Sewing: Making Clothes

Yes, I did a lot of hand sewing. Oh, yes, I had an ordinary thimble. Even now I can't sew without a thimble. It wasn't silver, no - and just an ordinary sharp pair of scissors. I didn't have any special tools at all, just whatever there was. And of course you learned to darn too, with big darning needles, and you learned to make mats, rugs, make woolen mats with this great big hook, where you hooked the wool through and made proper rugs for the floor, woolen rugs. Of course, when we were younger it was the cloth mats, the rag mats, no kits. You just cut whatever pieces of rag and cloth and things, all cut into strips and then you pulled them through into the canvas, hessian, I expect it was, and they made very nice little rugs for the kitchen and places like that, yes.

No, I don't unfortunately, no. When you made the woolen rugs, it was like a big hook that pushed through and clicked and pulled through and knotted it.

You didn't just prod the material in?

No, you pushed. You had the pieces of wool that you pushed in with this big needle thing, and it clicked together and you pulled it through and knotted it. So it was knotted into the hessian...that was proper canvas they were made into. You'd buy a printed canvas, different sizes, some were quite big, yes. Choose your wool for your colour scheme. Rag rugs were made of odd pieces of material, and of course they dated back many, many years - my grandmother's day probably.