What's Your Vintage Skill Set?

[Miss Match]

• I can sew, with or without a pattern.
• I can prepare and serve high tea.
• I'm teaching myself how to embroider.
• I knit- just not well
• I can iron clothes
• I can set a table for a four course meal (soup, salad, entree, desert)
• I can use a handkerchief
• I can make jam
• I can attach stockings to a garter belt
• I can scat
• I can make soup from scratch- the water and meat kind of scratch, not the boulion cube kind of scratch
• I can apply false eyelashes
• I can make toffee

Not sure if that last one is a "vintage" skill, but it sure is a delicious one!

 

[CanadaDoll]

I can bake bread, and other things, and cook from scratch.
Can foods and make jam, both the canned and freezer variety.
Polish shoes really well
Do a proper ironing on a variety of different things, the toughest being my karate uniform.
Do a hands-and-knees scrubbing of all the floors in my home in an hour.
Sew small things like buttons and seam splits, I am working up to entire garments.

That's what comes to mind so far......

 

[Chanfan]

PS to Chanfan: SCAdinan by chance?

Heh, does it show?

@ Fletch - yeah, we took the "Linotype Hell" logo off a shipping carton and put it over the production room at the service bureau I worked at. But actually the imagesetters were fine, it was also our scanner (an Agfa drum) that was temperamental.

P.S. - I think every one here has the vintage skill set of being polite ladies and gentlemen.

 

[Shimmy Sally]

1) flat pattern design
2) various forgotten hand-sewing skills
3) can cook and bake from scratch w/o modern appliances (or cans or boxes)
4) scrub floors on hands and knees rather than mop or wroomba (don't even own a mop)
5) start a campfire w/o matches
6) can use a turntable to play vinyl (a lost art, I'm truly talented)
7) can walk long distances w/o whining
8) can get through an entire day w/o television, computer, or cell phone
9) wear slippery-soled shoes, stockings, and dresses w/o falling or anything
10) can have conversations w/o cursing or talking about my own hair
11) can dance w/o jumping up&down like an idiot or backleading
12) can press, steam, and iron clothing
13) can create 2-D and 3-D artwork w/o modern tools
14) do minor repairs around the house
15) raise my own child (and I even got married BEFORE I became pregnant)

MissMatch; making decent coffee is indeed a vintage skill. Most people spend $5 at Starbucks to get some fruffy milkshake with a shot of espresso.

 

[Cherriexo]

I can:

Tell the weather by nature (in the country you have to know these things)
Fish properly,using worms and then fry the fish with everything still intact
Bake 'traditional' Irish soda bread
Make beds with hospital corners
Tend to a garden/cornfield properly
Iron
Basic mending skills
Basic knitting
Waltz
Cook home made cardiac arrest southern food
Spaghetti sauce from scratch
Hand wash garments in a bathroom sink

I can do other things we would consider basic,like shucking (sp?) corn or sweeping.Some friends of mine cant even do that.I have younger cousins that if their mother suddenly died,they would have no concept of washing machines or how to properly mop a kitchen.It's maddening.

 

[Cherriexo]

1) flat pattern design
2) various forgotten hand-sewing skills
3) can cook and bake from scratch w/o modern appliances (or cans or boxes)
4) scrub floors on hands and knees rather than mop or wroomba (don't even own a mop)
5) start a campfire w/o matches
6) can use a turntable to play vinyl (a lost art, I'm truly talented)
7) can walk long distances w/o whining
8) can get through an entire day w/o television, computer, or cell phone
9) wear slippery-soled shoes, stockings, and dresses w/o falling or anything
10) can have conversations w/o cursing or talking about my own hair
11) can dance w/o jumping up&down like an idiot or backleading
12) can press, steam, and iron clothing
13) can create 2-D and 3-D artwork w/o modern tools
14) do minor repairs around the house
15) raise my own child (and I even got married BEFORE I became pregnant)

MissMatch; making decent coffee is indeed a vintage skill. Most people spend $5 at Starbucks to get some fruffy milkshake with a shot of espresso.

That was amazing!

fftopic: (kinda)It saddens me that if I ever get cursed (no offense) to have children they'll never have my childhood.We ran through neighbors' yards,ran and got muddy in cornfields,made our own trails in the forrest (ie our backyard of 2 uncleared acres),help their mother grow a garden (like mine did with us),have a sibling with a paper route and help them deliever papers.

The list is endless.And the fact I grew up in a house ordered from Sears catalog is the rumor,a glorious Victorian house.

Theres so many things about my childhood of the mid-80s and in the country,and small town children will never have.

Its quite sad,that children dont know how to climb trees and play pretend anymore.

::End rant::

 

[Shimmy Sally]

That was amazing!

fftopic: (kinda)It saddens me that if I ever get cursed (no offense) to have children they'll never have my childhood.We ran through neighbors' yards,ran and got muddy in cornfields,made our own trails in the forrest (ie our backyard of 2 uncleared acres),help their mother grow a garden (like mine did with us),have a sibling with a paper route and help them deliever papers.

The list is endless.And the fact I grew up in a house ordered from Sears catalog is the rumor,a glorious Victorian house.

Theres so many things about my childhood of the mid-80s and in the country,and small town children will never have.

Its quite sad,that children dont know how to climb trees and play pretend anymore.

