Oh Jean! - I was really routing for your mum by the end of your story....Good on her! - 4' 10" in stature but a leviathan in character!! I too would have loved to see your teacher's face by the time your mum had finished with her.......
The Cross Stitch Forum » CSG Forum
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Sewing Bee
(148 posts)-
brenda midgley
MemberPosted 3 years ago # -
Christine Berrett
AdministratorI too acquired my sewing skills from my mother - I wonder how many of us learned sewing at home rather than at school, even when it was actually taught at school?
Posted 3 years ago # -
Barbara Stone
MemberWe had sewing classes at my junior school - our teacher, the one who told me I'd never be able to sew properly - would set us going, then read to us as well. I remember hearing the Narnia stories in one term, so we did get some good grounding. But when I moved to senior school, we didn't do anything like sewing. We did do Home Affairs (or whatever they called it), and all I can remember from that, is trying to get everything home on the bus without spilling things. Don't remember learning much useful from that class either. I learnt most of my sewing, cooking, knitting, etc., from my mum. And its odd, that with my two nieces, one takes after my sister, loves schoolwork, and has to be forced from her computer at the moment to do some exercise, but the other has spent most of the lockdown making crochet stuff. She just looks at something, then makes up her own pattern. She wants to do more sewing stuff later on, so I think visit to her aunty B. to learn how to do patchwork is in the offing!
Posted 3 years ago # -
brenda midgley
MemberSunday afternoon - it's cold outside so I'm in here and catching up on what we've got round to now ...oh yes, learning to sew from mother. Yes, that just about puts it in a nutshell really. We did have a good sewing teacher at school - Miss Bailey - but it was my mum too who showed me how to approach a dress pattern and how to 'thread up' a sewing machine, what to do when it got tangled up in the shuttle race etc. etc. As for cooking though Barbara, mum had no patience with me on that one as I wasn't really interested, so yours did a good job with you. We did of course have Domestic Science at school, but it was a bit of a no-no really because although rationing had come to a close by that time provisions were still quite hard to get hold of in some respects and in any case, there were some really poverty stricken people where I lived and the mothers couldn't afford quite simply to keep on buying butter, dried fruit, eggs etc for cookery lessons apart from what they needed to keep us fed at home as well. Most of us took our mothers laundry to school for Domestic Science as they had large sinks and huge drying cabinets (we had electricity by then - late 50's)- so that was a useful thing to do.
Talking of Miss Bailey though made me stop and think a minute......apart from her we had a Miss Brown (English teacher) Miss Ockendon (Music) Miss Lee (Dance and excersie type stuff)....it makes me wonder why they were all unmarried.......how sad to think they may have had sweethearts who simply never came back at the end of the war.
Anyway - are we all planning to watch Boris on The Box tonight to see what he's got lined up for us in terms of softening up on the lockdown. I shall be, although I would prefer we're not allowed to go too mad too soon.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Helen Hawkins-Ainsley
MemberHi Ladies
Hope you all had a good weekend
On the subject of school lessons. In the first 2 years of senior school we did needlework, cookery, woodwork & metalwork. Then in the 3rd year did just 2 of them. I did needlework (hated it slightly less than cookery) & woodwork. I learnt more about cooking when my mum broke her arm one year than I ever did at school - they always made us do things we wouldn't eat at home. Needlework was a nightmare & really put me off sewing machines - everything I attempted to make was undone & redone at home. I learnt to knit from my mum, but taught myself cross stitch.
I wanted to carry on doing woodwork for my exam subjects, but wasn't allowed to as it didn't fit with the school timetable. In the 4th year I would have been in a class of 5th year pupils and the other way round - but they would have sorted it out if I'd been a boy !!Posted 3 years ago # -
Barbara Stone
MemberWe were at the end of our fifth year, when we had to choose the subjects that we wanted to carry on with, before doing our GCE's. I really wanted to do Art Metalwork and woodwork, but my father told me I had to have something I could use to earn a living, so I had to do shorthand/typing. I'd much rather have done woodwork, but Dad told me that he would teach me anything I needed to learn - he was a cabinet maker of repute - and he did. I can still use saws, planes, hammers, etc., but I'll be blowed if I can remember most of the shorthand outlines. Some I can, but my speed is nowhere near what it used to be. If you don't use it, you lose it!
