to fight for their marriages  and it often worked.

Another thing which the wife has a right to expect from her husband is financial support. In fact, as I mentioned in one of my previous posts on the topic in some Islamic countries like Iran, the non-support on the part of the husband is grounds for divorce.

Financial support doesn't necessarily mean a luxury lifestyle, but an income sufficient "to cover the necessities and a dwelling place." (idem). Mrs Andelin stresses that she isn't talking about a disabled husband or one who can't find work as in this situation the wife has to "cheerfully adapt to circumstances until solutions can be worked out." (idem).

However, if the husband is an able-bodied man who simply refuses to work, the wife is justified in taking action. She will probably have to find a job or to turn for charity, especially in the case when children are involved. Mrs Andelin then states that in that case the wife should ask the husband to leave and not to come back until he provides an income or to move out herself.

The reason for this action is that if she keeps on working and allows the husband to stay and profit from her income he will have no incentive to take up his responsibilities.

Of course, it's better to never find yourself in such a situation in the first place, that's why it's so important to make a wise choice while searching for a husband. Mrs Andelin discusses this topic at length in "The Fascinating Girl" where she advises women to avoid men with addictions such as drinking or gambling (I don't agree with her on smoking though, it causes damage to one's health but a man who smokes can still function normally in society which hardly can be said about an alcoholic or a drug addict).

It's also important to avoid men of loose morals and those who are promiscuous, but also those who are lazy and undependable. A woman should not enter marriage with the hopes or reforming a man and taming his dark side, because as Helen Andelin points out, if it happens, it's nothing short of a miracle. Further to avoid are men who have a nasty temper, those who are arrogant and aloof and have an oversized ego. This last is not as bad as loose morals, but it's still a warning sign.

To sum it up, the choice of a mate is probably the most important decision in a woman's life and she should exercise discernment if she wishes to have a good marriage.

It's Spring Again!

And the gardening season is upon us. Unfortunately, not everyone of us is blessed with a garden, but here are some ideas for people with small balconies:

Viking Women Were Respected For Being Housewives And Mothers

The popular culture and mass entertainment industry constantly distort history to promote feminism. It has been the case with Viking women as well. They were supposedly warriors running around half-naked brandishing swords and axes and kicking *ss. Movie after movie promotes the fantasy of a female warrior which some men find attractive by reasons beyond my comprehension.

As usual, the reality is very different from feminist propaganda. It's true that Nordic men respected their womenfolk and that women enjoyed more freedom than women in say, some Southern countries, but Viking ladies  were respected for being housewives and mothers. They were actually prohibited from wearing men's clothes, cutting their hair short and carrying weapons! And yet they were held in high esteem by their men.

Vikings had laws against sexual harassment and it was considered extremely shameful to hit a woman. In certain cases, the wife could divorce her husband. Their women weren't slaves just because they stayed home and engaged in housekeeping and child-rearing. Vice versa, men valued their contributions. Because women normally didn't wield weapons they were considered non-combatants and in the case of an attack on a household allowed to leave.

Mothers were held in even higher regard and men would often consider women equal to them in wisdom, and yet they didn't expect them to plough the field or to go to war. The problem with modern feminism is that feminists deny the biological reality of sexual dimorphism in human beings. Another problem is that as they subscribe to progressive ideology they see the relationship between the sexes as a zero sum game. I know it's an oversimplification, but basically, progressives tend to think that if someone is rich it's because he stole from the poor.

They view men and women in the same manner. If a company CEO is a man, they argue, it's because he cheated a woman out of it through his male privilege. If there were no prominent women scientists, it's because patriarchy kept them all chained to the kitchen sink, and so on and so forth. It never comes to their minds that the reason could be that women are simply uninterested in positions of power, or prefer to marry a powerful man instead. On the other hand, feminists will denigrate traditional female contributions to the well-being of their families and call housewives doormats and Stepford wives.

Vikings were much wiser about it. They didn't deny human nature. They appreciated women for being women, and didn't expect them to have the same occupations and interests as themselves.

