Teenagers and sewing

I am going back further to my later school life at the beginning of the 60s when I would have so loved to be taught how to make my own clothes as all we had was needlework.
I used to watch my mother cutting her fabric but when I asked her to teach me she replied,
‘ You will be taught at school’
In the end it wasn’t until I married and before having kids did I attend a sewing class which got me started to make all my own clothes as well as the lads leisure clothes and occasionally for my husband

I have sewn all my married life. I made soft furnishings and children’s clothes, made mine and DDs wedding dresses. GGD came to stay recently and brought her sewing machine to get some lessons. My latest projects are making cushion covers using up crotcheted and knitted lace made by MiL in 40/50’s.
I also have several tubes of fabric waiting to be stuffed to make draught excluders.. All 8 GGC have lots of knitted toys, They put an “order” in when we see each other. Rationalising my fabric stash recently, I gave a bag of fabric to my local school. Still 3 boxes to get through.
OH was taught by his mother to do simple cooking and to sew on a button and repair a tear.

I think basic sewing is a necessity. When I get asked to do minor repairs or sew on buttons because this younger generation can't do it I think it's a sad state to be in .

My 8 year old grandson signed up for sewing classes at school. His big sister has no interest.

Both DDs were supposedly taught ‘needlework’ for a year at senior school, but it didn’t seem to include basic skills like stitching on a button (properly) or turning up a hem (properly).
It started with making a cookery apron, for cookery lessons the following year.

They both hated it, anyway, so I ended up doing much of dd1’s cookery apron (exactly the same as the one I’d made at school around 30 years earlier!) and was rewarded with ‘C+. Neatness and accuracy are 2 skills which you must practice (sic 😂).)

silverlining48

It would be a shame if craft skills die out but w hat we have now means everyone people can afford to buy clothes. I used to either make my own or go to jumble sales. No charity shops then. I don’t really need to now but still like recycling rather than everything ending up in a huge tip in so far off country,

IMO this is the point. Most clothing was made in the U.K. and was relatively expensive, so it was cheaper to make a dress - or knit a jumper - than buy either. Just about everybody’s mother when I was a child could knit and run up everyday garments. Though of course anyone well off would probably have a dressmaker…

My first school (in the 50s) insisted on an overall to protect uniform during our first, kindergarten year. You couldn’t buy them - they were made from a particular Butterick pattern, and had to be in red, blue or green gingham. Presumably it was just assumed that every family had someone capable of making one.
Nobody would assume any such thing now, would they?

I'm 74, we started out knitting cotton dishcloths in primary school,we stayed in an eco barn this year, which had all eco cleaning products, hugely expensive and the same dishcloths. In my teenage years, I made a herringbone coat with black velvet collar...mini length! I bought a real fox fur coat, huge big thing from a Brighton antiques shop,you remember them ladies, like a Russian Cusack,big shoulder pads. I had a fabulous German metal heavy duty machine for my 15th birthday, and kept it to about 10 years ago when I couldn't get parts anymore. But the fur wouldn't even go under the footplate,I took it apart and re made it by hand. I'm 5.1 so everything has to be altered. Things are so badly made and Finnished off,threads hanging
Course I get the kids, grandkids mending, altering
Yes, fabric is expensive, I have found a way round that,vinted and charity shops. My summerhouse has big curtains floor to ceiling wall to wall,to hide the tools, they were a king size duvet cover
Puppy chewed through a (new) duvet cover when I had COVID, that is soon going to be removable covers for the sun loungers.

I was taught sewing at my High school for a year until I was put into the higher set and had to learn German which I never got to grips with.
I was taught mainly by my grandmother and mother . I made a lot of my clothes in the 60’s until Laura Ashley came on the scene . Then I started again for my children . My friend and I used to have sessions and ran up dungarees , little dresses sleep suits - anyone remember Cloth Kits ? Also made all the curtains when we moved house .Then I stopped. Kids didn’t want homemade and I was back at work full time and run off my feet.
I have now bought a new sewing machine ( DD “borrowed “ mine and left it behind in one of her many moves as a young woman.) and intend to start again . Probably just alterations cushion covers and house hold stuff . But you never know I might be the oldest contestant on Sewing Bee !

