Barbie's wardrobe - Shift Into Knit

I'm not a fashionista. I'm ... you could say... a wearer of clothing. I like my clothes to be comfortable and the right size and possibly not to have holes or spots (that part is not always easy if you have cats, just the other day I was shocked to find three in one of my dresses after my lady had a snuggle session on me).
There are features I love, like pockets in dresses or 3/4 sleeves, but beyond that, I'm fairly undemanding and not adventurous.
That doesn't mean I don't like to look at clothes at all, especially those that I would never be able to wear myself, due to money, my size, lack of occasion, etc. There are still ways to bring Haute Couture into my life, though. I mean Barbie and her friends.
I have always been fascinated by miniatures and Barbie's vintage outfits with their tiny zippers and buttons and buckles and accessories are incredible. This is my "fashion life", either through my own small collection or pictures.
(And yes, I do know Barbie's body isn't natural, I knew it as a child and I never strived to look like her ... if I had, something would have gone wrong).
Let me give you a glimpse in Barbie's wardrobe every, now and then.

You may wonder why instead of bringing you some light and airy outfit in this new heatwave I am, well, actually Barbie is "shifting into knit". No worries, you'll see.

Barbie has the same problem as me at the
moment, the fan constantly blowing hair
across her face. I should set them in
boiling water to keep them from straying, but
I can't be bothered in this weather.

I wanted to introduce you to a new model.
This is a Color Magic Barbie doll from 1966/67. Although she has the same face mold as the dolls before her, the difference is that there's nothing subtle about her with this bright hair.
Actually the Color Magic came in two different hair colors called Golden Blonde and Midnight Black.
The body was the same as that of an American Girl meaning she didn't have a twist and turn waist yet, but bendable legs.
Her face could either be "soft color" or "high color". Our model has a soft color face, the lipstick and rouge are lighter and the nostrils aren't painted.

What does Color Magic mean, though?
These beauties didn't just come with accessories like a headband matching their swimming suit, bobby pins, and ribbons, but also with two bottles of "Hair Color Changer A & B". A changed Golden Blonde to Scarlet Flame and Midnight Black to Ruby Red. It also changed the color of the swimsuit and outfits that were made especially for the Color Magic. B changed the color back. Or not. Too bad, but it didn't really work on the Midnight Black which makes dolls that still have black hair rarer. In fact, the black could change to red without even using the solution (a problem that the Julia doll has as well, you will meet her eventually).
There is also a rare platinum Color Magic. I have never seen her in person, but read that her hair didn't change at all.

A Midnight Black whose black hair has changed a little,
an ex-Midnight Black who has turned into a full Ruby Red,
and the Golden Blonde from this post.

Our Golden Blonde is wearing "Shift Into Knit".
 

I don't think Barbie will be sweating too much (another actual vintage doll problem, by the way) in this sleeveless knit mini dress which was manufactured from 1969 to 1970 as #1478.

It has a light red-orange top - which I think looks great with the hair - and a navy skirt. As accessories, there are a golden chain belt ending in a golden disk and a fringed scarf.
It was too hot to wrap it around the neck, I could even imagine Barbie to be using it as a headband during the day as she doesn't have her original one anymore.

The shoes that originally came with the outfit were chunky red pilgrim or red bow shoes. Unfortunately, I don't have either at the moment, so I gave Barbie some modern red high heels.
The scarf and belt are a little harder to find than the dress itself. Smaller accessories - like shoes! - just got lost much more easily.

Are you old enough to remember dresses like these?

For full disclosure, I edited the doll stand out of the pictures, but didn't change anything about the outfit.

Barbie is a registered trademark of Mattel, Inc. I am not affiliated with Mattel in any way.


Sources:

1. Sibyl DeWein and Joan Ashabraner: The Collector's Encyclopedia of Barbie Dolls and Collectibles. Paducah, KY, Collector Books, 1994
2. Sarah Sink Eames: Barbie Doll Fashion, Vol. II, 1968 - 1974. Paducah, KY, Collector Books, 1997
3. Color Magic Barbies 1966 - 1967. On: My Vintage Barbies
4. Iris Schmid: Color Magic Barbie #1150 1966, 1967. On: Vintage und Mod Barbies in Deutschland, Europa und weltweit 2 (in German, very informative post!)

