Sew and Save

Sew and Save by Joanna Chase is a reprint of a book published in 1941 as a guide to revitalising old clothes, making the most of wartime coupons, planning a family wardrobe and generally saving money on fashion during WWII. It includes knitting patterns for 19 garments. It was probably appropriate I found my copy in a charity shop.

On the whole it was an interesting read and provided lots of advice which I’m sure would have been even more useful in the 1940s. I liked the author’s voice because it was calm but firm at advocating you could keep up garment quality standards and still be practical spending-wise. It was no-nonsense about organisation, thinking ahead, and paying attention to a perfect final finish, things which I think are underrated in choosing clothes today.

The advice of having only three or four outfits in your entire wardrobe and only one colour scheme might seem draconian today but could be useful for helping organise clothes for work.

I particularly liked the following...

How to organise cotton reels was an ingenious solution that would work well today – put them on a large knitting needle with a cork (or a lump of blue tack) on the sharp end. You can pull the thread off the reels without taking them off the knitting needle.

How to test for fabric quality and the importance of having a good pair of scissors made me smile because I lecture beginner sewers on this, not to mention the idea of buying fabric meant for furnishings/household use. This saves money because they are often cheaper per metre plus are made in a wider roll (60 inches rather than 48 inches) so you get more fabric per metre length. 

I keep leftover fabric scraps so making knickers, scarves, and trimmings out of them is a good (although not new) idea.

Much of the basics of pattern making and cutting remain the same today. 

Sewing machines were seen as newfangled then but the advice to beginners remains the same – learn how to use it to make the best use of it, keep it free of dust and only use a single drop of oil.

However:

It’s written in the 1940s so uses the odd racist term and ignores the possibility of non-white women, for example in its which-colours-suit-which-complexions advice. However, so do many fashion magazines today. The colour matching rules are conservative anyway and style advice is provided for the ‘short and plump’ and the ‘tall’, two rather broad categories. Take with a pinch of salt.

Some garment care advice is redundant in the modern day but it's interesting to read in case a zombie-apocalypse happens :-)