::End rant::

I'm not offended, I've found it to be the best blessing of my life. Parenthood isn't for everyone.
Your youth sounds a lot like mine, only I'm much older than you. I wish I could have given my son the kind of childhood I had as well. It's amazing how children find ways to play and pretend in any environment though. Luckily, He spent his earliest years in smalltown midewest, in our first vintage house a block away from a dock/lake beach, with a field of horses just past our backyard fence. We had a vintage fridge, well water, and no dishwasher, but otherwise modern appliances. Our neighbors even had manners.
Here in the desert it's a different environment.

 

[rongoms]

I can hold a steady beat without a metronome....or even any other music, for hours on end.
I can make people do what i want simply by looking at them (former cop)
I can make Navy Coffee, WWII-style.
I can sew.
I can develop film by hand and can correct exposure in the can by altering the temperature of the developer. (D-76 baby!)
I can tell you the vintage of a wrtistwatch, what movement it uses, who REALLY makes it, regardless of brand....and can change a cannon pinion when needed. (and can spot a counterfeit a mile away)

I can treat a person with respect and dignity. .....alas....a true dying art.

 

[Brooksie]

I can drive an 18 wheeler with a manual transmission and I still have a license to drive one.

Use a sickle to chop down chest high weeds.

Sail every mast on a sail boat.

Replace boards on a boat dock.

Sand down an entire wooden motor boat by hand and repaint it, with a few friends helping.

I used to know semifore, morse code and how to tie all of the sailors knots.

Do any of these above count?

More:

I like to call myself The Domestic Diva and if anyone has been on myspace and has read my blog you would know why:

Make soap from scratch.

Cook, clean, bake.

Mend, iron, knit.

Make herbal home remedys when sick.

Make aromatherpy handmade bath and body products.

Grow herbs from seeds.

Licensed cosmetogist so I can, cut womens hair and mens barber styles complete with mustache and beard trims, do fingerwaves (just not on my own head my hair is way to straight), pin curls, roller sets, braids (platts or plaits), cornrows even, manicures, pedicures and make-up artistry and facials.

Calligraphy, paint, draw and write.

and that is about it for me!

Brooksie

 

[Lonn]

Somehow makes things O.K.

Hi,
Wow, I needed this walk.
I get so involved in work and life and feel like I'm not spending enough time painting and then someone reminds me how much time takes time.
Knowing that if I need to, I can do any of these things again is one thing. Realizing that I took the time to learn how in the first place, another. But that someone took the time to teach me these things...Priceless.

Hand wash clothes

Sew, fabric and leather, by machine and by hand.

Develop and print black and white film. Why?

Weld with gas

Bake bread and cook anything without a recipe. That's not always a good thing.

Actually figure out what's wrong with something and fix it.

Anything involved in residential construction and maintenance.

Wow. I forgot I can can. And make jam and pickles. And I mean back of the skull hot pickles. Yum!

I know my knots

Navigate with a sextant

Make fire

Field strip a weapon

Kill, clean, cook and eat food.

Milk a goat. And a cow. And make butter. And cheese.

It feels good knowing there is a lot more. Thanks Mom. And Dad. And Grampa and Grandma, both sides, and the old guy across the street that had time and the older I get, the more of them I will remember.
I try to be available when the kids around me are ready to learn. It's a debt.

 

[Brooksie]

I forgot to add: make jewelry and do beadwork.

Brooksie

 

[Cacklewack]

Lizzie, you are amazing.

I can...:

Smoke cigars
Fly Fish
Tie Flies
Read

Matt

 

[Lady Day]

I usta play the spoons
but I forgot.

LD

 

[Spitfire]

Horseriding
Fencing with sabre
(The two above also together, if needed)
Smoke cigars
Do layouts by hand with markers - instead of computer

What I still miss:
Fly a plane
Play the sax

 

[Haversack]

Let's see, 1930s-1940s skills set...

Operate an adding machine
Build and use a crystal radio set
Safely use dynamite
Hop a slow moving freight
Use arm signals while driving
Used to be able to send and receive Morse at 18 wpm, (pretty pathetic really)
Tune the engine on a Massey-Ferguson tractor
Build and use a gin pole to raise an antenna tower
Polish shoes
Butcher a pig and make sausages
Do architectural drafting in the Beaux-Art style
Lay brick
Walk more than 500 yards at a stretch

 

[Miss Match]

MissMatch; making decent coffee is indeed a vintage skill. Most people spend $5 at Starbucks to get some fruffy milkshake with a shot of espresso.

Hee hee! Not coffee... TOFFEE. The delicious gooey chewy kind, made from boiled molasses, butter and milk. Pull the fillings out of your teeth goodness.

As for coffee, I can't stand the stuff. I can't get past the smell.

 

[Miss Sis]

I haven't really thought about them as 'Vintage' skills but I guess they are! Just the way most of us were bought up?

Sew, knit, mend and embroider
Cook from fresh ingredients, lay a table and serve a four course meal.
Iron almost everything, handwash and get stains out of almost anything using borax, washing soda, etc.
Make a bed properly with sheets and blankets and hospital corners - My Mother would kill me if I did it any other way!
Dance properly and converse with anyone of any age, anywhere.

My boyfriend's Grandmother always comments on how lucky he is to have me because of all the things I can do that 'Modern' girls can't or don't. I think it is really sweet and a compliment.

 

[carebear]

I can dawdle and dilly-dally and I've been known to both mosey and stroll.

 

[WH1]

Carebear bet you know how to stand up straight too!

all that time on the yellow footprints.lol

 

[carebear]

all that time on the yellow footprints.lol

I actually find it hard to slouch and I don't stand around grinning like an idiot either.

Don't even bring up falling into step with people I'm walking with.

Add that to my skill set, I can instruct and conduct drill for up to a company-sized element and I know a couple dozen off-color cadences.