As for your comments Brenda about not being able to make a lot of stuff in Domestic Science, well, I can remember once we were making a something, and mum simply couldn't afford to supply everything I needed, and I can remember getting a detention as I hadn't taken the ingredients. Luckily the headmaster came along, as I was starting the detention, found out why I was being punished, and when he found out why I was doing it, he just sent me home, and talked to the teacher, telling her she was being unfair on pupils who didn't have enough disposable income to supply things. We weren't on the breadline, mum just had to be really careful about saving money. On the subject of teachers, we had a Miss Coyne (the one who told me I would never be able to sew), and apparently she did lose her young man in the War. I never knew until I'd left school, and was talking to mum about it. Maybe that's why she was such a martinet.
As for Boris last night - the man should really be in line with the rest of the county, who are not relaxing the rules at all. I think we should still be extremely careful about going out, and I don't intend to relax at all.Posted 3 years ago # -
Helen Hawkins-Ainsley
MemberBarbara, something else we almost have in common. My maternal granddad & great-granddad were both cabinet makers, so that must be where I got it from - unfortunately I never got the opportunity to learn anything from my granddad. I absolutely adore wooden objects - they are so tactile & just want you to hold them. I ended up learning to type instead of doing woodwork, I was told it would help me as I wanted to do computer studies
I think most of my teachers were married or not long out of training, but then I didn't start senior school until the end of the 70's (I'm ducking from anything you're all throwing at me :))
I'm starting to want to go out, but know it's not the sensible thing to do yet.
Looks as though we have lost a whole bike & camping season - hope we get a good one next yearPosted 3 years ago # -
brenda midgley
MemberOh, now that's interesting Barbara and Helen regarding woodwork..... I would have loved to do that at school - and gardening, but because I am of the ancient variety (and yes, you should be ducking Helen - haven't quite forgiven you yet when I was talking of being 20 an entry or two ago and you gaily pipes up that you were 6 weeks old.... - you can go off people.....anyway...woodwork, so - when I was at school lessons were very much boys things and girls things - and gardening and woodwork were boys things. Sad really because we girls were all doing domestic science and needlework there could well have been lads who would have loved to do cookery. Well, they called it cookery but really it was just 'baking'. We always seemed to be making things like rock cakes (and mine were) or sponges so it's no wonder our mums refused to keep buying dried fruit, butter and so on as these cake things, however nice some of them might have tasted - were not a meal........
Boris. deal ol' Boris, I do love him but for starters he is not a good orator and then of course he bumbled on last night and a lot of it was waffle which contradicted itself really. I mean - fancy telling people they could go back to work but not to use public transport - I ask you - in London?? everyone travels on the underground, but by making remarks like that he could easily drive people back into their cars - and then clog up London again with polluted air. When I'm in London nowadays (say for Ally Pally) it's my usual thing to walk from Euston to Kings Cross (for a leg stretch), but it's been quite a number of years now that I walk round all the back streets, whereas the simplest thing to do would be to walk along the main road; but it's so clogged up with traffic the air is just dreadful. He means well but he's like everyone else in Government, they don't live in the world that you and I frequent.....
I was really hoping we'd be told that hairdressers would once again be open for business... down to earth stuff which really matters to we ladies...... too much longer and my fringe bit at the front will have to be sellotaped down to keep it out of my eyes.......