I used to make lots of my own clothes and most of my two sons clothes when they were children but I gave it up due to the cost of material. I started again during Covid but was (and still am) shocked at the price of patterns never mind the material. I’m enjoying it though so will continue to make bits and pieces but much cheaper to buy most clothes

have you seen the price of fabric? The cheapest, acceptable fabric I can find here is at least £7 per metre, more usually around £11 per metre. Not very conducive to make your own, is it?

I rarely buy material. I remember someone on GN years ago saying that she bought curtains in charity shops to make blinds and it was a bit of a light bulb moment. Ever since then I've looked out for things in charity shops that I can remake. I've bought things in sales if I like the material but not the garment, and remade it. One year I got two white midi length cotton skirts in Primark for £5 each - I took them apart and dyed them and made a skirt and sleeveless blouse out of them. I keep all buttons, zips, and other bits and pieces off garments I take apart or throw out and reuse them. Still have to buy things but it cuts down on what I buy.

AmbeGran That is what DD does, and buys remnants and buys through ebay.

I learnt to sew and knit from my Nan and Mum. I learnt running stitch, back stitch, blanket stitch, plus a few others at age 7. It isn't the job of school to teach basic life skills although it's good that sewing still seems to be in the school curriculum. I taught all my children basic sewing skills and taught them how to use my sewing machine. I doubt they will make time to teach their children.
It is shameful that so many people cannot even sew a button on.

I remember making those cookery aprons. My was in yellow gingham 😂

I learnt to knit from my mother and grandmother, I used. my mother's sewing machine from when I was six. My mother also showed me how to do simple embroidery. I had to go to adult classes to learn crochet though. both of my daughters can use a sewing machine, my eldet daughter taught herself crochet but can't knit. I've tried to teach my granddaughter to knit and crochet, but she just isn't interested

None of my schools taught any kind of “needlework” and from my memory of childhood clothes then were so well made they hardly ever needed repairing. I was no tomboy though😌
Not the same quality now are they.

Some “progressive” teachers were of the opinion that “you won’t be needing to learn that it was phase some primary schools were going through - this included learning multiplication tables too. But at senior we were very much expected to know 12 times tables.
No National curriculum then! And grammar schools were on the way out.
It was a time of experimental teaching aka using some children as Guinea pigs.

Was never taught sewing at home either. Can knit though and sew a button on.

I'm 60 and detest any sort of needlework, won't do it!

It was forced on me at school, and I was constantly shouted at by ''teachers'' for not doing it ''right''. I told them I don't like needlework, find it awkward and fiddly and utterly boring, but they shouted at me even more.

I also detested the sexism; there were never any boys in needlework or cooking, only girls.

To this day, I hate teachers, schools, the sexism, etc.!

Sewing machines of any type scare me, the dangerous pointy needles, speed, and so on!

One of my youngest granddaughters has made scrunchies using her Mum’s sewing machine. I taught my then 18year old grandson to repair his jeans on a sewing machine. He has since continued to experiment. He’s now planning to make a furry hood. Apparently they are all the rage in his music interest.

TheWeirdoAgain60

I'm 60 and detest any sort of needlework, won't do it!

It was forced on me at school, and I was constantly shouted at by ''teachers'' for not doing it ''right''. I told them I don't like needlework, find it awkward and fiddly and utterly boring, but they shouted at me even more.

I also detested the sexism; there were never any boys in needlework or cooking, only girls.

To this day, I hate teachers, schools, the sexism, etc.!

OK, it was back in the 80s, and not in the U.K., but dd1 left the local Brownies in disgust, because the Brownies were expected to learn to knit (shock horror!) while the boys-only Cubs went sausage-sizzling on the beach!
Can’t say I blamed her!

100+years ago DH's grandmother sewed and stitched for an East End tailor. In his teens she taught him to use a sewing machine and he designed and made his own one-man tent used on many, many camping trips.

