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Things you made at school.

G G Jean

G G Jean

Brummy Wench.
:biggrin: Do you remember your needlework classes. We had to make our own cookery apron smocked round the waist. In the 5th year we had a choice. I chose to make baby doll pyjamas also smocked round the top. You should have seen the bottoms. I think you call them harvestfesstiivals. Would you believe it I have kept both items to this day. When we finished the garments we had to wear them and toddle off to be inspected by Miss Plant our headmistress. She always managed to find a fault somewhere or other. How embarrasing. Good days though. Bye. Jean. :biggrin:
 
I made a gonk. I have no idea what it is, it looks sort of like a soft toy with a funny face, all made out of felt.

I still have it, somewhere.
 
In woodwork, I remember making a toothbrush rack, ash tray, and a coffee table. I was rather proud of the coffee table, and our Mom used it for many years.:rolleyes:
 
I remember in primary school, making a felt Teddy Bear with blanket stitch all round the edges , and at seniors, a cookery apron, and a Pomander made with an orange covered with cloves and ribbon YUK it didnt smell very nice:023:
 
Metal Work at Windsor Street School, a toasting fork and I bet they made hundreds there over the years. A poker would be a bit more artistic with a fancy scrolled handle. I progressed a few years back to a metal side gate of wrought iron effect with cedarwood boards.
 
I know you will all love this one! I went to Four Oaks Junior school and we had an elderly needlework teacher, who in her wisdom decided we should make a pair of knickers. They were cut out of pale blue cotton and completley hand sewn with double seams. I loved needlework and set to making this garment. Well at age eleven I thought it strange but did the project without question the stitches were often checked and I would hear "nice stitching well done" I felt so proud, little did I know of the embarrassment to come. The needlework teacher was so pleased with my "knickers" she asked the headmistress to come and see my work. The headmistress Miss Grimsley (I still quake when I hear this name) told the teacher it would be a good idea to show the rest of the school my good work.........I had to take them round to every class! I can still hear the boys sniggering, oh the humiliation.
 
Like the other Ladies, I made a Cookery apron, an Elephant all embroidered, a Pleated Skirt and a PE shirt all a Bloomsbury Girls. At Primary I made fleecy PJ's, a Rag Rug, a Waist Apron and a Doll's cot with a Shoe box and covered in material and all the doll's bedding. No wonder I still do ll the family mending :)

Pom :angel:
 
Pom you have just reminded me I made an embelished embroidered elephant for an exam in senior school. I also remember a little earner for me was making kipper ties for my friends at school.
 
Like other BARmen

Metalwork a Poker In Woodwork a Garden Dibber (Still got it) 56 years and still going strong.
Don't make them like that anymore.:) When we buy them we use them:D
 
Items made at School

We had a new woodwork teacher who had grand ideas, the first one was to bend wood so he built a steamer in the classroom. I made a table lamp with a bent piece of wood and we used it for over 30 years.
The "piece the resistance " was to convert old oak desks into step ladders, this was done and I went home with a five tred pair of steps, but they were heavy! They sat outside the house and were used until falling apart many years later...
The final project was a small table which had been started by someone else and left so I took it over and fitted a top to it, we still use it now...
 
A blouse

I made a blouse this was with the nuns it was a rather daring blouse embroidered and i kept it for years never once wore it i think i put it in a jumble bag some time ago. As for the rest of my time at school i made a nuisance of myself, but i loved it and my teachers, and they liked me...Cat:)
 
I'm left handed, and I need to sew left to right. It seemed to offend the sewing teachers, they always tried to get me sewing the other way, so I spent half my time doing something that was almost impossible to do. :rolleyes:
I can sew fine under my own steam, and later made all our daughter's and my own dress's when we lived overseas and couldn't buy much.
 
Hi G.G.Jean. It sounds as if we went to the same school! You started off in the first year, making your green and white checked apron and blue hockey skirt. (Which by the sixth year was PRETTY SHORT!) Then you had to make an applique pencil case etc. What I enjoyed most about sewing, was sitting so peacefully at the top of the building. I eventually did an exam piece - a lovely white lined jacket and dress. Trouble is - I absolutely hate sewing now, and I won't even sew on a button if I don't have too!!
 
At St Mary's we first we made aprons Then gingham dresses two sides square hole with binding for neck and sleeves finished with a tie belt One green when I was in the green team - and a yellow one when I was in the yellow team - I liked the yellow one best -
 
First came knitting...dish cloths supposedly for the Army..awful grey wool and knit one, pearl one into squares. I was hopeless at this. Tension never seemed to be right. Then came learning embroidery stitches on a linen tray cloth. I still have this here. It has chickens picking up grain. It's not bad, at least I tried. I have another tray cloth I made at Marsh Hill Junior school with chain stitch and blanket stitch edging. Mom's save everything like that don't they?:D After this came serious sewing at about age 10. Mostly hand sewn items. Some girls were super at this, not me. My shorts came out very strange looking. I was not asked to model them!