Weekend Traffic Jam - Week 165

Welcome to the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot!
My posts for the link up will go live on Thursdays at 9:30 p.m. EDT or, if you live in the future like I do, on Fridays at 3:30 a.m. CE(S)T.

Do you remember the cartoons of Charlie Brown writing to his penpal? Sometimes he was brave and used a pen instead of a pencil and you could tell by the inkblots generously distributed over the paper.
For my birthday, I got a set of colored inks which also included a glass quill, something I had wanted as a teenager, but never got for myself. My first attempt reminded me very much of Charlie Brown, not so much because of ink on the paper, but my hands - and not even from writing but from taking the rubber stoppers out of the tiny glasses. It was as if there were tiny scared octopuses in there!
I'm very slowly getting the hang of writing with it, though, so that's something.

It looks like I was fingerprinted, but
I promise I'm just clumsy.

Now, are you ready for the weekend?

As part of the reboot, we will be featuring a different blog every week.
How about stopping by and saying hello? Let them know we sent you.

This week our spotlight is on Sonata Home Design.

Missy from Sonata Home Design says: "Hi, I'm Missy and I believe decorating a home isn't about following trends...it's about composition and courage! Courage to embrace yourself!
After more than 35 years as a music teacher, I now teach a symphonic approach to home design. I help you compose rooms filled with color, harmony, and joy using the very same principles I spent decades teaching in the choir room. ...
Through Sonata Home Design, I want to inspire you to embrace color with joyful courage and create a home that feels good to the soul. Let's explore the world of design and DIY together!"

Marsha from Marsha in the Middle started blogging in 2021 as an exercise in increasing her neuroplasticity. Oh, who are we kidding? Marsha started blogging because she loves clothes, and she loves to talk or, in this case, write!

Melynda from Scratch Made Food! & DIY Homemade Household - The name says it all, we homestead in East Texas, with three generations sharing this land. I cook and bake from scratch, between gardening and running after the chickens, and knitting!

Lisa from Boondock Ramblings shares about the fiction she writes and reads, her faith, homeschooling, photography and more.

Cat from Cat's Wire has what she calls a jumping spider brain. She has many interests and will blog about whatever catches her attention - crafts, books, old movies, collectibles or random things.

Rena from Fine Whatever Blog writes about style, midlife, and the "fine whatever" moments that make life both meaningful and fun. Since 2015, she's been celebrating creativity, confidence, and finding joy in the everyday.


Here are some of my picks from last week's link up.

Judee's Moroccan cauliflower dish looks so good!

I love poppies. So does Jeanne.

Esme has some spice in a carrot cake for us.

Lydia has some thoughts about exploring.


Let's link up!

Guidelines:
This link party is for blog posts only. All other links will be deleted.
Please link only blog posts you created yourself. Please link directly to the URL of your blog post and not the main address of your blog.
Please do not link to videos, sales ads, or social media links such as YouTube videos/shorts, Instagram or Facebook reels, TikTok videos, or any other social media based content.
Please do visit other blogs and give the gift of a comment. 

Notice:
By linking with Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot, you assert that the content is your own property and give us permission to share said content if your post or blog is showcased.
We welcome unlimited, family friendly content. This can include opinion pieces, recipes, travel recaps, fashion ideas, crafts, thrifting, lifestyle, book reviews or discussions, photography, art, and so much more!
Thank you for linking up with us! 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Silent movies - Our Hospitality

I don't know if you are familiar with Lucky Luke, the hero of a Belgian Western comic album series that is very popular in Europe. One of the albums is called "The Rivals of Painful Gulch". The O'Timmins (with big noses) and the O'Hara (with big ears) families have been in a decade long feud without even remembering why. Lucky Luke is made mayor in order to end this feud.
The story was inspired by the historical Hatfield-McCoy feud in 19th century West Virginia/Kentucky.
You want to know what that has to do with silent movies? I'm glad you asked.
May I present to you "Our Hospitality" from 1923?

The plot (spoilers ahead)!

After his father John and James Canfield have shot each other, baby Willie McKay is taken to New York by his mother where he grows up without being told about the feud between the families (have you noticed the similarity of the names to the real names?), raised by his aunt after his mother's death.

