General Chat

I remember elastic garters too, horrible things.

I made some stuffed toy cats out of left-over fabrics. I also knitted jumpers for my son with PostmanPat on, and one with a goalpost on the front and attached finger puppet players. All are still around somewhere.

Lizx

I've never darned socks!
Mind you, I remember the long white socks my mum knitted me and my sister. they were held up with elastic garters - and were discomfort personified!

I knitted and sewed toys for my children.
They both had a 'Raggedy Andy' - though eldest managed to throw hers out of the pushchair and lose it :-(
I also knitted a golly - just because I could - and teddy bears,
The funniest thing I knitted was a dressed doll, out of spare Shetland wool.
When I washed her - she grew :-0
Every time I washed her after that - she grew some more!
I also made a fur fabric octopus (because octopi are so cuddly), and knitted a Humpty Dumpty.
I still have younger daughter's Raggedy Andy, and the elongated doll (both minus a foot - but the doll's now about 3ft tall), and the golly.

I also made many of my maternity clothes.
Maternity dresses tended to be 'Empire Line and a bit 'twee' when I was pregnant, so I made front-opening pin-tucked numbers - so I could carry on wearing them afterwards, until I lost weight - which, amazingly, I did within 2 weeks of giving birth! :-D (so didn't need maternity clothes after all)

I think I'm now suffering from knitting and sewing burn-out!!

Thought I had the darning mushroom from Mum's but then I couldn't find it so maybe it went to my brother's in the drawer of the treadle they 'stole' for their hallway. I must ask my brother.

I do sometimes darn o.h.'s socks, if they are his more expensive foot support ones. He has one toe on his right foot that tips up a bit and always wears a hole.

Lizxx

My mother taught me to hold my left hand so that it formed the "mushroom" for darning.


I think I darned my last pair of socks for OH back in the late 1980s, he tried to do it for himself for a couple of years (having been taught by his mother) ........... but we then decided it wasn't worth it!

I used to darn socks but no need to these days, I do however have a darning mushroom inherited from my lovely Mother in Law.

oh yes!!

darning socks!!!


I darned socks for a number of years after we married!

I loved to knit and made all my childrens clothes when they were small also a whole lot of dolls clothes for the. As they grew up they too knitted a lot but none of my four grand daughters can knit

I also darned socks many years ago

I know yarn is more expensive now although sometimes places like Lidl and Aldi have offers on yarn.

I have been known to unravel a garment and re-use the yarn, sometimes from my own creations and occasionally from jumble sale buys (in the days before chatity shops)

Lizx

My Mum did sides to middle on her sheets. I have done in the past, but am currently using up cotton sheets from Mum and MIL. I stitch a pleat on each corner to make the flat sheet 'fitted'. Sheets that are thin in the middle have pillowcase sized pieces cut off the edges, ready to be stitched up as required. I've made everything over the years, we had little spare money when the children were born. Now I sew to recycle, everything is reused.

There are lots of young people doing stitching, I see them at the stitching shows, but I doubt they do it for thrift.

A few years ago I would have to shorten trousers because at 5” 3’ some would be to long now however it is fashionable to wear them just above the ankle which is perfect length for me below the ankle as I’m 5’ 1”

In 1957 we were getting married and I wanted some new dresses
I could never buy ones that fitted length wise they were always too short and only just skimmed my knees as I was 5,9'

I went to evening school to brush up on the needlework I had done at school and made six dresses that I kept unworn to take away on out honeymoon in the August

When I had our daughter 13 months later she had knitted coat and bonnet sets And each summer home made dresses
I would buy material remnants and make her a dress for about two shillings . i.e. Tenpence in today's cost
But those was the late 50s and 60s

I also made a padded duvet type cover for her pram with a matching pillow using a floral sheet for the material,.it was definitely a one off and looked lovely in the pram

There was often like that comments where did you buy it !! I made it was the proud reply

In my younger and thinner days I found it easier to make or alter my own clothes as the top of me was one size and the bottom of me was a size bigger so I could take the top of a trouser suit and make it smaller, don’t need to now cos the top of me has caught up with the bottom. :-D :-D

Liz ............


knitting is much more common here among younger women in the 20s to 40s now than among the 40s to 60s group!

It started with the "back to basics" ideas of about 20 years ago, then it became known that young "starlets" were knitting while waiting to do scenes when making films, and young fans copied them.

