Patchwork Girls

 

Happy Monday!

The ten year old little girl up the street wears mismatched socks. Her mother tells me that all the girls do this in school.  

According to the Mom, mismatched socks are even sold now! Oh wow, here's some:

The little girl's grandmother says it drives her crazy.  It amuses me and reminds me of another story I read a while back...(of course it does).

In 1942, there was a widely syndicated story often with the headline:  "Patchwork Girl Makes Good."  And... no, it didn't refer to the children's story book characters (here and here).

Patchwork girls back in 1942 referred to citizens mending and making do.  The article I was thinking of discussed how women were coping with fabric shortages:

"Mother makes over Dad's old shirts into sun suits for junior or aprons for herself.  She ravels out old wool sweaters, reknits the yarn into warm school sweaters.  She makes over last year's dresses to this year's styles, wastes nothing, makes use of every scrap of material on hand."

Later the article goes on to state:

"Patchwork isn't confined to quilts these days.  The patchwork dress is not only a part of war-time economy but an amusing conversation piece...Your scrap bag will probably yield  enough odds and ends to provide your patchwork frock.  Collect all the cotton scraps you have on hand, regardless of size, shape, or color.  Trim the edges, sew all the pieces together and get to work with pattern, needle and thread."

There's even an example!

But we were talking about socks at the beginning of the article and this is addressed in the article as well:

"Teen age high school girls are taking up the patchwork craze.  Instead of throwing away worn-out socks, as they did in those careless prewar days, they sew bright contrasting patches on toes and heels, wear them with open-toed play shoes."

Necessity may be the mother of invention (and creativity).  When in doubt and doing without, create a fad!

If you are interested in learning more about making do and mending, here and here are two interesting articles you might enjoy!

Have a safe and happy day!