That's Keaton's and Talmadge's first son
Jimmy, by the way.

Then, however, he gets a letter telling him to claim his father's estate in the South and he starts dreaming big (in fact it's just a small rundown hut).
Before he leaves, though, his aunt tells him about the feud.

On the train - "Onward sped the iron monster toward the Blue Ridge Mountains" according to the intertitle (always followed by Willie's dog!) - he meets a young lady.
The train ride is quite eventful. They have to remove a tramp, a guy hurls stones at the engineer who throws back wood from his fuel cart which is quickly collected by the guy, they have a very bumpy ride as the tracks are literally laid over trees and rocks, they have to move the tracks because a stubborn donkey refuses to move (of course he walks off after the train has passed), they derail and the train runs on the bare ground, and at one point the engine even loses the wagons and is suddenly behind them - and that's not all (I'm glad my commute wasn't like that).

Once arrived, we - but not Willie - find out that the young lady on the train is Virginia Canfield as she's picked up by her father and two brothers Clayton and Lee.
Later Willie encounters Lee who, upon hearing that Willie is a McKay, immediately tries to kill him without success and runs home to inform his father and Clayton. While they choose their weapons, Willie happens to see Virginia in her yard and she invites him to supper.

By now, all male Canfields go after Willie who has some very lucky - and funny -  escapes.
When he calls for supper, the Canfields are shocked to see that he's Virginia's guest. Neverless, Father Canfield tells his sons that they will have to grant him their hospitality because their code of honor ... but only inside the house while he's fair game outside of it. Overhearing them plotting, Willie asks the butler whose house it is.
From here on, Willie and the Canfields have an eye on each other as they just wait for him to leave the house and get their chance.

The parson is saying grace, but only he and
Virginia have their eyes closed ...

Luckily, it rains hard when the parson wants to go home after supper. He's invited to stay and Willie extends that invitation to himself, determined never to leave the house again. When Virginia learns that he's a McKay, however, she can't imagine a future for them.
Willie hopes to escape in disguise and the chase begins (which gives Keaton ample opportunity for his daring stunts).

Thanks to the parson, there's a happy ending as he manages to marry Willie und Virginia in time before the Canfields arrive at home and how could Dad resist the look in his daughter's eyes?

Now this was a movie I really had fun with!
I'm shamelessly going to steal a bit from Jim Emerson's review (link below, unfortunately it's only part of an article whose link doesn't work anymore).

"Among the things you will learn from watching Buster Keaton’s “Our Hospitality”:

● A novel method for easily collecting firewood.

● How to move a donkey away from railroad tracks, or vice-versa.

● How to improvise a boat.

● How to make a lady from a horse’s behind.

● How to put on a top hat in a low-ceilinged carriage (and why a porkpie hat is so obviously preferable).

In other words, the act of seeing this movie will immeasurably improve your life."

Keaton who loved trains set the movie earlier than the historical feud, so he could use a replica of the 1829 British steam engines Stephenson's Rocket. The train ride is my favorite part of the movie, it's hilarious. I had a hard time keeping the number of pictures for it down.
That doesn't mean, however, that the chase wasn't funny and actually exciting as well.
As usual, Keaton did most of his own stunts. Two of them got dangerous for him, once when a wire broke and Keaton was swept away in the water - as you can see in the movie because the cameraman had instructions to keep filming - and once when he was dangling over the waterfall and swallowed so much water that he had to have his stomach pumped!

There are a lot of sight gags, but no slapstick as that wouldn't have worked for a feature film that depended on its narrative that's based on tragic events.
This was Keaton's second feature film, but the first one had still been episodic. It was also a family venture. The producer Joseph M. Schenck was the husband of Keaton's sister-in-law, we have already seen baby Keaton, Virginia is Natalie Talmadge - still married to Buster at the time and pregnant with their second child - and the engineer is Joe Keaton, Buster's father.

A wholehearted recommendation from me!