Posted 3 years ago # -
Jean Strange
MemberHi everyone
I was at secondary school in the 60’s but it was definitely boys subjects and girls subjects. Like you Brenda it was domestic science and needlework for girls woodwork and metal work for boys. Ingredients for the cookery bits were usually OK and we did make things we would eat. My long lasting memory is of an apple pie the recipe and how it was to be made was not very well explained and I ended up with a pastry top and bottom when we thought it was top only. Result very thin shortcrust pastry. The pie dish would not fit in my tin so walked home with it wrapped in a tea towel balanced on top of the tin. The policeman on school crossing patrol said “What have you been making and tried to open the tin sticking his thumb straight through my lovely wafer thin pastry!!!!! I remember thinking “hope your nice white gloves are stained!!!!As for Boris it would be nice if we could go to the hairdressers as I have now been told I can have my hair coloured before saying had to wait a bit to make sure meds etc were working. But I think he may just want to make his hairstyle in fashion so is making us all last out until our hair looks like his!!!
I have been going out about once a week just to stop me from going crazy. Just to places where we know they have good social distancing policies in place.
Posted 3 years ago # -
JeannieQ
MemberHi Everyone
I was obviously very lucky at my Girls' High School, although my mum taught me to sew from a very young age (I have a cross stitched tray cloth I did when I was 6) we did some lovely things in sewing at school. I made a linen skirt, a shift dress and a woollen suit and the obligatory apron for cookery, but they wouldn't let me do it for O level - it didn't fit in with the timetable.
My daughters didn't do any sewing at school which was fairly recent but one of them did fashion and textiles at 6th form college(because I had taught her to sew at home). They had them designing all sorts of fantastic outfits which they then had to make for the exam using all sorts of techniques - pleats, gathers, contrasting fabrics like wool and chiffon etc. Then she came home with it and asked me to show her how to put a heavy brass zip onto the outside of a chiffon skirt!!! So they didn't teach them how to do any basic stuff.Back in the day, most of the school teachers were spinsters because as soon as you got married you had to give up work and become a full time housewife. My mum got married in 1945 and was allowed to carry on working because the war was still on but once the men came home she had to stop.
As for the hairdressers, I'm sporting the most fantastic 1970s style afro (the only time my frizzy curls were ever in fashion!) I think I'll see how long I can grow it - it even disguises the grey.
I'm glad Boris has lifted some of the restrictions so that we can travel up to Carlisle next week to stand in my Mum's front garden and sing Happy Birthday to her for her 100th birthday and then travel all the way back home again. A long trip but we wouldn't miss it for the world.
Posted 3 years ago # -
brenda midgley
MemberMorning Jean -
Oh I love Boris' hair. Seems to suit him somehow in that he just cannot keep it under control. It always makes me laugh too when you compare his visage to that of his father, Stanley......there is absolutely no way, if he'd ever wanted to, that he could have denied paternity of Boris!...
As for the colour! - well, there must be ladies all over the world who pay a lot of money to have that colour hair - and Boris just 'washes and goes' probably not even thinking how envious some ladies might feel of his 'mop'.
It's lovely to see your input to the forum - not just because it's interesting to see what you have to say, but because reading between the lines it feels to me that you are making great recovery progress with your medical condition. You sound as if you feel physically stronger, with a lot more get up and go. Just brilliant......
Posted 3 years ago # -
Helen Hawkins-Ainsley
MemberBrenda I ducked. I remember you saying at one of the weekends that you lived in Enfield as we were leaving for northern parts - my granddad thought we were going to live in the back of beyond !!
My school was a comprehensive & I think by the time I went all the subjects had to be for everyone. We even had a small farm for doing Rural Biology (fancy name) with sheep, goats, pigs(?) - it went years ago & that piece of land was sold off for housing
I have started cardigan number 2, but I need to borrow some needles from Mum, mine are too short & are driving me mad
I am still working. The company I work for produces packaging for food & pharmaceuticals so classes as essential manufacturing. I work from home most of the time, but am missing my day a week in the office with my colleagues
Posted 3 years ago # -
brenda midgley
MemberHello JeannieQ -
Your input popped up the same time as mine answering Jean Strange, so I didn't see it until after I'd done my posting.
