I've been fascinated with the music and lifestyle of the 1940's since sometime in High School -- I mean I HAD read the American Girls books early on (Molly was from 1944) however my discovery of a big band show on the local NPR station on a random Friday night in my room (we lived in the country, that station was one of the few that we got easily and the episode on Jelly Roll Morton absolutely caught my attention, and then I heard Benny Goodman for the first time -- as a music obsessed clarinetist it was over) and the Sunday Afternoon old time Radio hour on the same station where I discovered Jack Benny propelled me into being as obsessed as a teen with ADHD/Autism could be. My uncle also was into the same things and he started handing me cassettes that he'd taped of The Shadow, Fibber McGee and Molly, Burns and Allen, I Love a Mystery and others. The whole family got involved with listening to it. It was to the point that when someone needed a Billie Holiday recording for a project my band director SENT HER TO ME. (he said he figured 1940's music obssessed me... He was not wrong) So I feel like this part of the project is bringing me back to that part of my life and feeling engrossed in my interests and never made to feel weird about it.
So once more I'm on a rewatch of Wartime Farm - because this "quilt" has been on a to do list in my head along with several of Ruth's aprons, among other things. In Episode 3 of Wartime Farm, the larger project is preparing for evacuees that had been bombed out of the larger city during the war. The boys are working on tiles to repair the roofs of the outbuildings on the property and Ruth is making beds and quilts. The quilt/coverlet that she makes is a series of stuffed pockets stitched together. To me, this was intriguing as while I do have a yo yo quilt going that will probably take me the next twenty plus years to finish (ADHD and it's a lot of small pieces), this felt both practical and more doable overall.
The book that Ruth references in this and the previous episode is the Women's Institute's book Thrift Crafts -- she uses this for both the quilt and the feather duster. She uses ticking and feathers to make the quilt. I am choosing instead of buying new fabric to start working through some of my absolute large quantity of fabric stash. The pockets being around 20x24 inches, it's a prime opportunity to use up some of those one or two yard pieces that I've thrifted over the years to make something new (and if it works well I'll make more!). I also feel like buying new fabric is against the spirit of the "make do and mend" spirit of World War 2. I like the concept of making quilts as ways of making something useful of scraps. The book (on page 24) also says to use 9 of these pouches, I am planning on 16 to give a bit extra coverage that will hopefully allow me to use it with a cat trying to sleep on one corner. (Goose (the cat) is gonna be Goose and he knows no law of staying out of the bed, in fact he feels like the new quilt needs to start with cat hair) I lack the extra wool and feathers so I'm going to use fiberfill which is more available and honestly I've managed to thrift multiple containers of it so it's not going to waste.
Currently I'm cutting the pieces out of varied shades of blue and green fabrics that I had lying around -- and although the sizes are written, the pouches feel bigger once you get them out. When I'm done I'll get the machine out to start stitching them together. The authors of the book did mention using "faggotting" stitches to get them together and I may explore that further. That stitch (also called herringbone) has always been difficult for me. So that's all so far.
Learning history by doing projects from the BBC Farms series.