Sources and further reading:

1. Jim Emerson: Our Hospitality: Buster Keaton and gravity. On: RogerEbert.com, Scanners, December 14, 2012
2. Jeffrey Vance: Our Hospitality. On: San Francisco Silent Film Festival. Essay. 2019
3. Hal C. F. Astell: Our Hospitality (1923). On: Apocalypse Later, November 19, 2023

Bookish pet peeves #3

Do you go by book covers when choosing what to read?
I have several pet peeves concerning covers. Some of them will actually drive me away if I haven't already decided to read a book because of a recommendation or because it's part of a series, for example.

One of them has been haunting me lately - the cover filled up with text. I'm not saying by any means that this is a recent invention, it seems to me, however, that it becomes more and more popular.
Of course, I understand that it's a matter of marketing.
Tell me what else the author wrote. Mention a book by someone else it reminds of. And if there is a movie, by all means make sure to use an image from it for the cover and tell me that it's now a major feature film with a big star, even better two.
If famous writers, reviewers or newspapers and magazines inform me how much they love a book without actually saying anything about it, I'm sure to love it too. Use words like "groundbreaking", "exhilarating", "impossible to put down". Oh, and let me know if it makes you cry or laugh, please.
Add some "stickers" and award information (not removable on physical copies of course) and I will love it even more.

There's just one thing - I don't. I'm not interested in what those people say, mostly because there's a good chance I don't even know them. I also don't want to know if the book is a some book club's choice or on which bestseller list it is, actually not even that it is a bestseller.
For me all of that is visually overwhelming. It possibly makes me dismiss a book without giving it a fair chance because it makes my brain explode a little. Enough for it to become a pet peeve, well, and even write about it.

As a post without a picture always looks a bit sad, but I didn't want to call out books whose covers I don't like (although I already had a list), I chose one instead that I do like. A title and a name. A bit old-fashioned, just like me.

Seriously, though, how important is a cover for you? Have you seen books you didn't want to read because of their covers, if so, for what reason?


By the way, if you write book reviews or blog posts about other book-related matters - even movies based on books - please check out "A Good Book and a Cup of Tea", a monthly bookish blog link party that I host together with Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and Lisa from Boondock Ramblings. You can find out more about it here.

10 on the 10th, erm, 11th - Cat Days of Summer

As you know, I don't like to post twice on one day, so I'm a day late for Marsha in the Middle's 10 on the 10th. I think you'll forgive me for that.
So let's see, what does Marsha have for us this month?

She's gotta be kidding me. Is that an evil laugh I'm hearing in the distance there? How could I keep it down to ten?
It will be difficult, but here you go - in random order as usual.

Cat herding. I still don't know what the company this commercial is for actually does (or did), but I couldn't care less, anyway. This is hilarious.



Looking at my hands, I know exactly who does this right now preparing for the next time I dare touching her without permission. Little hint ... she's black as well.

I don't think I need to say much about Franz Marc's "Die weiße Katze" from 1912. I love this painting.

From the collection of Kulturstiftung
Sachsen-Anhalt - Kunstmuseum Moritzburg
Halle (Saale)

It's pretty unbelievable that "Simon's Cat" has been around for 18 years already.
I still remember when one of our student helpers at work - who had a cat as well - said I just had to look at this video. We could both relate to this so much (minus baseball bat of course).



Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen didn't just include cats in many of his illustrations, he also sculpted cats.
We used to have a print of this poster he designed for the cabaret "Le Chat Noir" in 1896 on our wall. I wonder where it's now.

I follow Baby Corn on social media.
He's - actually, I'm not sure we even know all of what he is yet. He was surrendered to a city shelter as an orphan cat together with his two sisters at about three weeks old. They were normal size, Baby Corn wasn't. He's still small at over a year old, he's wobbly (cerebellar hypoplasia), he squints and he has a funny little flat top. He fights wind and corn and he's well traveled. And adorable.

Actually, Baby Corn is not the only cat with cerebellar hypoplasia I follow. There are also Elvis Westley and Nuggie, for example. If you wonder why, I used to have disabled pets myself.



Do you know "The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers", created in 1968 by Gilbert Shelton? Then you also know Fat Freddy's Cat.

Bastet used to be a lion warrior goddess (still a cat, at least in parts) and later became the Egyptian cat goddess we usually associate her with today.