Zips - I think that must be the one most people have qualms or trouble with.... certainly I know for myself I get a bit hot under the collar everytime I set the machine up and have zip and fabric in my hand!!
Your explanation too of Miss Someone or other as a teacher now explains that little mystery.......I do recall nurses, donkeys years ago, were expected to leave the profession if they married, with many of them hanging on before a marriage ceremony so's they could pass their exams and become qualified, rather than leave halfway through their training. Barbara I'm sure will bear me out on that one.....
It was one of the positives of war years, despite the terrible loss of lives etc, that women were suddenly being recognised as having skills and managing abilities that surprise surprise extended beyond the kitchen sink...... so at least these days we are allowed to have teachers and nurses who are married. Women were severely underestimated prior to that. Who would have thought too that women are even allowed to be a member of the elite Red Arrows team nowadays, piloting those amazing aeroplanes with just as much skill as their fellow counterparts...... (I'd be too busy being sick myself with all the aerobatics....)
You also made a shift dress in your sewing class at school - yes, very 60's that would have been - Jean Shrimpton and Twiggy era......
As for the tray cloth you stitched at 6 years old..... Next time we are fortunate enough to have a Guild weekend - and if you are able to come - you simply must bring that with you; I for one would be fascinated to see it as I'm sure others would be too.
Posted 3 years ago # -
JeannieQ
MemberHi Brenda,
That's a good idea, perhaps instead of a Bring and Brag (as there will be way too many completed projects) we could have 'The first thing you ever stitched'. I'm sorry to say I haven't stitched anything during lockdown yet but our little group has made over 70 sets of scrubs for the hospitals and care homes in Cheshire. Now perhaps I can get back to some stitching of my own, although I am being asked for masks now.......Posted 3 years ago # -
Barbara Stone
MemberJeannie, how on earth did you manage to get the material to make 70 sets of scrubs? I've been unable to get any material at all for those, so I've been making masks for people in our local Supermarket, - they need things as well, and as I've got plenty of scraps of material, I can do masks.
Brenda, sorry to say that when I trained from '79 onwards, we weren't expected to give up our training if we got married.
Helen, I can't believe we have that connection, about our relatives being cabinet makers. Dad wasn't a master cabinet maker, 'cos his mother couldn't afford to have him apprenticed properly, but he was given the same training, whilst earning how to do things. However, he was extremely good at what he did, and all our family have things that he made for us.
Today, I've been making another Linus quilt for the RUH, enjoyable, as I can experiment with different quilt patterns on a small scale. However tomorrow, I intend to start a new double size quilt, if I can, after I've been shopping for food, and queued at B & Q. Apparently the queue was about quarter of a mile up north. Hope its better in Taunton.Posted 3 years ago # -
JeannieQ
MemberHi Barbara, the lady who coordinated the scrubs and the NHS requirements, used to be a school teacher and she got the fabric from a man in Bolton who gave us over 600 metres free and got one of his delivery drivers to deliver it to us free because he thought we were so good give up our time to make them. Community all pulling together. But yes it is difficult trying to buy anything at the moment - finding elastic for masks is hopeless so I've resorted to tapes, I think they are comfier anyway.
I have now got all the off cuts from the scrubs (and there's an awful lot), so our quilt group is going to make Linus quilts with them. So still no time do do my own stitching....Posted 3 years ago # -
brenda midgley
MemberHello girls,
Gracious - we are up to 56 posts on this subject..... and we've covered a lot of ground as well as Sewing Bee!Glad you ducked Helen - wouldn't have wanted to throw an old boot at you really....... Have to put you right on Enfield though....you must have me muddled with someone else as I lived at Stratford E15, Sandal Street. After I got married and moved away they started razing the area to the ground (half of it was missing anyway as it was just bomb rubble). Funnily enough Geoff and I did a bus ride all round the area sometime last year and then got off and had a walk about. Sandal Street is no more but there is a green square area now which makes it more pleasant I suppose for those living there. The small part of the street that does still exist though was 'anagrammed' and is now called Asland Road. Now you really wanted to know all that didn't you ...... so, swiftly moving on.
