Did you make anything at school ?

Ouch!!!

I made a smocked apron which I still have and a needle case in gingham with cross-stitch on it which my mum (age 85) still has in her sewing box after over 50 years. Can also remember making a peg bag and a duchess set (??) My overriding memory of sewing at school is the time we spent queueing up at the teacher's desk waiting for her to get us out of trouble. No wonder it took so long to finish anything!

Wow! Reading what some of you made really makes me envious and feel old!

We were not allowed to do any Domestic Science, no male teachers, all so old fashioned, as she was the same head that my mother's age would have had, grey haired done up in a bun!

However, on Sunday she would read to us under an oak tree, while we did our embroidery.

Can anyone remember doing this?

The third year of Junior school we made a desk cover, a large hemmed square of fabric with a pocket in the middle. It was to put on the desk when making subsequent things. It folded up and tied with strings with our work in it when put away. Can't remember the subsequent things though! Made an apron for cookery in secondary school. I still have both these things.

Too many cookery items to list, but very happy memories of the cookery sessions, not always totally successful , with our group of about a dozen and a very nice teacher

I found all the skills I was taught in needlework and cookery came in very useful after I left.

Isn't it funny that as many people were hooked for life by 'Domestic Science' type lessons as were repelled?

I remember being incandescent with rage and despair on learning that my children were to be taught pizza box design in 'Food Technology', rather than actual cooking with a view to learning to feed themselves! I felt that if they ever actually got a job designing pizza boxes, their boss would have an opinion on how they should be done. But when they went home at night - how would they know how to cook?

Primary knitted a very miniature skirt, for my Sindy doll I think. Also a tiny pottery pot and a needle case! Secondary school in domestic science endless bread, cakes and pastry. Once a fish pie but can never remember cooking meat. Our domestic science teacher did teach a few of us volunteers to make pillow bobbin lace out of school time. I really enjoyed it and my dad, a centre lathe turner engineer, made me some bobbins. I still have them but don't know how much lace making I would remember. Not a lot.

I made a little smocked dress for the daughter of my DM's friend, when I was in the top year of junior school. I loved doing it and it was all by hand. Later on she grew up to be one of my bridesmaids. When at grammar school, we had first to make aprons for domestic science. October was Christmas cake time, and I remember making hungarian goulash, and having to get it home on the back of my bike during the bus strike. Loved domestic science and think that the teacher was a great influence.

My mother was a time served tailoress but I still managed to make a poor job of my high school cookery apron! It was very different and awkward sewing at school compared with Mum's lessons. We also made pyjamas in the first year at high school but they were ruined one night when my period overflowed . I never wore them again.

Needlework and cookery classes were more enjoyable as I got older but my mum taught me so much more, as I'm sure yours did.

In 'sewing' at primary school I made Binca embroidered strips and bookmarks and in secondary school the fierce and terrifying Mr MacWilliam (Mackie) made us make an apron and cap (such as housemaids wore!) for domestic science, a blouse and a 'garment of our own choice' though I can't remember what I chose to make. At another school under a kinder sewing teacher I was allowed to make a rag doll which turned out really well and revealed to me that I actually could sew.

Mackie also taught us cooking and we made:-
sponge cake, ginger cake, Victoria sandwich, fruit cake, bakewell tart, Christmas cake (with marzipan and Royal Icing), scones, rock buns, brown stew, white stew (whatever that is), roux sauce, bechamel sauce, short pastry, rough puff pastry, flaky pastry, choux pastry, white bread, brown bread and fruit loaf. And these are just the things I particularly remember as there were others. I recall making Viennese fingers and choux buns at another school.

At the time I hated and feared Mackie. On my first day in her classroom she smacked my hand for looking out of the window! However, were I to meet her today I would give her the heartiest thanks for the incredible training, experience and confidence she gave me in the kitchen and with the sewing machine.

I remember practising knitting in primary school using balls of string to make garter stitch squares, which were unraveled at the end of each lesson so that the string could be re-used. Then we were allowed to make a pair of slippers using wool squares with ribbon ties for the uppers. For the soles we had to bring in a piece of felt. In the 1940's most kids brought in pre-used felt. In my case, an old felt hat donated by my Grandma. I was so proud of the finished article and wore them until they were outgrown.
At grammar school, I spent the whole of the first year's ds lessons making a hideous 'four-gored' (?) skirt in royal blue fabric. It was still unfinished as the end of the year was approaching, so I was allowed to take it home to finish, on the understanding that I brought the completed item back for inspection. My Aunt was an excellent dressmaker and hemmed the wretched thing for me. Unfortunately, the hemming stitch didn't meet with the teacher's approval and I had to sit under her eagle eye and unpick the stitches.
The skirt never did get finished. As we were allowed to pay weekly for the material which the school had supplied, I was made by my parents to pay from money which I earned from doing odd jobs.
Thankfully, I dropped ds lessons in the second year in favour of German. I continued to enjoy knitting and have made all kinds of things over the years. Never been a fan of dressmaking, although used to make dresses for dds when living in Africa in the 1960's/70's. Sadly, they always looked home-made.

We had to make these horrible baby dresses in either blue, red or yellow checked gingham ( mine was blue) and then smock them. My sewing skills were extremely limited and when I took the dress home each week, my grandmother used to unpick it and resew it properly.
In cookery, we made macaroni cheese which was so disgusting that nobody wanted to take it home. We also had to watch whilst the teacher demonstrated roasting a joint of meat.
Fortunately, as it was a very academic school, I only had to take both cookery and needlework for a year!

I too made a Flannelette nightdress in junior school, all hand sewn and with French seams Chloe. Never wore it.
Also an embroidered needle case which my mum used until she died when I rescued it and now use it myself. It's horribly tatty but as its now 65 years old it deserves to be kept. It's in the shape of a round book with flannel pages for the needles. The cover was made in cardboard covered in embroidered cotton so it's never been washed!
Other things, gloves on four needles, cap and apron for DS. Can't remember the rest.
Why did DS teachers always have us making rock cakes? A complete abomination that nobody would eat. Does anybody make rock cakes today?

A pillow case and dress with smocking for baby sister and knitted gloves

My very greatest achievement in cookery was jam turn overs , only girl who didn't have jam trickled down the pastry case - the jam was still in the jar

I was one of those who couldn't get to grips with needlework and spent terms on one item while others galloped ahead making blouses, dresses, etc.
However, I did learn basic embroidery stitches at primary school and still have my 'needlework bag' from that time! And I know how to thread a bobbin, make hems , tack, and sew buttons, all skills learned at school as Mum didn't ever pick up a needle (Dad was the one to sew buttons, and mend things in our house!) These are skills my own children were not taught at school as the grammar schools didn't bother with such trivial subjects as Domestic Science, shame on them.

DGs have just had to thread a needle and sew on a button as one of their primary school 'challenges'. Perhaps they'll teach their Mum how to do it now....

We had to make a pair of truly baggy drawers, by hand, including French seams. Did I ever wear them? What do you think? Then there was the blouse - the sewing teacher measured us over our blazers, so the blouses were enormous and shapeless. And I don't remember wearing that either. Thank goodness the stream I was in had to do sewing and cooking for just two years so that we could concentrate on more 'academic' subjects. However, my mum allowed me to use her sewing machine and I made myself some perfectly usable dresses.

We knitted hairbands, pot holders, scarves, hats, mittens, and socks in primary school. The first six to finish their socks in P. 7 got to make blouses, the others made lap bags! I was a lap bag.

In secondary it was cookery, and I remember potato soup and baked apples, but nothing else.