KS_aus_F (Katharina Surhoff) (GFDL)
via Wikimedia Commons
Statue at the Senckenberg
Naturmuseum Frankfurt

Medieval cats. Granted, many medieval animals look fantastic (as in a "too much cheese" fantasy), but the cats ... judge for yourself.

The cats from the cartoons of Scott Metzger, Mark Parisi - they also have other topics -, and Lingvistov. You see them and think, yup, that could be mine.
I follow Scott and Mark on social media and Landysh on Patreon (you can find old Lingvistov cartoons here), but am not going to share any of their cartoons here.
Instead I give you a caricature my animator friend made of me and the ex ages ago. Cat wearing a cat tee (I never had a nose like that, though!).

I hadn't planned to include my own cats because I knew going through their pictures would make me cry and it did, but I just couldn't leave them out. It would have felt wrong because of course they will always be my #1 favorites.
Afterwards I couldn't handle making another collage for the other family cats.

Quite the mix, isn't it? I bet tomorrow my list could be looking completely different and again the day after tomorrow.
Thank you, Marsha, that was (mostly) fun.
Did you notice something about the post?

Weekend Traffic Jam - Week 164

Welcome to the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot!
My posts for the link up will go live on Thursdays at 9:30 p.m. EDT or, if you live in the future like I do, on Fridays at 3:30 a.m. CE(S)T.

Have you ever heard about estivation which is practically the summer version of hibernation? Does anyone know where I can apply for that?
Maybe if I disguise as a water-holding frog? "By burrowing, the stresses of temperature and water loss on the frogs are minimised" (according to Wikipedia). Sounds good to me!

Picture by Tnarg 12345, CC BY-SA 3.0,
via Wikimedia Commons

Are you ready for the weekend?

As part of the reboot, we will be featuring a different blog every week.
How about stopping by and saying hello? Let them know we sent you.

This week our spotlight is on Crafts a la Mode.

Linda from Crafts a la Mode says: "I am the crafter extraordinaire (on this blog anyway). I live with my husband, my son, David, and 3 or 4 nights a week our granddaughter while my daughter works - in a cozy cape cod style house in Connecticut.  We have four kids, two girls adopted from Korea and two ordinary sons. Ha ha  I like to decorate my house with all of the things I sew, paint, and craft.  When I'm not coming up with all of these great crafty, decorating ideas, I like taking care of my grandkids.   I like my grandkids... a LOT."

Marsha from Marsha in the Middle started blogging in 2021 as an exercise in increasing her neuroplasticity. Oh, who are we kidding? Marsha started blogging because she loves clothes, and she loves to talk or, in this case, write!

Melynda from Scratch Made Food! & DIY Homemade Household - The name says it all, we homestead in East Texas, with three generations sharing this land. I cook and bake from scratch, between gardening and running after the chickens, and knitting!

Lisa from Boondock Ramblings shares about the fiction she writes and reads, her faith, homeschooling, photography and more.

Cat from Cat's Wire has what she calls a jumping spider brain. She has many interests and will blog about whatever catches her attention - crafts, books, old movies, collectibles or random things.

Rena from Fine Whatever Blog writes about style, midlife, and the "fine whatever" moments that make life both meaningful and fun. Since 2015, she's been celebrating creativity, confidence, and finding joy in the everyday.


Here are some of my picks from last week's link up.

Amalia made me think of the sleepovers I had with my best friend many, many years ago.

Let's have coffee ... or even a cup of tea ... with Barbara who's back home after traveling.

Who wouldn't want to join Soma here at the lake?

Foxglove is such a beautiful flower (don't try to eat it, though) and Nicole has them in her garden.

Gail is showing us her festival finery.


Let's link up!

Guidelines:
This link party is for blog posts only. All other links will be deleted.
Please link only blog posts you created yourself. Please link directly to the URL of your blog post and not the main address of your blog.
Please do not link to videos, sales ads, or social media links such as YouTube videos/shorts, Instagram or Facebook reels, TikTok videos, or any other social media based content.
Please do visit other blogs and give the gift of a comment. 

