2021 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

CAFCGirl

You all have such skills!

What lovely embroidery work to cherish @Cherryfudge.

Beautiful cut/style of dress too @PipneyJane

You ladies all have such style 

Cherryfudge

Liverpool_Anne said:

@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.

What a shame your Mum didn't get to keep more of her embroideries... and even more that she didn't get paid for her work. At least some remain with you and are appreciated.

I can see a few of us forming a little embroidery Bee in the village hall: we could compare progress!  

retiredinfrance

i am really sorry,but I don't know how to get a photo onto the forum. After thinking, it was in the early sixties that I went to buy linen at the market in Belfast. I still collect unused transfers from Charity shops but haven't done embroidery in ages. I do so enjoy this thread.
Bon courage and keep safe everyone!

Cherryfudge

retiredinfrance said:

i am really sorry,but I don't know how to get a photo onto the forum. After thinking, it was in the early sixties that I went to buy linen at the market in Belfast. I still collect unused transfers from Charity shops but haven't done embroidery in ages. I do so enjoy this thread.
Bon courage and keep safe everyone!

No worries, I was just intrigued by the descriptions you gave.  

I only embroider in summer because the light is best then.

I add photos using the little mountains icon at the top of the box when posting text. The difficulty is having the photos stored in the right place so I can get my hands on them. They also take ages to load off my phone... and I struggle to find them on the computer because most are stored in the cloud, so it's not all that easy.

Today I'm havering between doing the last couple of magenta flowers (hesitating because that will then mean getting the sewing machine out to repair the side seams of the cushion case and the sewing machine and I don't speak the same language), doing another row of so of the grey jumper (but it's too hot to have that thick yarn on my lap) and starting the ribbing for the front of the blue jumper... oh, and cleaning out the goldfish, which might be the most important so I will probably stray into other activities first. At least with the knitting, I have constructive displacement activities!

I wonder if I should give the sewing machine a name and embellish it with stickers or something? To build up a positive relationship with it?!

TwibbleDee

Still reading The Domestic Revolution.  No wonder clothing and tapestries used to last much longer!  She’s talking about how, prior to coal burning becoming common, soap was rarely used in laundering and washing up because wood didn’t leave a layer of smut on everything.  Most items could just be brushed clean. The descriptions of how to do the washing up prior to coal fascinate me.  I wonder how long scouring would take compared to modern methods?

Laura_Elsewhere

@TwibbleDee - I haven't read the book, but I have lived with pans that need scouring as in abrasion, and have also used scouring as in sluicing with boiling water and leaving to air-dry rapidly - two different processes, both called scouring.

tbh, my reckoning is that none of the older methods take longer, and they way I wash up uses far far far less water (you learn fast, when on a living history camp where you not only have to heat all your hot water but have to carry it as well!)... plus I was horrified to find out from My Intended that glassware these days is generally something you replace every couple of years... I checked with friends and they casually all agreed - this is because of what dishwashers do to glassware, totally destroying the surface. 

M.I. is fascinated by how much more efficient washing-up is when it's done properly... 

EDIT: and yes, it's only recently that we wash everything! It used to be that you washed the "bodylinen" ie underclothes and shirt or chemise, the launderable layer that protected your clothing from nasty oily sweaty skin! 

PollyWollyDoodle

Cherryfudge said:

I wonder if I should give the sewing machine a name and embellish it with stickers or something? To build up a positive relationship with it?!

You should definitely get to know it better and make friends with it!  My sewing machine doesn’t have a name, but my overlocker is called Pearl, you can probably work out why. 🙄

I really recommend a little book called “Me and my Sewing Machine” by Kate Haxell. It explains all the basics and gives you really clear examples of different stitches. Even though I had used a sewing machine for years, when I bought an electric one I got this book and it was very helpful. It’s like anything else, the more you use it, the less daunting it seems.

Laura_Elsewhere

I've never named my sewing machine but then again we've been together for forty years now since I was twelve, and it does only do one stitch, so...  

I've still never learnt how to use ALL the attachments but then I rarely need to sew on braid and ruffle and puff at the same time as hemming - those Victorians had some weird methods  

Wraithlady

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.

I got given some iron-on transfers from my Nan from the '50's, including Pop Stars of the age - Pat Boone was the only one I remember! Still got them somewhere, but I haven't actually done any of them

Cherryfudge

PollyWollyDoodle said:

Cherryfudge said:

I wonder if I should give the sewing machine a name and embellish it with stickers or something? To build up a positive relationship with it?!

You should definitely get to know it better and make friends with it!  My sewing machine doesn’t have a name, but my overlocker is called Pearl, you can probably work out why. 🙄

I really recommend a little book called “Me and my Sewing Machine” by Kate Haxell. It explains all the basics and gives you really clear examples of different stitches. Even though I had used a sewing machine for years, when I bought an electric one I got this book and it was very helpful. It’s like anything else, the more you use it, the less daunting it seems.

Is she by any chance a Singer?

I got majorly side-tracked this afternoon as we had a trip out to a town about 25/30 miles away where a clock mender has been repairing a piece of my Grandfather clock. DH retrieved the part for the clock and we had a mooch round various charity shops, which is how I come to own a pair of green denim jeans, coupon-free. Pip is right about there being something in the air!

I've cast on the front for the blue jumper and knitted two rows of the other one, the one that was too warm to keep working on this morning. I've also used a pair of what I think must be medical tweezers (found in my Dad's things) and can highly recommend them for unpicking tiny bits of thread. They were also a freebie but  I looked them up and they cost about £5 new so that was topically money-saving.

I'm off to research the Kate Haxell book - thank you for that, @PollyWollyDoodle, it could be just what I need. As I think I've said elsewhere, they seem to have changed the rules since needlework lessons at school (not that I achieved much in those).