Needles and pins
Every issue, Marion Clarke relives the best bits of our lives. This fortnight – your memories of learning to sew
Now that clothes are cheap to buy and can be thrown in the trolley with our weekly supermarket shop, we have forgotten the satisfaction of making our own outfits, as Winifred Rickard reminds us: “Oh, the joy of looking through the pattern books and the pleasure of wearing something that was not off-the-peg.
Being one of five sisters, making our own clothes was as natural as breathing.”
But the first step was learning how to sew and that wasn’t easy. “In my first year at grammar school we all had to make white aprons with hand-stitched bias-binding edges. I can’t remember how many times I had to unpick and re-stitch it. My mum stopped me from throwing it on the fire.” Sue Buckey was similarly exasperated by her early attempts: “My most vivid and frustrating memory of sewing at school was discovering that I had accidentally sewn my work on to my dress. It took ages to unpick it all and resew it!” Mary Ray got off to a better start: “My domestic science teacher was so inspirational. She showed us how a paper pattern and a careful choice of material could be transformed into something we were proud to wear. A blouse and skirt that I made in pale blue cotton was such a success I was chosen, with six of my friends, to go to the schools’ exhibition in Olympia. I’ll never forget the excitement of parading my outfit, complete with white stilettos, down the catwalk.” Equally talented, Margaret Barrow left school at 15 to study dressmaking at the Medway College of Art: “My teacher was Mrs Rhodes, the mother of dress designer Zandra Rhodes who I also knew as a child. I left to get married but continued to sew, making my children’s clothes and many wedding dresses and christening gowns.”
For many readers, it was their mum or grandmother who taught them. Pam Jones says: “My mother made most of our clothes. I still have dozens of her Simplicity patterns and her Singer sewing machine (now more than 80 years old!). “I was thrilled when, under her expert guidance, I made three fur-fabric helmets, each with a chin strap and button. They were all the rage in the Sixties. Thinking back, those admiring glances I thought I was getting were probably looks of astonishment – one was lime green, one day-glo orange and my favourite was fluorescent pink!” Jean White believes her ability was in her genes:
“Sewing came naturally to me and I was told that my great-grandfather
‘I was thrilled with my lime green, day-glo orange and pink helmets!’
was a tailor. I became the seamstress in our family of seven girls and one brother. “Later, when my youngest daughter started secondary school, I made up my mind that I would start up a little business. I started off in an upstairs room and had to move premises twice as my business flourished.”
In 1987, Val Sleight had the same idea when she set up Scallywags Sewing Centre with her sisters: “We stocked fabrics, patterns, haberdashery and wool and made children’s clothes, including school uniforms. Our mother, who was excellent with a needle, played her part by making aprons, PE bags and hair ruffles.”
Val has now retired, but she says she would never part with her sewing machine. Hazel Moysey feels the same: “After learning to make dolls’ clothes, sewing by hand, I was eventually allowed to use Mum’s Singer sewing machine which I still use today. She was given it when she was 14, so it will be a hundred years old this year. I’ve used it to make dresses for my grandchildren, a wedding dress, and even a Tigger outfit. “It is now cheaper to buy clothes, but they are not unique as ours were.”
In the Sixties, Shona Bingham made dresses for herself and her mum using Style and Simplicity patterns. She still remembers one disaster in particular, a dress using the latest ‘invisible’ nylon thread: “When I wore the dress I was horrified to find the armhole stitches had given way so when I removed my cardigan the sleeves of the dress came with it!”
“Oh, the joy of looking through the pattern books and the pleasure of wearing something that was not off-the-peg”
Susan Loftus treasures a book of sewing instructions dating back to the 1880s that she inherited from her grandmother who had been in service: “Several chapters cover invisible darning on various fabrics and the final chapter gives instructions for creating baronial crests on bed-hangings and linen! I have always been able to darn neatly – but no-one has ever asked me to sew a baronial crest!”
The last person to rise to any sewing challenge would be Chris Leaves who sent us this memory of lessons at her convent school: “I disliked the dressmaking classes as the nuns were very strict about the number of stitches to the inch.
“They despaired when my hands got sweaty and made the cotton grubby. Eventually they nominated me to read out loud to the class while they sewed. Now that I am in my 70s I still enjoy reading – and I am a constant knitter.”