Yes Barbara I agree from sometime round the 70's mark nurses were allowed to be married. I must have confused you as I was talking of an era much before that. Interestingly enough though I joined the hospital service in 1974 when Geoff and I moved to Cheshire. I worked for Mrs. Turnock, Director of Nurse Education. I wonder if you remember that at that time we had SENs as well as SRNs? A lot of SENs were given the title as they had been 'nurses' for a long time and had earned their rank 'by virtue of experience' (that was its official description). Anyway, a lot of the SENs by then were 'Mrs' and when I joined they were seeking post-enrolment training to gain their state registration. That was the sphere in which I worked - the Schol of Nursing and Midwifery. I loved the many years I worked in that department. Personally I felt they should never have done away with SENs, I think they did stirling work as 'by the bedside' nurses. I was certainly grateful to them the couple of times I've been an in-patient. Being in the main a bit older than the students who were coming into the service for state registration training (and therefore more of an age of having just left college) - I found SENs to be comforting and 'mumsy' - more sort of cherishing if that doesn't sound a daft thing to say. Anyway - just my personal viewpoint.....
Had a good discussion with my chum Fiona a day or two ago - re smocking from the Sewing Bee. She too agreed with the rest of you - it wasn't smocking as she knew it. Can't think why I know nothing about smocking though. I've a photo of me downstairs with my mother and I'm wearing a dress which is smocked and I feel sure she would have made it. Mind you I look as if I was about a year to 18 months old so would have hardly been up to having a converstion with her about the smocking on my dress......
Wonderful to see how busy you and Jeannie have been with making masks and scrubs - very well done of you both. You make me feel quite lazy and selfish for not thinking of doing the same thing ......
Perhaps either or both of you can enlighten me now though - as you both refer to Linus quilts. In my ignorance I haven't a clue what a Linus quilt is....how does it differ from an ordinary quilt. My education is obviously sadly lacking.......
Posted 3 years ago # -
JeannieQ
MemberLinus quilts started in America and are so called after the character in the Peanuts cartoon, the one who always dragged a comfort blanket behind him and had flies buzzing over his head. The quilts are given to children in hospital as a comfort blanket for them to take home when they leave. It's an international organisation now and there are organisers all over the country who collect them from the volunteers who sew them and then distribute them to wherever they are needed.
Posted 3 years ago # -
brenda midgley
MemberThank you for enlightening me Jeannie.... I really had no idea.... I can obviously see now though the reasoning behind such an item. It's an international organisation too you say, so shame on me for being so dense and not knowing.....
I have in my time knitted those teddies that served the same sort of function in third world countries and what have you...same basis - given to children whilst poorly in hospital...children who have nothing, but are given one of these teddies which they also can take home with them.
I can remember one year whilst I was at work when these teddies and their use was first coming to light........I was organising the School's Christmas dinner bash (the nursing schol this is) and I did a round robin to everyone with details of where and when etc. of the dinner. I finished it off by saying that everyone had to bring a Teddy with them. One of the girls made me laugh because she thought I meant the risque lingerie type of Teddy... and said "I thought to myself Brenda's getting a bit cheeky - are we supposed to hold these things up round the dinner table and make a show of ourselves".
It worked though and several teddies were given to me which I passed on to the organiser of this scheme.Even to this day I've got a half knitted teddy downstairs languishing in a bag - no one seems to bother with the idea now though, so it would seem the Linus quilt has taken over.......
Posted 3 years ago # -
JeannieQ
MemberTeddies are still very much on the go - the police have them to hand to children who have been through a traumatic time, hence trauma teddies!
Posted 3 years ago #
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