Very Good Day!

shoosh?

Yeah, I know what it means, but haven't heard the word in some time, and almost never by a woman. :-)

No, "skoosh", it's different than a shoosh. A skoosh is similar to a "bit", a "dash", a "trace", a "smidgen". Only different... ;-)

We female sewists have uses for all sorts of arcane "measurement" terms. ;-)

Beverly

Isn't "skosh" or "skoosh" from Japanese? Skoshi, I think, originally.

I have no idea, I was spelling it phonetically. It was a term in common use in my family, I've never seen it in a real dictionary.

Beverly

OK, you made me go look. From the on-line Merriam-Webster:

skosh One entry found for skosh. Main Entry: skosh Pronunciation: 'skOsh Function: noun Etymology: Japanese sukoshi : a small amount : BIT, SMIDGEN -- used adverbially with a

Oh, that sounds fantastic! I, on the other hand, spent yesterday shift this and that about, then went swimming... James failed to bring his school trousers home last night (came home in sports kit!), and I had to hem up his other new uniform pair at &;30 this morning, as that's when he told me! As he's already in serious trouble for doing something less than angelic, it's a good job he's out at school until 4:20 or so!

Me? I'm off to sew a kit car soft top together on a hand crank... :D

What a marvelous couple of days!! I am thrilled to pieces for you that you had such a great time with your DD. And tickled that she wants to learn from you. Yay!!!!!!

Sharon

Not enough projects, huh? ;-)

Beverly

Yay, indeed. She was bemoaning the fact that *all* the non-SAT-related courses have been removed from the local schools. No "Personal Finance", no "Home Ec", etc. So unless there is a family member able (and willing) to teach those skills, nada.

Older DD took courses in sewing in Junior HIgh, made an apron IIRC. But she was frustrated at my teaching "style", so we are just getting started again, 30 years later. ;-)

Beverly

Thanks for the research. Now I know, I was spelling it with too many Os. No wonder I couldn't find it.

Beverly

Obviously not! This was in answer to a cry for help from a dear friend. I went and helped staple the PVC leatherette to the trim that forms the 'eyebrows' round the dash and the edging round the rear of the cockpit... Once done, we had a small gap between that and the back board that we filled by stapling a length of very fat PVC leatherette encased piping round it to fill it in. It worked a treat. :)

She and her hubby were almost coming to blows over this, one of the final bits of a long-term restoration project following the poor thing landing in a ditch about 19 years ago! It lay about in bits in various garages, but Paul was determined to get it up and running again before he's 50 next June. With luck it'll come inside his deadline by a whole year! :)

We sewed the piping on Diane's mum's Harris handcrank from the late 50's.

Isn't that just amazing about the schools? They act as if all students are college-bound, and for academic programs, too. Who do they think is going to fix things and build things and keep the civilization rocking along?

I sometimes wonder if people in, say 1907, were complaining about the lack of classes to teach the next generation of smithies, carters, buggy-whip-makers, farriers, and wheelwrights. :-}

I do think too much emphasis is placed on "teaching to the tests". And I know budgets must be part of process in selecting which courses are offered. But basic sewing-cooking-finance classes would do much to prepare

Beverly

True. But the lack of any vocational training in most areas doesn't give the best "bang for the buck" to most populations. The emphasis on "college prep" in every school is a disservice to the populations the schools should be serving.

My DH teaches at the university, in the core humanities program. The number of students enrolled who have no business being in college is appalling. Perhaps some of them, even most of them, could be if they were given enough remedial courses. But where do they go from there?

We have one kid with a degree in Anthropology -- and as is often said, there is no call for elevator operators anymore.... She has a very good job, but her degree did not contribute to it at all, other than being a degree.

We have gone from being a nation of producers and manufacturers to being a service economy. When the U.S.S.R. dissolved, and the free world sent experts to help them rebuild their economy, the U.S. sent people to teach them how to start a stock market. Nearly everything we buy is imported, from sewing machines to string beans.

But we still need plumbers, electricians, carpenters, masons, etc. Will we have to import them, too?

I believe we already do, in an informal sense. If you live in the southwestern US you'll know what I mean.