In secondary school,the first sewing project was the standard green and white checked apron ready for cooking classes the next term. The best part of my set was the head band with the green embroidery stitching in chain stitch with the school logo FSFG. This effort was followed by the famous Fentham dirndl skirt also in green checked material. I managed to burn mine with the iron and had to go looking around in the abandoned project basket to find one that was half finished as a replacement. I think it belonged to a girl who had left in the middle of term. No one knew the difference thank goodness and I managed to machine the lines straight in order to insert the elastic in the top five rows. The thing was that when you had finished your skirt you had to go to the head mistress and have her examine it.:redface: I lost a lot of sleep over this at the time but I managed to get through the head mistresses criticism. I would hide at the back of the sewing room and it took me the whole term to finish this project.

The final item was a clay pot I made in Pottery classes at Osborne Road
School where the senior girls class went one half day per week. I really enjoyed pottery and my pot was a decent effort I thought.
 
Pottery

Potting at Osborne road, (what a laugh) played with it more than moulded made all the naughty bits and enjoyed throwing it around the room so that every-one shared it:Di would get a big dollop soak it and put it on the wheel then get the wheel spinning really fast and duck:D:D:D then when we finished over the road for a penny bottle of pop..........Cat:)
 
I too made the obligatory poker in metal work, also a small coal shovel to go with it. In woodwork I made loads of racks and stuff but progressed to the lathe, and turned a rounders bat in hardwood. It sits by my bedside still.;)
 
Oh don't put boys down. I think we can all appreciate a nice piece of work when we see it.
I bet the boys were realy interested in your knickers Wendy.

Just thinking about what I made..
A gate latch in metal work that was used on our front gate for many years.
Various racks.. a tie rack is memorable.
A wooden pattern for an anvill and aluminium casting made from its sand mould.
A height gauge with a cast iron base..ah yes a hardened and tempered scribe...hmm pale straw.

I don't think this kind of thing is done any more
 
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Thank you for those kind words Rupert!

Michael still has his book case made in woodwork.
 
I was in my first year at St. Agnes's Convent, Erdington... so about 5 yrs old... and we were shown how to make a pram out of matchboxes... I made a double hooded one and the teacher took me all around the other classrooms to show everyone. Georgie
 
First year of seniors we made PE bags then cookery basket covers. over the years we made a skirt and pajamas really tailored model. I did not like sewing very much not when some bossy teacher was looking over your shoulder,I could never understand why taking stitches had to be perfect. But over the years the lessons did come in useful.
 
When I was at Birches Green Junior School in Erdington we did cross stitch and embroidery. A piece of my work was put in the Ideal Home Exhibition at Bingley Hall and I won second place much to my amazement.

At Riland Bedford High in Sutton we made a needlework apron with pockets in, had to make a cookery basket from an old wooden tomato box that we had to cover with Fablon, it had a metal handle. In 3rd year We made skirts. I was only tiny at under 5 feet tall with 29" hips but had to make my skirt that was meant for someone with 36" hips which was the smallest size pattern they had and it was almost down to my ankles so I use to roll it over at the waist to make it shorter. The material was like felt, in maroon.
We also made a blouse.

I hated Riland Bedford for most of the time so burnt my clothes and books on a bonfire two weeks before leaving!!

Although I tried very hard I was not very good at needlework but in later years it became a passion of mine and I won many certificates for all types of needlework and embroidery. I no longer do it though because it gives me eye strain so make cards and papercraft items now.
 
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re things made at school

HI,me and a friend made a sword in metal work.and we both got the cane for doing so, pete:cry:
 
Rupert and Mike G

I still have my anvil but not the wooden model. I went to my one and only re-union some years back and was surprised to see the people who brought theirs along [as well as the models and drawings] to show off. Was I glad that I had left my poor example at home:(

I met 'Wally' Whetton's daughter but decided not to let her know what some of us thought about her father and his impersonations of trains climbing the Lickey Incline whilst we looked at 3 boardfuls of writing he expected us to get down in the 5 minutes remaining.

I was in one of the first groups to move to the new shcool at Hamstead. One e of my class started up a brand new single cylinder engine that was a) not yet bolted down and b) had no oil in its sump. Jumped all over the place. Funnily enough the teaching staff took a dim view of it:D
 
I remember having to make a 'pigs in blanket' cookery dish. My Mom duly bought the ingredients for me which I packed into my wicker cookery basket and covered with a gingham cover things which fitted around the handle. The problem was that I didn't have an enclosed dish to bring it home in; so I took an old pyrex open top dish.:D I partly cooked the recipe in class and transferred it to the dish to carry home in the basket. I used to catch a coach to get home and....... yes you've guessed....., with the pushing and shoving to get on, most of the baked beans and bacon slopped out of the dish into the basket and all down the front of my uniform.:D:D My Mom went mad when I got home and I ended up getting a clip round the ear for wasting her money and dirtying my uniform. I'm still not much better at cooking now, it nearly always goes wrong;)
 
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