Wool shops are springing up again, although mail order is also common.

My daughter, OH's 2 nieces, and many of their friends have all been knitting since they were in their teens ......... they are now in their late 30s to mid-forties.

Knitting is not a cheap sport any more. You can buy a wardrobe for the cost of knitting your own jumper.

Isn't it a shame that knitting etc isn't something young people do now, they are too busy on phones and games consoles etc

Lizx

My mum used to do that too
Many sheet that got thin got turned about , and it was done by hand

Every week too the beds were changed . The bottom sheet taken off to wash and the top sheet bottomed with a clean top sheet

When mum was expecting our youngest sister in 1949 a double sheet was quartered for cot sheets .i was 12 years old and was roped in to blanket stitch the edges
We did them in blue .pink and lemon cos then you didn't know the sex till the baby was born
Similarly a double blanket was cut down

Mum and my older sister and me would sit and knit in an evening to see how quick we could knit bootees
Mum would help with the pattern and often we would manage three pairs in one evening
Matinee coats too were a joint knit
Mum would knit the back . Sister and I would knit the fronts and we both did sleeves
Mum would put it all together and finish off
The new baby had a big Wardrobe of hand knits by the time it was born

The knitting experience stood me in good stead when I was expecting our daughter and as she grew up . She had some beautiful knits of jumpers , skirt and top suits etc

When I was expecting my daughter in 1973 I made cot/pram sheets from new fabric and knitted and crocheted matinee jackets and angel tops. Many are still in my loft as they sadly didn't get used but I used the bed linen for my son 8 years later.

I altered the curtains for this house, bought new to go with the wallpaper, I dismantled them and lined them with toning fabric, and did the same with the pelmet/valance but with a border showing of the blue lining. (That was in 1997, they are still up as o.h. doesn't wanr to change the decor and it's his house lol)

If I got the news I long for, that I am to be a grandma, I would get my knitting needles out straightaway lol

Lizx

I've never made a duvet cover, but my ex bought me a semi-industrial sewing machine for my 18th birthday, and I used to make clothes (both for him and me).
I was a trendsetter - I made him a pair of jeans - with twisted legs :-D
I made curtains, and re-covered a sofa twice.
I also used to knit our jumpers, by hand. I knitted my first jumper out of Shetland wool, whilst living in a tent, then went on to knit 2 amazing Icelandic jumpers, and an Icelandic cardigan each!

Children came along, ex bought me a knitting machine - I knitted AND sewed most of the children's clothes.
As they grew up, clothing became cheaper, so I used to make costumes. I made the 3 of us Tudor costumes for a pageant, Victorian costumes for a school centenary (all outfits out of old curtains), and a couple of Saxon outfits for the grandchildren. Still using the machine bought when I was 18!

I haven't made anything much in the past few years, apart from some pads for the local cat & kitten centre, out of a duvet my cat had peed on, that was too big to wash in my washing machine (must have been 105 tog) , and a duvet cover I'd managed to drip a bit of paint on.
Once the duvet was cut, and the duvet covering sewn on, I could wash the duvet squares, and no-one new my cat had peed on it! :-D

We did the bottom sheet off, top sheet to bottom, clean sheet on top ...............

and we also did it when I worked summers in small private hotels in Frinton, Minehead and Whitby ................ sheets were only changed weekly and then it was top sheet to the bottom and clean sheet on top


I made sheets for my daughter's cot after she was born using sheets that OH had bought before we were married but that didn't fit the bed we bought after we got here .......... the bed was a long double Scandinavian one and the sheets were regular North American double.

Like Liz, I've also made my own curtains and duvet covers ............ OH gave me a sewing machine soon after we married as he knew that I'd always made a lot of my own clothes.

So I made about 3 cot sheets, 1 pram sheet, and then later a couple of pillow cases!


We were in Australia for about 10 months when daughter was a toddler, and I made several dresses for her, sewing them hand.


I'm even still doing it .................. I have a couple of small pillows that I use when we travel, they're about half the size of regular pillows. I needed new pillow cases for them, so I cut down some regular sized older cases to fit, and even did some by hand last summer because I couldn't be bothered getting the machine out.


I think once you've been used to re-using, you find it hard to throw out!

Liz, my Mum never had a sewing machine neither did I until I was given one by my mother in law in 1984ish, it wasn’t electric but it certainly made sides to middle a lot easier and I appreciated how hard my Mum worked on that kind of thing.