Military Frogging.

Not some kind of anti-war sentiment, although the Bin the Bomb poster displayed in my front room window is confusing the local kids. I believe the general opinion is : "That's rubbish" although that might also be because they didn't know what Bomb I was trying to bin ( Trident, if you must know ). Don't know if they get taught such things at the village Primary School.

This type of military is realated to uniforms and I was reminded of it as a result of my complete ineptitude when trying to start Archie's groovy 1960 jumper. It's in fisherman's rib and I just can't get the edges to look neat so I've ripped it out and I'm just going to have to do it all again. In the midst of this, I happened to have a look at the rib from above and it looks just like a type of braiding known as Frogging. There is a lovely irony in there somewhere. Must say it cheered me up to find a bit of history in my mistakes. The steely blue in the pictures is the unfortunate frogged fellow. Also, I've noticed in the background, is my copy of Mary Jane's Crazy Chocolate Cake recipe that I cribbed from her website. I was thinking about it for the Bee this week but as I'd never made it before I thought I'd wait and try it out on my unsuspecting family first. It looks like such an odd way of doing things that I'm intrigued.

Frogging seems to have been used in the UK, Europe, Canada and the USA. It was used as fastening and decoration on military uniforms but I know in the 1800's at least in the UK, it was popular as decoration for ladies garments too, probably as some kind of patriotic display. I can't show you any pictures as I need to learn more about blogging before I am capable of such technical wizardry. However, look at

http://www.kaisersbunker.com/dunkelblau/tunics/dbt21.htmt

or

http://www.telusplanet.net/public/dctiegs/2002/regiment.html


to find out more. Incidentally, the Kaisersbunker site is dedicated to a Daschund. Amazing what you can find !

Stop press: Just had a visit from my lovely friend Grahame. He was out scouring the charity shops of Dundee yesterday and found a copy of Murray and Koster's Illustrated Knitting from 1948. For 50p. For me. What a wonderful man.