From the Archives

We've been a bit busy around here with my in-laws coming to visit from Utah and attending the Mother Earth News Fair, which was a blast! Now that things have calmed down, I thought I'd share the newest installment of "From the Archives".

Make Do And Mend

Keeping Family and Home Afloat On War Rations

I happened to get this using an Amazon gift card for my birthday. Yay! I got a companion book to this that I'll post at a later time. You have no idea how ridiculously giddy I was upon opening this book...

 Make Do And Mend is a collection of reproduced instruction leaflets published by the British government to help people deal with fabric rationing. It is the perfect little book of tips and tricks for mending, knitting, altering, caring for, and in general, helping you make the clothing you had last as long as it could.

I just love the "decorative elbow patch"! haha!
And I thought the idea of enlarging a girl's frock to be rather clever!
The book was full of ideas like these. Just imagine how this impacted the fashions of the day!

I have already skimmed most of the book and found lots of tips I could use today in repairing my family's clothing. Skills like darning and patching are disappearing since clothing is basically pretty inexpensive, especially if you shop the sales and thrift stores. I'd like to revive these skills! There's no reason not to practice thrift and frugality even in these "modern" times! I am bound and determined to learn how to darn. My father-in-law told me his mother would use a light bulb to put in the sock and darn over. Clever!