new crochet fans!

That's the word I'm looking for! Thankyou. I loved it, and my enamelled pieces are among the ones my mother still has on display :)

Kirsten

I know that, you know that, legislation in this country is being influenced by claims though.

A grand daughter lives with us temporarily while she does a college course (her parents live in France). Her course is for childcare. Yesterdy she told me that talcum powder must not be used on babies because it blocks the pores.

Same here and same with our children.

When our youngest boy was doing cookery (real cookery, with ingredients and a finished dish) he came home from school disgusted with the result of his latest lesson. At nine yo he'd made bread.

With 2 ozs of flour.

He complained that there wasn't enough dought to knead - he was used to making half a stone at a time at home.

...

OK - I give in. What's 'Shop'?

We're still using tablecloths I embroidered (from transfers though) in my teens, not at school. I really don't like the designs now except one very modern, almost abstract one. We'll use them until they drop apart - which they are doing fast ...

Mary

Here too, I fear, but so far I think the kids can actually touch tools.

The version I've heard is that the powder might be breathed and harm the lungs, but not that it blocks the skin. I wonder whether the teacher got that out of a book or just verbally from someone who heard it somewhere. (Remembering hearing of student teachers who "weren't into reading".)

And every kid I'm aware of loved it, too.

Technically I can make bread, but in fact it comes out terrible. I think I overknead.

In the northeastern USA, "shop" was the generic term for school lessons in woodwork, metalwork, anything done in a workshop, including setting type by hand (now that was really out of date). When the art class did oil paintings, the shop class cut the wood for the frames because they were trained to use a saw. (Never mind that the painters had also done carving in art class, most using chisels and gouges that were harder to control than a hand saw.) The painters got to glue the frames together and apply a stain made from oil paint. (Toxic materials!)

I'd been using saws at home for ten years at that point but many of the other students had never touched a real tool until the carving portion of the art class. Having the shop students cut the diagonals gave them something real to do and no doubt improved the quality of the frames.

Now there are people who object to adults using sharp pointed knitting needles.

=Tamar

Chortle, chortle. We allowed our son to have a driving license as soon as he was sixteen (that wwas the magic age in Florida) as he was a pretty responsible, trustworthy kid. However, he had to have the school "Drivers'Ed." course in order to get a discount on the insurance. One weekend, using our older car, he drove himself and three other kids from the church youth group to a conference about four hours away, turnpike driving most of the way.

The following Monday, he came home guffawing..........that day, in Drivers Ed, he had been permitted to take the wheel of the training car and pilot it around the school parking lot!!

Olwyn Mary in New Orleans.

Perhaps the main adult use for tool touching these days would be for d.i.y. There's not much manufacturing industry which needs tools nowadays :-(

I don't believe either theory! But I'd prefer to use cornflour anyway.

The bread-bakers list could be useful for you ... if you want to make bread that is. I can't think of buying even the best commercially made bread.

I see, thanks for that thorough explanation.

Yes. The bone ones we make are in demand by American who want to go on planes, apparently they're accepted where metal ones aren't.

The ways of legislators have always been shrouded in mystery ...

Mary

...

Oh well done! I hope they gave him an appropriate certificate or at least a Red Star.

:-)

Mary

Most important, he got the "pass" certificate at the end of the course, and we got the discount on the car insurance. Not to be sniffed at when you have a teenage male driver in the house!!

Olwyn Mary in New Orleans

Certainly not. I don't think there's such a system here :-(

Mary