2021 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

Laura_Elsewhere

Ph @Cherryfudge, how lovely! 

I see what your mum may mean about it not being delicate work but it is ABSOLUTELY classic mid-20th century home-done embroidery and I love it.

Magazines like The Housewife used sometimes to include a pull-out embroidery design to trace onto cloth - lots are quite similar to this. Tablecloths and napkins for teatime or traycloths, or dressing-table cloths, cushions like your one - it's something that starts before the war but really takes off in the late 1940s, and I think it's partly that people were starved of colour and beauty!

Clothes rationing ended in 1949 but I'd put money on there still being major supply issues so maybe you were technically able to buy all the clothes you like but I bet what happened was that the wealthy got in quick and bought as much as they wanted, leaving the rest to not-go-round properly... 

So your chances of buying a new, colourful cushion cover or tablecloth would be really low - but if you could get a plain one or a bit of cloth, and then embroider... well, you could have something new, and colourful and beautiful!

(Also, your copy-stitching is beautifully done. Nice work)

Cherryfudge

Thank you @Laura_Elsewhere, it's very kind of you to say so.

Yes I imagine those who could, went out and bought... the more equal playing field brought on by rationing would soon have lost its potency.

I need to pop in to work now to collect my computer glasses or I will have a headache tonight, but I'll be back later as I want to show off a tablecloth Mum made and which I found in the depths of a drawer on my latest expedition to clear the house. It's so lovely, I'm delighted and would be even if I didn't have childhood memories of it (the sort of memory where it's always sunny ).

Darn it, I'm going to post anyway, and run to work!  

Cherryfudge

One of Mum’s, the motif is repeated in the middle of each side and the entire edge is chocolate and green buttonhole stitch:

PipneyJane

Oh @Cherryfudge.  That's beautiful.  So is the tablecloth.

There is definitely something in the air today.  I've bought a dress from a website.  (This dress.)  I may live to regret it.  



No time now to work out the points/coupon cost.

- Pip

Cherryfudge

PipneyJane said:

There is definitely something in the air today.  I've bought a dress from a website.  (This dress.)  I may live to regret it. 

I think you'll live to love it. From here it looks a lavender/grey, is this right?

Definitely something in the air - I've just resisted some linen trousers that I don't need and may not be a match for my work tops - but I still spent a while considering them.

PipneyJane

Cherryfudge said:

PipneyJane said:

There is definitely something in the air today.  I've bought a dress from a website.  (This dress.)  I may live to regret it. 

I think you'll live to love it. From here it looks a lavender/grey, is this right?

Definitely something in the air - I've just resisted some linen trousers that I don't need and may not be a match for my work tops - but I still spent a while considering them.

The description just says “grey”.  On the website, the picture looked grey and black.  I’m hoping it looks that way in real life.  My thoughts when I saw it in the website email was:  “That cut should really suit me” and “It should go with my black suit jacket”.  (I have a dress with a similar cut that I bought at least 5 years ago.). 

- Pip

retiredinfrance

From what my mother told me, no-one ever bought cushion covers or tablecloths, they were all bought blank, then transfers added and embroidered at home.During the war there were transfers specially designed to use up scraps of thread . For example, one I have is of two girls dancing round a maypole and the stripes on the pole are all different colours. Another cushion is a huge sunburst of small pastel ovals and is stunning. Sadly, it needs some repairs. As we lived in Ni I used to go with Mum to the Variety market in Belfast and we would buy "seconds" of linen tablecloths, traycloths, The transfer would be smudged of partly missing, but the design could be recreated. This would have been in the Fifties. My Gran taught me and we still have traycloths I did to hand down....if they want them. After all, who uses traycloths now. 

Cherryfudge

PipneyJane said:

The description just says “grey”.  On the website, the picture looked grey and black.  I’m hoping it looks that way in real life.  My thoughts when I saw it in the website email was:  “That cut should really suit me” and “It should go with my black suit jacket”.  (I have a dress with a similar cut that I bought at least 5 years ago.). 

- Pip

It reminded me of the one TwibbleDee sent a link to: super-versatile. I expect the lavender aspect is just the way my screen shows it as grey and black would be suitable for a greater number of people. I enjoyed looking through the ideas of the people who did the 100-day challenge and your new dress would look super with bright accessories or pastels. I also found a number of other lovelies on your website: its just as well its near the end of their sale as there were some merino jumpers I liked the look of very much and would have seriously considered - but they are no longer available in my size.

 retiredinfrance said:

From what my mother told me, no-one ever bought cushion covers or tablecloths, they were all bought blank, then transfers added and embroidered at home.During the war there were transfers specially designed to use up scraps of thread . For example, one I have is of two girls dancing round a maypole and the stripes on the pole are all different colours. Another cushion is a huge sunburst of small pastel ovals and is stunning. Sadly, it needs some repairs. As we lived in Ni I used to go with Mum to the Variety market in Belfast and we would buy "seconds" of linen tablecloths, traycloths, The transfer would be smudged of partly missing, but the design could be recreated. This would have been in the Fifties. My Gran taught me and we still have traycloths I did to hand down....if they want them. After all, who uses traycloths now. 

Those cushion covers sound lovely, @retiredinfrance, is there any chance of photos? I didn't realise there were transfers designed to use scraps of thread but of course that would be the case. I remember Mum telling me that fairisle was popular because you could reused bits of colourful wool.

Somewhere in the magazines I rescued are a number of 1950s embroidery transfers. I don't know if they would still be viable but I'm sure with a scanner they could be copied and somehow printed onto fabric and one day I intend to investigate. I know cross stitch is more popular now but I do love embroidery.

Liverpool_Anne

@Cherryfudge, I too love embroidery and have a few things sewn by my Mum. She started to embroider when she was quite young, while at school in the 1920s. She was partially deaf and she said she spent a lot of her school day in the heads office doing embroidery which the headmistress sold. I have no idea what lessons she missed but she had beautiful writing and her mental maths was excellent. It makes me quite angry really as she was basically denied an education and it did annoy her as she said it was her work and she was never paid for it. Other things she embroidered went with her Dad when he remarried after her Mum died and when her step Mum died they were all taken by her step sisters. That made her quite angry as well. I remember her having iron on transfers for her embroidery and I may have a couple in the loft with her sewing things. I will have to investigate and let you know.

PollyWollyDoodle

Oh gosh I learned to embroider with those transfers, they were definitely still around in the sixties!  I have a very elderly (nearly 100) friend whom I visit, and she has a set of antimacassars embroidered with hollyhocks and the like, which she made years ago. 

Pip, that dress is lovely. It’s very much my sort of style, although I don’t need to wear dresses much these days.  Fortunately I remembered my vow not to buy any brand-new clothes this year.