Notice:
By linking with Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot, you assert that the content is your own property and give us permission to share said content if your post or blog is showcased.
We welcome unlimited, family friendly content. This can include opinion pieces, recipes, travel recaps, fashion ideas, crafts, thrifting, lifestyle, book reviews or discussions, photography, art, and so much more!
Thank you for linking up with us! 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Silent movies - Bare Knees

If I tell you this movie is about a flapper going to live with her sister and her very reputable husband in a very reputable town, you can probably imagine what's going to happen. But can you really?
Today I'll be talking about "Bare Knees" from 1928.

First the plot (spoiler alert!).

We begin in the Longworth household on wife Jane's birthday, but her husband John is home late again - the fate of a County Attorney - while his best friend Paul has already been there for an hour.
Paul has given her perfume, John a stole (you can tell Jane prefers the perfume).

There's also a wire from Jane's sister Billie (Virginia Lee Corbin did a nice job) who turns up at the very respectable birthday party the same evening - a flapper from bob to bare knees.
The effect is amazing, from shocked looks to a few young men being very interested including Larry who works for John.
It's not just her outfit, though, that shocks the good people of Hanford City, it's also her flippant way of talking, her irreverence, and her gift, a diaphanous black negligee.

From then on, Billie's a thorn in her brother-in-law's side. She dances a Charleston at the party and leads the girls' baseball team into a game against the boys' team , all of them wearing short pants and tank tops and confusing the boys so much that they beat them 29 : 0 (funny, the newspaper article says that the girls won against the men). Of course she also smokes, drinks, and is a big flirt.
Jane lets her know she has never seen anything that vulgar, but when Billie has gone out, Jane longingly lifts her own skirt above her knees, not knowing she's seen by John.

Meanwhile, John has sent Larry to investigate the club ship "Ship Ahoy" and Paul tells him that Billie is there almost every night.
John reply is that he wishes she were like Jane because a husband doesn't have to worry about a wife like Jane. Then he goes to bed.
Plot twist!
As soon as John is gone, Jane is in Paul's arms!
While Jane is struggling in her marriage, Billie declines Larry's proposal "Marriage is like eating a mushroom ... you don't know if it's poison until it's too late."

Now things get a little confusing.
John tells Larry they will investigate the "Ship Ahoy" together.
Jane has asked Paul to meet her in one of the private dining rooms on the ship bringing along a travel bag to elope, but Billie has found Jane's note to John and is already there.
When John and Larry turn up, she claims that she's the one who wants to elope with Paul and Jane came to stop her which is of course a shock for Larry.

Are you still with me? Because now it's getting really weird. 
A big fire breaks out on the pier and while all the others make it out in time, Paul and Billie get caught in the fire. Neither of them can swim, though, so of course they decide to have some last fun and ride the rollercoaster which still runs with empty wagons.
Don't worry! Larry is already in the water on his way to save his love! Who is just crashing through the burning rollercoaster with her wagon. I wish the quality were better. That black "cloud" on the right? That's the wagon.
Don't worry! Larry is already in the water on ... yes, again, but we don't see how he saves both Billie and Paul. Not that Paul turns up again in the last scenes, so who knows, he might have drowned.

By now, John has found Jane's note, but has the maid burn it (wouldn't that be something you do yourself?). All he says to Jane is that a lot of women wear short skirts now and has she thought of bobbing her hair - and she falls into his arms.
Larry is visiting Billie and she reminds him of his proposal.
Happy ending all around (except for Paul)!

I thought the movie was off to a good start and quite amusing. I even liked the plot twist, who would have thought that of Jane?
The ending, though ...
I don't know that I would have had a great idea myself, but a fire and a rollercoaster? The only excuse I would have for that could be that it's symbolic in some way, but this isn't a deep movie, it's a flapper comedy.

It also was a little disappointing to me that Billie gave up so easily in the end. I guess that was to be expected, maybe she hit her head when they crashed into the water or she saw her life before her eyes and thought she needed to change something. I guess the main point is that I don't think she and Larry make a good couple. He's so boring. Will he be enough for Billie?

I could also really have done without Bessie the maid. No, that's wrong, I could have done with the running "joke" about her hurting feet and her walking around weirdly. My feet hurt all the time and I felt her pain, but it did absolutely nothing for the movie.

The runtime was a little over an hour, easy enough to handle and there were some charming bits (and nice clothes), but "Bare Knees" is not going to make it on my re-watchlist.