2025 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

Nelliegrace

An eiderdown, I think, @Cherryfudge. I remember my brother had a green one. He had the box room which was very cold. 
Paisley fabrics were popular on eiderdowns. 

Cherryfudge

Nelliegrace said:

An eiderdown, I think, @Cherryfudge.

Absolutely, @Nelliegrace! And the one in your photo is almost the image of what my sister and I had on our beds under the candlewick cover. Sorry for the misnomer, my brain wasn't working properly after waking up at 4am.
We got used to the weight of all those layers and my Mum would never have a duvet as she felt she needed the weight to sleep. I see what she meant as I like heavy covers even now and a duvet - marvellous though they are - just isn't heavy enough to tuck itself round one.

Sarahspangles

Nelliegrace said:

An eiderdown, I think, @Cherryfudge. I remember my brother had a green one. He had the box room which was very cold. 
Paisley fabrics were popular on eiderdowns. 

I don’t recall people having eiderdowns at all, and they aren’t so different from duvets. Was there a reason there was a shortage at some point post war?

One of my grandmothers saved chicken feathers for pillows, I cleaned the feathers and made new cases for a couple of her pillows when I first set up home. I wouldn’t know where to get the fabric now. Until recently we had an amazing shop in Leeds called Samuel Taylor’s that had bolts of every fabric including feather proof ticking. My grandmother sent me and my sisters there to buy my youngest sister's wedding dress satin, made up by my middle sister. A decade earlier, my grandmother would have made it, as that was her living.

PollyWollyDoodle

Well, I am burning through my coupons!  I don’t feel too bad as in previous years I’ve hardly spent any. 

I was given some vouchers at Christmas by a company I work for, last year it took me all year to spend them. I’ve just booked a long awaited trip to Norway in November, so I’ve invested in some thermals.  I’m treating a thermal vest and leggings as ‘combinations’, so that’s two lots of 4 coupons; two plain T-shirts and a white cotton shirt is another 15, and five pairs of knickers brings it up to 33 coupons. 

Annoyingly, I was trying to use the full value of the gift card but realised afterwards that I could’ve just left the balance in my account, however, I needed to get enough for free delivery anyway.  Based on previous years, I will probably not spend many more coupons as I’ll continue my policy of buying secondhand.  Apart from the T-shirts and shirt, these are all things that I would not buy used.  

Cherryfudge

I'm not sure how old our eiderdowns were: they could just possibly have been second hand as my Grandmother had run a boarding house and we certainly inherited bedding, some of which would still be used if modern beds were the same dimensions. I think some of the sheets were used in the 1990s for the children's (single) beds. 

I don't know anything about a shortage? But if there was, ours in the 1960s/70s could have been old stock.

In some ways they are quite a bit like a duvet but there are important differences. The term 'Eiderdown' I think refers to the under-feathers from the Eider duck, which were used to stuff them. (Google tells me they are still available). As @Nelliegrace's photo shows, they were quilted and the quilting went through all the layers, meaning they didn't have a removable/washable cover as a duvet does. I suppose that's why they had a a sheet between them and the person in the bed, and a protective counterpane over the top despite being pretty to look at. I remember them as being heavier than a duvet.

We kept ours well into the 1970s and I remember how angry I was coming home from school to find my mother had spirited them away and replaced them with modern bedding! This was pre-duvets, though, so perhaps we just had more blankets or the new candlewick counterpanes? When I came to clear the house a few years ago, I found my old eiderdown bundled into a cushion, so I suppose it was removed on the grounds of being too depleted to be effective.

Laura_Elsewhere

Sarahspangles said:

I don’t recall people having eiderdowns at all, and they aren’t so different from duvets. Was there a reason there was a shortage at some point post war?

One of my grandmothers saved chicken feathers for pillows, I cleaned the feathers and made new cases for a couple of her pillows when I first set up home. I wouldn’t know where to get the fabric now. Until recently we had an amazing shop in Leeds called Samuel Taylor’s that had bolts of every fabric including feather proof ticking. My grandmother sent me and my sisters there to buy my youngest sister's wedding dress satin, made up by my middle sister. A decade earlier, my grandmother would have made it, as that was her living.

