Why not crochet yourself one of these eye-catching hats, from Woman’s Day Knitting and Crocheting Projects, published in 1962?

Click and zoom for a closer look.

Alastair Heseltine is a British Columbia basket maker and artist who creates sculptures and installations using traditional natural materials and methods.

Many more interesting sculptures on the artist’s website.

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Suomalainen sänky (The Finnish Bed), by Leena Sammallahti and Marja-Liisa Lehto (SKS 2006), is an illustrated history of Finnish sleeping arrangements, from simple benches along the wall, once common in many farmhouses, to elaborately carved and cushioned laps of luxury from upper-class homes. Here are a few photos from the book.

I have a fun book called Rags: Making a Little Something Out of Almost Nothing, written by sisters Linda and Stella Allison and published in 1979.

One of the best ideas in the book is making yarn out of old t-shirts. Here are the very simple instructions

I used the yarn from four t-shirts and a large t-shirt dress to knit this little rug. It’s a little worn, but has held up very well for several years.

Or, if you have a huge pile of t-shirts, you could make this groovy shag rug:

More knitting

For the surfer boy in your life, here are some good-looking summer shirts from the Columbia-Minerva book of handknits for men #763.

And here are the patterns:

Isn’t this the cutest little top you ever saw? It’s from College Knits for Men and Women, published in 1958.

I wonder if I could make the collar look as tidy as it does in this picture. Here’s the pattern, if you’d like to try. I’ve included the pattern for the kneesocks as well.

The Better Homes and Gardens Stitchery and Crafts book, published in 1966, is so groovy that it’s hard to choose which pictures to show you. How about these wall hanging patterns.

I enjoy the carefully composed photos of these crafts as much as the crafty items themselves.

These aren’t really the kind of thing I like to make. I just like looking at the pictures. But I’ve included the instructions below, in case any of you would like to try. The instructions are somewhat vague for some of the patterns, but here they are, in the order that they’re shown above.

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Here is some of the lovely art created by Morna Crites-Moore. She makes it out of felted recycled sweaters.

from Snowman Engineering 101

from Picasaweb

from The Bull Dog Says

from Sands of Time

from Fiji Island Mermaid Press (of all places)

from Average Jane

from PocketPcPower

from Citizens of Upright Moral Character

Old knitting magazines are full of ads for craft “kits” and other stuff to assemble and sell from home. They all strike me as pretty fly-by-night. How much money can a person really make “writing short paragraphs”?

These ads are from the Good Housekeeping needlecraft issue from 1968. More than half the ads in the magazine are for companies that claim you can use their products and your special skills to make money from home. You would almost think that women in 1968 never got out of the house or had any income of their own or real job opportunities, wouldn’t you?

My favorite item in the bunch is the Whimsical Snack Hound. Don’t you think that would make a great name for a band?