SEW AND SAVE BUREAU

Bureau Contents: Tools for darning and patching, buttons, old wooden cotton spools, hooks and eyes, thimbles, scissors, mending thread, needle and pin cases, books about making and mending garments.

Below throughout January I focus on some of the contents of the Sew and Save collection.

Sew and Save Collage

Clothing Ration Book

Adult clothing ration book belonging to B. Broom of Liverpool, 1947

Utility Scarf found in Blackpool

The Utility Clothing Scheme was introduced by the government in 1941. Clothes came in a limited range of fabrics and styles, reducing the amount of material required to make garments. I found this scarf for 20p at The Salvation Army charity shop in Blackpool many years ago. Discovering it sparked my interest in 1940s utility clothing and the CC41 label.

Saving Buttons

                                                     

A collection of buttons found at the market,  2012.

Keep your  buttons safe with Pin-easies.

Spare button labels.

Patching

Patchwork cushion made from fabric scraps, found in Preston 2012

Macworth Leather Elbow Patches

Mending Tricks

Mrs. Sew & Sew

Woman's Friend No. 997 June 15, 1995

   

Woman and Home,  January 1945

Woman's Friend, 3 August 1945

Mrs. Sew-and-Sew was created by the Ministry of Information to encourage wartime Britain to 'Make Do and mend', she appeared in magazines, leaflets and posters, explaining how to patch, darn and alter worn clothing. Above are a few examples from my collection of 1940s magazines. Please click on the articles to enlarge.

A patched overall from the charity shop in Deptford

My friend Betty Keith who was a young girl during the Second World War talks about her experience of mending:

'My Auntie used to sit for hours darning socks, mending socks because you hadn't the coupons to buy them then you see. When we were bombed out it came down in the most beautiful pure silk linen, what can I say.... my Auntie played pop. She said we should have got that parachute for making underwear. We spent the next twelve hours in the air raid shelter.'

Brides' Bureau

                  

Leaflet offering advice on how to mend clothes, blankets and household linen, c. 1940

Metal Bits and Bobs

Old Zips

I found these old faded zips at the charity shop in Blackpool last year. Remnants of cotton thread are still visible on some of them. Someone has been very thrifty saving zips from old garments ready for use in new ones.

Vintage Wooden Cotton Bobbins

Pins, Needles and Safety Pins

Speedweve Darner

The Speedweve was made in Manchester, hence the name 'Lancashire's Smallest Loom.' I am not sure when this one was made, but judging by the price tag on the box it is quite old. The North of England was well known for its production of cotton cloth. My grandparents and great-grandparents worked as weavers in Burnley, which during the Industrial Revolution became one of Lancashire's prominent mill towns. I don't recall my Grandma ever using the Speedweve but I am sure there are a few folk out there who remember them. 

I would love to find some old fabrics that were mended on this little loom, there is something quite beautiful about repeatedly darned cloth. 

Hooks and Eyes

A collection of snap fasteners.

Witch Needle Threader

Needle Storage

Needle suitcase from Berlin.

Crown Fox Pins.

Stocking Repair Sachet

    

Mending Threads

Threads for mending silk and nylon stockings.

The Elite Mending Compact

History of the bureau

I bought the bureau from a charity shop in Plumstead in 2007. It appealed to me because of its simple utilitarian style and its oldness, I think that it was possibly made in the 1940s or earlier. It came with a set of keys to lock the drop leaf desk and tucked away inside there was a post card with scribbled addresses on it. The post card is always hiding somewhere in there as an important remnant of its history. I have often wonder if the bureau came from the Blackheath address before it came into my possession.