The history once again refutes the media lies about the traditional female role. For more info on the Viking women, check this.

Appreciating Men

I got a very interesting email a couple of days ago the author of which observed that while women are still appreciated by men for giving birth, something which only a woman can do; the entrance of women in traditionally male occupations robs men of the appreciation of their unique male contributions to society. She asked me what I thought about it.

I think that because we live in a highly sophisticated technological society and are not fighting for survival every day it's easy to forget or disregard how essential men are for maintaining this civilisation. In fact, Western men not only maintain it, they have built it, too. Here is what Fred Reed wrote as a response to a feminist's claims that men are obsolete:

Listen, Corn Flower. Let’s think over this business of obsolete men. Reflect. You live in New York, in which every building was designed and built by men.  You perhaps use the subway, designed, built, and maintained by men. You travel at in a car, invented, designed, and built by men—a vehicle that you don’t understand (what is a cam lobe?) and couldn’t maintain (have you ever changed a tire? Could you even find the tires?), and you do this on roads designed, built, and maintained by men. You fly in aircraft designed, built, and maintained by men, which you do not understand (what, Moon Pie, is a high-bypass turbofan?) 

In short, as you run from convention to convention, peeing on hydrants, you depend utterly on men to keep you fed (via tractors designed by men, guided by GPS invented, designed, and launched by men, on farms run by men), and comfy (air conditioning invented…but need I repeat myself?)

(Read the whole article here)
  Check also  this one by Camille Paglia. While I disagree with her ideas of equality or the necessity of women to assert power through sex appeal, here is what she has to say about men:

Indeed, men are absolutely indispensable right now, invisible as it is to most feminists, who seem blind to the infrastructure that makes their own work lives possible. It is overwhelmingly men who do the dirty, dangerous work of building roads, pouring concrete, laying bricks, tarring roofs, hanging electric wires, excavating natural gas and sewage lines, cutting and clearing trees, and bulldozing the landscape for housing developments. It is men who heft and weld the giant steel beams that frame our office buildings, and it is men who do the hair-raising work of insetting and sealing the finely tempered plate-glass windows of skyscrapers 50 stories tall.

Women may be in the army, but the physical requirements for them are still significantly lower than for the men doing the same job. Here is just one article on the topic. That's what a US marine had to say on the topic:

Oh, and the majority of the deaths in combat are MEN, the majority of the deaths in non combat related accidents are MEN, the majority of PTSD/depression/mental illness cases as a result of combat are MEN, majority of suicides in the military are MEN.  

(Read the whole comment over here; warning: explicit language and content, read at your own discretion). 

While talking about achievements of men, let's not forget the modern medicine. Take antibiotics, for instance. How many people used to die before their introduction? Discovered by a man. 

I could go on but I think you get my point. It's time Western women started appreciating Western men for the amazing civilisation they built and for their daily efforts to maintain it and to make life easier and safer for everyone. 

The video below perfectly illustrates just one of the many dangerous jobs men do:

 

More On The Marriage Age

My previous post on the topic caused a lively discussion which, unfortunately, went out of hand so that I had to close the comments, however, I decided to return to the topic as I found a very interesting data which basically supports my point of view.

Below is a graph showing the percentage of never married females in England and Northern Europe around 1800 well before modern feminism) as compared to China. I found it through this blog, but it originally was posted by Erwin Schmidt.




Mr Mangan proceeds to explain it by the fact that (Northern) Europeans didn't get married and start having children until they could afford their own household.

If you look at the graph, you'll notice some interesting things: the average age of the first marriage for women was even higher in Scandinavian countries than it was in England. Also an Englishwoman not married by the age of 37 risked not to get married at all, but it was not true for Sweden and even less so for Denmark, where the percentage of never married females continued to fall till it reached its lowest point about the age of 45.

As you can see for yourself, not every woman married at 18, and some (around 20% in England vs 10% in Denmark) didn't marry at all.

