Tag Archives: workwear for women

While most associate Rosie the Riveter with the women who worked in the factories during World War II, there was a less well known group of women who also volunteered to help the war effort during that same period of time.

The Women’s Land Army was a band of approximately 3 million women who were recruited to work on farms, dairies, and in canneries, to help continue to provide food for the nation while the men were at war. The Women’s Land Army (WLA) placed women where help was most needed, in the Midwest, South, and South-West states. They were paid competitive wages, and proved to be just as productive workers as men. When asked by a reporter if the women would quit after they were exposed to the hard work, one farmerette responded “Would we quit? No, soldiers don’t.” Many of the women in the WLA found the work and the income satisfying and continued their employment after the war ended.

The Women’s Land Army was inspired by Rosie the Riveter, and formed after several women’s groups and the YWCA convinced congress to allow women to help with the farm labor, since food was already being rationed and it was becoming more scarce. Where ever the WLA worked they helped to stabilize local economies and they had a significant impact on workforce policies and stereotypes for future generations.

Take a few minutes to learn more about this fascinating piece of our history:

This is a 10 minute video, with really interesting information and great pictures! Watch for lots of overalls!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKXcjQhtpsg

Or if you only have 3 minutes, watch this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kr1N45JGayU&sns=em

recruiting poster

An EXCELLENT free on-line book “On The Farm Front”, that is filled with letters from one farmerette’s experience in the Women’s Land Army in Ohio

http://lettersfromlandarmycamp.org/?page_id=1585

A link to one of the letters: http://lettersfromlandarmycamp.org/?page_id=1439

A picture included with a letter home. "Me thinning peaches & my boss"

Women's Land Army ID card

I found this book recently, and was drawn to it because the title matches our Rosie’s moto. The book was written by a victim of the 9/11 attacks and completed by her sisters after her death. It embodies a gusto for life and a go-getter attitude that’s pretty incredible.

The theme of giving yourself a “merit badge” for trying new and brave things keeps rattling around in my mind this week.

During a talk with a good friend, who is a new mother, she admitted that she gives herself an imaginary badge every time she is able to complete a difficult “mom mission”. She has given herself a badge for things like nursing in public for the first time, nursing while balancing on a stool, changing an explosive diaper, and getting an infant through New York City streets with too much bulky equipment. I love that she turned situations that could that cause most women to complain, into a mental badge of honor for getting through it.

A wise woman once encouraged a group of us ladies to start a “victory journal” to record all the minor and large successes that we accomplish in our lives. I only tried writing in my journal for a year, but I was surprised by how many “victories” I actually have in my everyday life once I took the time to examine them and write them down. I usually just continue to focus on my to-do list, and forget to reflect on how amazing it was to get through what I just did. I know many women will agree with me that they share this characteristic.

One thing all of us at Rosies Workwear for Women love most about our job is that we get to interact with so many inspiring and hard working women across the continent and the world! We hear from women who are doing tasks that we might never have dreamed of! Such as leading a team of dogs across Alaska, and leaving the city to start a successful organic farm. So, it makes me wonder, what amazing things we all doing that we might forget to sit back and give ourselves a merit badge for? What kinds of dreams do we still have that we would like to continue to try and reach for to earn another badge?

So, this week, please write to us about some of your victories and merit badges that you have earned recently. Take time to inspire us, and give us all ideas of things to try!

My mom used to grow the most gorgeous fragrant roses. I could bring anyone one of her cut roses as a gift and they would gush about it for weeks. I wish I could produce those kinds of roses, but my current bushes are a scraggly, moldy, spider mite infested mess! So, I headed off to a fantastic rose pruning workshop by the number one rose retailer in my region. http://www.gazebogardens1922.com/News.html

The most important thing that I learned: is that when you attempt to prune your roses for the winter, you really can’t do much harm. Whew, it took the fear out of the task to for me to hear that from an expert! In fact there was an experiment run by the English Rose Society to see which method would work the best, traditional hand pruning, large hedge clippers, or a chainsaw. Guess which plants produced the most roses in the spring? The ones that were hacked with a chainsaw (even though the quality of the roses & the bush was reduced)! So, as you begin pruning your bushes remember not to obsess over perfection, roses are hard to hurt!

