Monika's' Crazy Teen' thread gave me this idea.


I remember many years ago I regularly used to patch mine, Tony's and the kids jeans using a sticky product similar to Copydex.
Money was scarce and it made them last a bit longer.

I also bought darning wool and darned Tony's work socks.

It got me wondering has anybody else patched & darned?

I have patched - rarely. I have darned, and used to make a nice work of art with it. At convent boarding school, after 'Prep', once a month we sat in a circle darning our lisle stockings while a prefect read aloud from a spiritual book.

Socks are regarded as throwaways now as are many garments. We are a wasteful society!!

I've used that rubbery stuff to patch things, too. I stopped using it when I realised it dissolved if you wash the garment in too-hot water (before the days when a 30^o wash was standard). I still do occasionally patch things if I can find a suitable oddment of fabric to make a neat patch - a snip from the tail of a shirt to repair a ripped sleeve, for example.
I gave up darning socks when OH complained that my darns were lumpy and rubbed his feet.

Thankfully, I don't ever have to darn socks any more; I've done my share of that in year's gone by.

I don't like to wear socks for long before I dispose of them - they seem to go hard after a time, so one of my lif'e's little luxuries is buying a new stock of socks around every six months or so. Oh, the joy of wearing a new pair of socks .............. love it!

Patching and darning were as normal a household activity as using leftovers.

Nobody ever bought cot bedding, you simply cut a decent bit from a worn thin full size one and hemmed it.

In the days when shirts had tails it was normal for the tail to be used to make a new collar.

Sheets? Sides to middles!

I'd quite forgotten that one, Varmin!

vannin wrote:Sheets? Sides to middles!

..and if the seam wasn't perfectly smooth, it was like trying to sleep on a clothes line with this wretched lumpy line digging into your flesh. Oh, happy days (not).

Such sheets should ideally only be used as an upper sheet, though by the end of the war, with clothes rationing, any sheet at all was good!

How many of you have made pegged rugs out of old clothes? To get a sugar sack years ago and to cut the pieces up to make the rug was a family thing and the finished effect was quite attractive.

I still have a flour sack, fearfully bleached and hemmed and embroidered with the words "These are my pyjamas." which was a Christmas present from a favourite aunt in I suppose, 1942 or thereabouts!

Never done it myself, Maisie but I used to watch my Gran and Great aunt making what they called "clippy mats" when I was quite little. It was a way of cheering up the living room - make a new rug and relegate the old one to the scullery (and how many homes have a scullery these days?!)

Its an art that seems to be coming back from what I have been reading on the net. It would be interesting to see those made from todays synthetics compared to the serge, cotton and wool of years ago.