When I knew his ancient Granny she was already very demented. She wanted a new winter coat; but despised the ready mades in M +S. etc. Instead she demanded to be taken to a mens tailor where she bought yards of Harris tweed and silk lining.
Then she sat cross legged on the floor at home, and with NO PATTERN and no sewing machine she cut out and totally hand stitched herself the most exquisite, perfectly fitted, fully lined winter coat. It was a made to measure work of art; beautiful button holes, What strange tricks memory plays. Meanwhile she didn't recognise her own daughter, believed my husband was |Prince Charles, and was terrified to be left alone even for minutes.

I was taught at Grammar school to sew (hand and machine) darn and make fishing nets ( at the furthest possible distance from coast) In the 1980's to early 90's, all my teenage boys were taught to use a sewing machine at their comprehensive school; they loved it because they were aiming to pass a Driving Test for a sewing machine " Driving License" ( stroke of genius by their teacher). I'd already taught them to knit all sorts of kit required by Action man. That was the extent of their knitting skills and mine. My fishing-net skills turned out to be just the ticket for mending holes in the football goals.

Until just 6 years ago I had my Mother's pre WW2 Singer sewing machine. Actually it was "inherited " from my widowed father's first wife. Mum used it to make me and my sister matching hand -smocked dresses with peter pan collars. I hated them and insisted on wearing mine tucked into my knickers ( at the time I longed to be a boy and called Jim). Then she lent the machine to a friend who kept it for 11 years; on return it passed to me, not quite working. Serendipitously I'd moved to Glasgow; home of the Singer factory, and some ancient old Singer factory pensioners who could service and repair any equally ancient Singers. They did it for pride and love . bills were tiny. Mine now ran like new and I made all our curtains for years. Then I got rich enough to have my curtains professionally made. When the original motor finally seized and died, I took the Singer to a charity shop and some enthusiast snapped it up.

OK, it was back in the 80s, and not in the U.K., but dd1 left the local Brownies in disgust, because the Brownies were expected to learn to knit (shock horror!) while the boys-only Cubs went sausage-sizzling on the beach!

Similarly with my daughter in the early 1990s, in the UK.
She came home from Guides one evening, quite disgusted that they were going to learn "ironing."
"You can teach me that," she said crossly, "I want to do abseiling like the boys do in Scouts." 😠

Whilst de-cluttering I found unused linen flat sheet bought on offer. Our granddaughter finally completed on her first home purchase. She's 24, has little money. I'm setting up my sewing machine and making curtains.

Norah DD and I bought a number of secondhand French linen sheets in Secondhand emporiums in France and we are using them for curtain linings I also bought a complete bale of really good quality heavy duty lining fabric at an aauction locally. It has 10s of metres on the roll and I paid £30 for it only a year ago.

So with DD and I both having moved house this year, to project houses, there is an awful lot of curtain making to do. DD is currently looking at some very expensive fabric for her bedroom, so she is going to be glad of free lining and free tape from a job lot of curtain tape I purchased for a knockdown price, I cannot remember where.

V3ra

^OK, it was back in the 80s, and not in the U.K., but dd1 left the local Brownies in disgust, because the Brownies were expected to learn to knit (shock horror!) while the boys-only Cubs went sausage-sizzling on the beach!^

Similarly with my daughter in the early 1990s, in the UK.
She came home from Guides one evening, quite disgusted that they were going to learn "ironing."
"You can teach me that," she said crossly, "I want to do abseiling like the boys do in Scouts." 😠

Not teaching the boys ironing might be useful.

M0nica

Norah DD and I bought a number of secondhand French linen sheets in Secondhand emporiums in France and we are using them for curtain linings I also bought a complete bale of really good quality heavy duty lining fabric at an aauction locally. It has 10s of metres on the roll and I paid £30 for it only a year ago.

So with DD and I both having moved house this year, to project houses, there is an awful lot of curtain making to do. DD is currently looking at some very expensive fabric for her bedroom, so she is going to be glad of free lining and free tape from a job lot of curtain tape I purchased for a knockdown price, I cannot remember where.

I only sew Roman room darkening blind type curtains and window side curtains. Lovely fabric and lining from the unused linen sheets. Decluttering done well.

Our Granddaughter will be glad of free curtain-blinds for many windows.