I think the difference is that eiderdowns were never used as duvets are used- eiderdowns were part of the layering of a traditionally-made bed in 20th century (and 19th) Britain- you'd have the bottom sheet underneath you, and then the top sheet on top of you, folded back at the top over the blanket(s) and then the eiderdown on top of that, often sliding off the bed as it was a bit stiffer than duvets and often made of slippery material.  There might be a quilt on top of the eiderdown, sometimes pieced-patchwork, sometimes wholecloth. The bedspread or counterpane went on top of that, but was supposed to be removed before getting into bed- it was a decorative cover for daytime, really. 

There may have been a shortage post-war simply because there was a shortage of everything except army blankets... but it's also possible that people still had eiderdowns but you didn't know because they were part of the layers and if there was a quilt on top then you wouldn't necessarily know it was there. 

But they never would have been used like a duvet is used, and they were much stiffer, more densely-stuffed. And they were mostly very expensive as well, if a real eiderdown, made from down from eider ducks- people had cheaper feather-filled ones, as with duvets, and eiderdown became a generic term like hoover...

There is still Thornton & Watson, or Watson & Thronton, in Shrewsbury who sell everything from bolts, inc proper ticking. they do mail order and have a website if you are ever looking for a specific fabric! 

PipneyJane

I'm loving all this talk about eiderdowns. We have DH's carefully packed away.  I'm not certain if it was his on his childhood bed or whether he inherited it when his parents split up, but he was using it a duvet when I met him.  (IIRC it's a double.)

PollyWollyDoodle said:

Well, I am burning through my coupons!  I don’t feel too bad as in previous years I’ve hardly spent any. 

I was given some vouchers at Christmas by a company I work for, last year it took me all year to spend them. I’ve just booked a long awaited trip to Norway in November, so I’ve invested in some thermals.  I’m treating a thermal vest and leggings as ‘combinations’, so that’s two lots of 4 coupons; two plain T-shirts and a white cotton shirt is another 15, and five pairs of knickers brings it up to 33 coupons. 

Annoyingly, I was trying to use the full value of the gift card but realised afterwards that I could’ve just left the balance in my account, however, I needed to get enough for free delivery anyway.  Based on previous years, I will probably not spend many more coupons as I’ll continue my policy of buying secondhand.  Apart from the T-shirts and shirt, these are all things that I would not buy used.  

@PollyWollyDoodle, since we haven't come to a consensus re my suggestion to use a stockings coupon for a thermal top, then I too will regard my new thermals as "combinations" and record the coupon cost accordingly.

- Pip

Sarahspangles

I wonder if eiderdowns weren’t passed down in my family because by the time they were available, we’d all got central heating, double glazing and duvets. Also I’m one of five children, so there wouldn’t have been enough to go round!

Back to coupons, I am still feeling a bit guilty about my Vinted purchases. I think everything I’ve acquired has been worn, does that really mean I don’t need to count it? Yesterday the postman brought a cashmere scarf which cost me 1/12 the purchase price. I gently washed it, it has a couple of tiny holes which are plausibly from a brooch, and a coffee stain. It’s hardly worn and I suspect the owner was ‘mother of the bride’ then just couldn’t face the hand washing because she’s not a scarf person. I’m going to try white spirit on the stain, but if that doesn’t work it’s not really noticeable. I definitely won’t ‘wear it out’ myself and it will probably have pulls by the time I retire it. I wish there was a way to recycle natural fibres like this.

Laura_Elsewhere

@Sarahspangles you can use worn-out natural fibres in various ways- for example, you could use the cashmere scarf to line a hanging-basket in lieu of moss, or to line terracotta or clay flowerpots to help protect plants’ roots from heat and cold. Or you can cut it up and mix it into your compost bin.

our local Council takes all rags at its recycling centre, and we had a long discussion with them and they can even use snipped ends of thread from sewing so I keep a little tin by my sewing machine and every tiny bit gets recycled eventually… 

I don’t know anywhere that takes only natural fibres but there simply be places- the Welsh blanket company that uses recycled fibres (historically known as shoddy) or the company that cuts up cashmere jumpers to make sewn fingerless gloves…?

florianatwobob

I seem to remember we briefly inherited an eiderdown from my grandparents. I wasn’t a fan as I do like to thrash about in bed (ooo-er) and generally have my feet out of the covers unless it’s very cold. 

Now my grandparents ‘flying saucer’ electric bed warmer  was an entirely different matter!