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15 October 2014
WW2 - People's War

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Making Do and Mend: Clothes Rationing

by Wondermum

Contributed by听
Wondermum
People in story:听
Wondermum
Location of story:听
Bucks
Article ID:听
A2544338
Contributed on:听
21 April 2004

During the war, clothes as well as food were rationed, and people were allowed "points" or "coupons" for buying clothes. I had a cousin about 3 years older than myself, and her clothes would be passed on down to me, to save coupons. It was always interesting to see what arrived, but her clothes were almost always blue, which I got rather bored with. Later my school uniform was blue too, and it's a colour that's never particularly appealed to me.
My mother used to work wonders with her needle, adapting and cutting down garments to make clothes for me. I can remember her using pieces of coloured felt, taken from something else which had worn out, to make animal faces on my slippers to extend their life. I loved it, when in the summer, to extend the life of my sandals, she would cut out the toes, so my toes would poke out. She also used to knit me striped ankle socks, narrow stripes of different bits of coloured yarn, knit on four needles, with an intricate method for turning the heel. I think she and many others used to knit socks for soldiers too. Whether they got a special allowance of yarn for these I don't know. I recall my mother carefully unpicking a bra in order to use the pieces as a pattern for her to make a new one.
I suspect that seeing my mother sew such a lot, kindled my life-long interest in sewing, and later on, an aunt who taught art and craft, sent me some leaflets of the Needlework Development Scheme. This was set up after the war to revive interest and encourage design in needlework. I still have some of the leaflets, and although they look very dated now of course, they must have inspired quite a few stitchers at the time.

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