Fabric & Markets

[Chalet School Fan]

I had a free place at a direct grant school, which is now independent. The uniform was expensive, so my Mum made as much as she could, including knitting the V-neck beige jumper with the school colours around the neck. We had to have out names embroidered on the front of our blue smock science overalls - Mum used an alphabet transfer and did my name in beautiful satin stitch. The ladies who sold buns and biscuits at break always called me the girl with the clever Mum on account of that embroidery!
We could have homemade summer dresses and the outfitters sold the pattern and the small brown check material. Not that they were easy to make as they had biased binding strips across the top of the bust and front buttons on a separate strip of material with bias down each side. Mum only had an old hand Singer machine with no buttonhole facility so no short cuts there. My dresses had large turnings - so large I was could still wear the ones made for me when I was 11 when I was in the U6th. It was only years later that Mum confessed that the white collar and cuffs had been cut from one of Dad's worn out shirts - she didn't want to tell me earlier as she thought I would have been embarrassed! No wonder she got the Thrift badge when she was a Girl Guide.

[Jacksmissis]

Bless her, she must have been so proud of you CSF.

[Chalet School Fan]

To go back to your original query about sourcing reasonably priced material you might like to look at The Cheap Shop - www.thecheapshoptiptree.co.uk - on the internet. It is a real family run craft shop in the Essex village of Tiptree, but they sell a lot of their stock online as well. I've used them for wool and material in the past - their prices have been reasonable and my orders have come quickly.
My aunt lived in Tiptree before they emigrated to Oz, so I spent many happy holidays there. Keep meaning to revisit as it is not far from my mother in law, especially now there is a good fabric shop to go to as well!

[RozMinis]

My mum used to make most of my clothes on my gran's rather ancient Singer treadle machine. The only things she didn't make, apart from underwear of course, was a coat. That was left to me when I was fourteen. I really enjoyed making it, but not sure lime green was the greatest colour as it became grubby far too quickly.

After we moved to Barnsley I had another go at making a coat. Of course my mother wanted to choose the colour, a very light camel. I told her in no uncertain terms not to be so stupid as light colours and living on a farm were not exactly compatible. She argued, but I got my way in the end. By that time I had acquired an electric machine, my lovely New Home. It did do buttonholes, much better, though more difficult than the present machines. I preferred doing them by hand, and still do. Basically if I can hand stitch something rather than drag out the sewing machine, then I will. My present one is not going to die from overwork that's for sure! ;)

Roz