2025 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

Sarahspangles

I can remember going with my parents to buy duvets from Habitat in Leeds. It must have been 1973 or 74 as my slightly younger sisters can’t remember ever having blankets on their bed. I think it freed a significant amount of my mother’s time as she would have had five beds to make every morning.

Before that I had a yellowing heavy woollen blanket with a pale blue stripe at the top which was on show when you folded back the cover. There was also a cotton cellular blanket that came out in really cold weather. I assume they were donated but my mother bought some pink synthetic cellular blankets at some point. Those were donated when we cleared the house.

What did you call the top layer over the blanket at your house? My mother tried to get us to call this the counterpane but my friends all had bed covers. They were mostly ‘candlewick’ cotton with cat pulls; I thought the quilted satin ones were the height of sophistication.

Diane1276

Nonnadiluca said:

@Diane1276, I think it was Hugh Flibbertigibbet who mentioned 'seed packet gardening' early in his endeavours, ie. just follow the instructions on the back of the seed packet!

This is exactly my current approach! 
It did take me a while to work out who Hugh Flibbertigibbet was, then I realised. I usually only consult him for cookery advice, if dearest Nigel doesn't have the answers!

Diane1276

Oh I love cellular blankets! I particularly love cotton ones. Despite thinking of them as hospital blankets I find them so comforting. I remember buying one in the late 90s as a student, in bright lilac. A wool one would be lovely.

Nelliegrace

Cotton cellular blankets, hospital standard because they could be boiled. Quite warm under a cotton bedspread. I must have made many thousands of hospital beds.
I noticed, “Blankets for the Shelter, All Wool Tweed, Fawn and Green Mixtures,” advertised in The Times on 10th February 1941, the sale before Purchase Tax would be applied on new stock. Note the warning, “It cannot be too strongly urged on customers the importance of buying now — future goods will be both scarce and higher in price.”
After the war dark grey wool army blankets became available eventually, the standard Youth Hostel blanket. 

Laura_Elsewhere

Diane1276 said:

Nonnadiluca said:

@Diane1276, I think it was Hugh Flibbertigibbet who mentioned 'seed packet gardening' early in his endeavours, ie. just follow the instructions on the back of the seed packet!

This is exactly my current approach! 
It did take me a while to work out who Hugh Flibbertigibbet was, then I realised. I usually only consult him for cookery advice, if dearest Nigel doesn't have the answers!

I know him as Hugh Fearlessly-EatsItAll! 

(For those reading in confusion: Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (I think!), food writer and campaigner for better food production)

PollyWollyDoodle

I’ve still got one of those cream(yellowing) blankets with a blue stripe!  I’m not sure why I keep it - I think I used it when I was a student, but it’s never been used since.  I don’t use the cellular one either that I’ve got.  I think it’s a sort of instinctive feeling that I might need a blanket at some point, but I have duvets on mine and the spare beds. 

Perhaps it’s time to release one or both of them.  

PollyWollyDoodle

PS @Sarahspangles I think it was just ‘bedspread’ to me, but we didn’t have them on the beds, just sheets and a couple of blankets. I was very envious when I went to friends’ houses and they had lovely candlewick ones. 

florianatwobob

One of the blankets I had as a baby and small child was a yellow cellular blanket. It was very warm, I remember it well. 

Baileys_Babe

@Sarahspangles we called them bedspreads I can remember a pink one, a blue one and a purple one, they were all candlewick.

Cherryfudge

I remember candlewick bedspreads! I think ours were white with a coloured central pattern. Beneath that was a duvet-like layer which I think was what we called the counterpane but it was relatively heavy and feather-filled. Under that was the blanket, then the top sheet.