A woman at the age of 45 is nearing the end of her reproductive years yet still some Northern European women married in their 40s and around 40% of Scandinavian women were still unmarried at the age of 30.

I'm by no means trying to say that it's somehow wrong to marry young, if a woman finds a suitable mate at the age of 18 I'd say,  good for her, but it's hardly realistic to expect the majority of girls to find a husband by this age. Of course it's hardly wise to intentionally delay marriage until you are 45, and as Christians we know that casual sex is wrong and sinful, but falling into another extreme and stating that a woman who isn't married by the age of 24 is a hopeless spinster is hardly helpful and is not supported by the historical data, either.

Feminists surely do a lot of damage with their propaganda of "having fun" in the way caddish men do and then settling down in your 40s, but not every woman who marries later in life does it because she wanted to have a career and jump from bed to bed instead. It could be so that she simply wasn't able to find a suitable husband, and no, I don't believe a girl should accept the first man who comes along even if he is a recovering alcoholic or someone who can't hold down a job.

In fact, I think that the youthful age at which the parents of baby boomers married contributed to the rise of the modern feminism. Before the WWII most women would work before they married to save money and then marry and quit working. Marriage was seen as a woman's career and it was considered incompatible with employment outside home, more or less, though there were exceptions, of course. The mothers of baby boomers married young and often continued working until they got their first child and sometimes even later precisely by the reason that the couples got married before they were financially established.

This situation, imo, contributed to the destruction of taboo about married women being employed outside home. If you remember, the slogan of feminists used to be you will have it all together, i.e., there will be no need to choose between family and career. We all know how this worked out.

BTW, if you follow the link to the blog of Mr Schmidt, you'll see a corresponding graph for men which shows that 40 to 50% of Northern European men stayed unmarried at the age of 30, precisely for the same reason women did: a man was not supposed to marry until he was able to support his family. Nowadays, guys will marry with a full expectation that their wives will continue working and "contribute" to family finances, as the men's pride in being the family breadwinner is all but gone.

You'll also notice that some women stayed unmarried and were presumably employed in normal feminine occupations, such as teaching, nursing or domestic service. The truth is that it's unrealistic to expect that 100% of women won't work. We need female labour to some extent, though not to the extent feminists promote it. I'm not suggesting anything radically new, just the return to the old system where a woman could choose between career in the home or outside of it, and wives mostly didn't pursue paid employment.

It was probably not the ideal system, but it worked for at least several hundred of years which is more than what we can say about the present one.

Spring Fashions,

new projects and other good things in life.

I finally finished knitting a detachable collar/scarf  for my winter cardi. Actually I did it some time ago but was too lazy to post pictures, so I'm doing it now:

I wore the scarf a couple of times, but separately as the weather has been too warm to wear the cardigan. We have had no winter at all this year. However, I'm not discouraged and so I started working on a summer project from a new Verena magazine. It's also a twin set, a top and a cardi:

Originally I wanted to knit this (from the same magazine) but couldn't find the yarn:

It's very beautiful and feminine, don't you think so? Unfortunately the guy at the market where I buy all my yarn doesn't sell angora blends for needles size 2.5 , so I opted  for the grey-and-pink  cardi instead.

As you have noticed, flowers and short skirts are in fashion, but also very long ones, like this knitted dress:

Isn't it romantic? Too bad that my husband simply hates dresses this long, he calls them "garments" and thinks they are only suitable for hippies:)

This length he approves of, though:

May be when I have more time, I'll knit the skirt, only in a different colour. It can actually be worn as a blouse, with the pockets functioning as (short) sleeves!

I'm also planning to make some decorations for the Easter tree:

Chickens and rabbits and I already bought felt in different colours:

(This is what my husband calls "useful ladylike activities", and also thinking about embroidery and kittens:)

Actually I bought this magazine (it's a German one called "Anna") because of this:

 Isn't it a darling little red dress? I like the new fashions, they are very colourful and feminine. What project are you working at?