Old Style Skills

euronorris

Kim and Aggie's cleaning bible gives a lot of good, old style advice too. Including how to turn up a hem and budget.

I love that book, and I don't care if that makes me 'sad'.

euronorris

Is there really anyone out there who doesn't know how to change a lightbulb???

basscadette

I went to comp in the 90's and we had to do cooking and sewing but ony choose one for GCSE. I chose cooking because it was cheaper but I did do sewing before that. WHat did we learn to make in sewing? We had to make a chocolate bar or crisps out of material. I made a big bag of skips as I htought at the very least I'd get a cushion out of it, albeit a bizarre one.

Cookery was something else altogether. Our first project for GCSE was making one of those little, single person birthday cakes that you used to buy in card shops. We had to make them week after week for a few weeks - no idea why but it cost a fortune and was a most pointless exercise. The main project for GCSE was to study the 'cook chill' industry in great depth and replicate a cook chill ready meal. It was all about the commercial food industry - shameful! I learned nothing about cooking from scratch, looking after a family, mending clothes, healthy cooking, nothing. I taught myself all that at uni out of neccessity!

spadoosh

Butterfly_Brain wrote: »

The skills that I have been teaching my DD and DS since they were very young are

• How to save and budget.
• How to cook tasty, nutricious meals cheaply from scratch.
• DH has taught them DIY and general household jobs such as changing bulbs, tap washers, how to change plugs, what to do when the fuse trips, unblock sinks, toilets etc.
• I have taught them how to clean cheaply and to use vinegar, bicarb etc.
• They can both knit, crochet and sew.
• Introduced them to this site for lots of useful information.

I think that these sort of skills should be taught at school because not all parents have the time or skills to do this at home. I did because it was more important for me to be with my children when they were growing up.

Lol, this one yours?! I Take it no playstation then?!



I don't even know what crochet is, i thought that what you play on the lawn with a hammer?!?!
Off to google it!


OO thats a must for youth of today, know how to use google properly!

Justamum

JackieO wrote: »

for the 15 year old I can bowl a mean slow spin ball at cricket.

I've got a fantastic mental image of you I'm afraid I can only throw underarm

Butterfly_Brain wrote: »

The skills that I have been teaching my DD and DS since they were very young are

• How to save and budget.
• How to cook tasty, nutricious meals cheaply from scratch.
• DH has taught them DIY and general household jobs such as changing bulbs, tap washers, how to change plugs, what to do when the fuse trips, unblock sinks, toilets etc.
• I have taught them how to clean cheaply and to use vinegar, bicarb etc.
• They can both knit, crochet and sew.
• Introduced them to this site for lots of useful information.

I think that these sort of skills should be taught at school because not all parents have the time or skills to do this at home. I did because it was more important for me to be with my children when they were growing up.

In the old days (ok 1970s :rotfl:) we were taught most of these things in domestic science. The seem to have got rid of that and now have Food Technology.

Blue_Elephant

You guys are amazing!!!

SpottedLeopard_2

I'm good at budgeting (including enough arithmetic to know when the supermarket's fleecing me!), meal planning and cooking something nutritious. Would like to learn more sewing but I hated it at school; always stabbing my finger, and couldn't sew in a straight line or with even stitches - at least in Food, you could eat the evidence if it turned out badly Does anyone have any recommendations of good websites/books to learn basic sewing skills?

Would also like to learn DIY, although I don't know where I'd practise; is it safe just to change a washer on your own tap still attached to plumbing, or do you need a spare old one to have a go on? Sorry for the dumb question

Sambucus_Nigra

i'm pretty much the practical type; was taught changing a washer, knitting, sowing, crocheting [not that I have used this skill in 35 years], how to clean, and tidy [definitely don't use this skill], cooking, making jams and jellies [definitely use this skill] and have always tried to learn new things as and when. For instance, tonight I made my own mozzarella from milk I bought on offer yesterday, made 1 gallon of wine from free plums that the OH brought back from work yesterday, have a bag of pears I bought back today [will make perry tomorrow], bottled 3 bottles of wine that is now ready to drink, and we are going foraging on Saturday which will include coffee [made by me] and a seed swapping session [I give away hundreds of seeds each year]...and made my own pasta sauce for tea earlier from own grown onions, peppers and tomatoes. If I had a pasta maker I'd have also made the pasta...but still waiting on freecycle for one. I also mended the seat on our campervan tonight, before it got dark. I was an engineer for a long time and have always made and mended things.

monnagran

I think the best skill of all is manage on a shoestring. If there is no money you very speedily have to learn to do the things you can't afford to pay anyone else to do. Fortunately, being brought up in the war and austerity this was a skill I learned at my mother's knee - literally. From a very early age I could cook, knit, sew and wield a paintbrush. This was very useful when I had my first flat and was married with children and a husband who had better ideas what to do with his money than spend it on his wife and children! I hate sewing with a passion but if I hadn't made my own clothes, or adapted other people's cast offs I would have been walking around in my wedding dress. I made a lined coat and matching skirt on a hand sewing machine, (very old) on the floor, as I didn't have a table. It was my 'best' outfit for weddings and interviews for some years.
I brought my sons up to be able to look after themselves and they both seem to do most of the housework and cooking in their homes.
The other day the florescent light went in our village hall. The manager, a middle-aged gentleman said that he would have to get a new one. I suggested that it might only need a new motor. He didn't know what I was talking about! So a lady in her eighties toddled off and bought a new motor and I held the ladder while yet another lady fitted the motor, Job done.
Necessity is the biggest teacher of skills.

HariboJunkie

Sambucus_Nigra wrote: »

For instance, tonight I made my own mozzarella from milk I bought on offer yesterday,.

:T Ooh can I have the method please????