First a little rose “vocabulary”: Typical Hybrid roses are grafted at the base to a rose called Dr. Huey, because of its strong root structure. The graft point is usually a little bulbous like this. Canes are the stems that come out of the plant. The bud is the bloom point that will grow the new leaves, the bloom point near the top of the stem is the one that will grow.

Step 1: Even it up! Trim your rose bush all around, to an even length, cutting off any remaining leaves or blooms. It has been a very mild winter here, so my roses are still blooming, but I learned it is still very important to prune them now because they need time to rest and hibernate before the spring.

Step 2:Cut out the obvious! Take a good look at your plant. Cut off any dead wood, or canes that have a black spot on them. Canes will only grow out of new wood. If you have a lot of dead wood at the graft point, and it looks overgrown, you can even clean some of it up with a saw blade.

Step 3: Design your plant! This step is all about choosing which shape you would like your plant to grow in. Cut out the canes that are growing in or towards the middle of the plant, to allow more sunshine to penetrate the bush once all the leaves grow in. Plan on having canes branch out in 4 different directions so that the bush will have a nice fullness once it grows in. Cut canes about a ¼ above the bud point.

Equipment- it is important to have a nice pair of hand shears, gloves, and long sleeves before starting pruning roses. We recommend the “The Digger” gloves from Woman’s Work , and Rosies full length Coveralls, to help get the job done! Both are on sale right now- so it is perfect timing!!

https://rosiesworkwear.com/shop/product-info.php?pid9.html

https://rosiesworkwear.com/shop/product-info.php?pid75.html

Fertilizer- If you have trouble with spider mites or mildew (that may cause white fuzz or yellow/black spots all over your leaves) right after you prune is the time to recondition the soil with an insecticide and/or mildew & rust treatment. Use regular fertilizer on your plants right before they start to bloom in the spring, when the weather is around a steady 55 degrees. If you want to move the rose bush to another location, right after you prune it is the best time (because the rose bush is dormant). I plan on doing this for two of mine. Apparently it is an easy process I will let you know how the transplant goes! This is a great resource if you would like any more photos to help you with your project http://www.rainforest2548.org/sjvrsjan.html

Have fun and please send any photos of your successful rose pruning attempts! We would love to see it!

We are so proud to have had Elizabeth Layton as part of our team this past year!

Liz graduated in December from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo with a Communications major in Business Ag. She is currently back home in Santa Rosa looking for new opportunities to spread her talents. We loved having her as part of team Rosie and wish her
the best in all her future adventures!
We know that for us she will always take her Rosies spirit with her.  Thanks for all that you did Liz, you will be missed!

Liz  is being replaced by Katie Crawford. Katie has been a part of Rosies for 10 years, she has been a Rosies model, helped create product ideas, worked at road shows selling and now we get to have her use her unique talent for writing by taking over the blog , newsletter and face book posting. Rosies has a lot planned for 2012 and we welcome Katie’s voice to keep the Rosies community connected.

-Sharon Moore (Rosie’s founder)

New Year brings a new contest for Rosies! Get ready to pose for the camera and bring out those maps, to win lots of Rosies gear in 2012!

Here is how you play:

1. Have someone take a picture of you in your favorite Rosies gear in front of a fun location (ex. a popular landmark)

HINT: we are looking for backgrounds that provide good clues without giving the location away! So, don’t stand in front of a sign telling what the location is! Also, the location should be something other Rosies can figure out, so a picture in front of your personal farm would not be as good of a choice as a picture in front of a hometown landmark.

2. Email the photo to us at info@rosiesworkwear.com Each month we will select one picture to post on our webpage. If your photo is selected you will WIN A PRIZE!!

3. Go to our webpage to try and guess the location of the selected photo. The first one to correctly respond will WIN A PRIZE!!