If you did needlework at school...

[PoodlesRUs]

...what sort of things did you learn? What projects did you make? I'm really curious to know.

Nightdress with a lined yoke

We all made a PE bag and then chain stitched our initials on.

wev also made a butchers apron the year home economics started.

Wow so many answers, thanks! It makes schoolkids back then sound very skilled. I've no patience with myself when learning practical skills but I was hoping this thread would provide some inspiration or encouragement. If 12 year olds can make blouses maybe I can learn to sew an apron or something😂

Eldest daughter from an Irish family (1960's) ... I (happily) sat in a corner and made what I wanted whilst the rest of the class struggled with cross stich / apron / whatever. I could (and still can) sew, knit, crochet, tatt, lacemake (bobbin lacing), embroider etc., etc., by the time I started school/ soon after I started school. Of course my younger sister thought this was all nonsense because you could now buy clothes ready made, so she struggled (11 years later) with the cross stitching (still can't do it). It was all nonsense indeed until she couldn't afford and couldn't make that item she desperately wanted in her mid-twenties...

During our first year we made a pinafore and cap to wear in "housecraft" (cookery) the following year. The cap was embroidered in chain stitch with our initials.
From the second year, we had more choice, and I did basketry and weaving. Later on I went back to needlework, and made costumes for the school plays.

I wasn't keen on needlework at school, as the teacher was a real harridan, but my Mother was a gifted needlewoman, so I made a lot of my own clothes, and household items such as curtains.

We did Textiles from Y7-Y9 (unless you chose it as a GCSE subject, in which seats you continued).
Over the 3 years I can recall making a snake draught excluder, a giant replica of a Kit Kat bar (studying soft sculptures), a hideous night dress, a very simple bag (think square sewn up 3 sides & fastened with a button, no handle) & a couple of embroidery type things on hard plastic frames.
This was 1990-1993.

@PoodlesRUs ime the trick is to find something you really want to make, and then learn the techniques required. If you don’t want the finished item, then I find that beginners tend to lack focus and patience, without those you are not going to learn. We are lucky that today there are so many wonderfully passionate people willing to make all sorts of videos of whatever craft/skill
we want to make, alongside using books there is no
stopping a beginner becoming proficient very quickly.
If you prefer, you may find someone local via a group or a shop who teaches in person or holds tutorials on the basics. Hobbycraft used to do one of afternoon sessions.

I loved needlework! I loved the slowness of it. I made a kind of tapestry bag, a skirt, a top, some trousers and some embroidery thing. I still love any kind of sewing especially by hand.

This I could do. Cooking on the other hand not so much ...

Home Ec. 2 full years grades 7-8.
Sewing and cooking.
Sewing: we were given a budget and a list and needed to purchase our own supplies within the budget. The shop assistants were excellent. Embroidery project needed to include all the various stiches (satin, French knot, chain stitch etc) the edges were then also worked learning hem stitch and other edge work, we used a hoop. We did a second cross stitch project again using the hoop, learning how to work using the grid to count out placement etc. Pieces were washed and set.
Sewing was complex; 1 full jump suit, a blazer that involved matching the plaid, two different types of pockets! There were other pieces as well and an end of year fashion show.
Food and nutrition was equally complex from budgeting to meal planning, we made soup and canned tomatoes, cookies, brownies something almost each class.
I still have my cookbook!

Primary school, made an embroidered bag and a gingham washbag. Secondary school, made a bookmark, an apron and a cuddly toy. At secondary, needlework was part of Home Economics so we only got one term of it, the rest of the year was cookery, and thankfully it wasn't a compulsory subject for GCSE.

Edited to add, I learned far more sewing skills from my grandma, who had been a seamstress before she married, than I ever learned at school.

Needlework, in 1979, first year of high school. We made a striped butcher's apron. I still have mine-the strings no longer go around my waist 😁

Needlework - mid 80's
A p.e bag with initials embroidered on and a school skirt. I was not very good!

Cross stitch sampler, bookmark, various other samplers with other stitches. Also did sewing made various clothes, a skirt a shirt with set in sleeves. Possibly a dress. This was late 70s tho and I'm not really sure what was at school and what was at home. I did it in forms 1 and 2 (age 11 to 12) and the embroidery in form 4 (age 14)

I think I did a few simple hand sewing projects in primary school, although I can't remember which were school and which were in the Brownies. I made a nightdress in secondary school that I never wore.

Then I didn't sew for well over a decade until I took up quilting, now I sew most days and have a fantastic machine that I call The Beast. I have made a few dresses recently but on the whole like sewing clothing less than sewing quilts.

I could already do needlework & embroidery and use a sewing machine because my mum taught me. We must have made a variety of things at school in the 1970's, but the only thing I actually remember making was an A-line skirt in a dull shade of blue. It took so long that I'd grown by the time it was finished, and it was too tight. I never wore it.

I made a circle skirt from a pattern ... Think a lot of material. Took ages. I remember thinking it was incredible (although it probably wasn't!). And so wish I had a picture of it, as I haven't made anything since!

A laundry bag, an apron and a t-shirt. I loathed needlework and loathed the teacher. Have done virtually none since then.

I'm another one who made a pencil skirt! About 1981 I guess.

You were also able to 'make' your school summer dress - which was nicer than the winter uniform, but that was beyond my sewing skills really. I don't think I ever made one.

I do quite a bit of sewing now.

I managed to sit through 2 years of it and didn't even finish the bloody bag that you were supposed to carry the stuff in!!

We made a gingham drawstring bag with applique shapes on it, then we made a gingham lap bag with out name embroidered on it to wear in sewing class, then finally leaving gingham behind us we made a simple blouse with a back neck button and button loop. Then I massively fell out with the sewing teacher as I refused to make a tennis dress as I detested tennis and already had a perfectly good hand me down tennis outfit. I won eventually, and made a pair of denim trousers and a pair of crimplene trousers with applique butterflies at the hems instead. I think it was the same year we made a pinny with a pocket for cookery lessons. Then in P7 I made a summer dress with puffed sleeves and a zipper at the back which I hand sewed in as everyone else was hogging the machines. In between these projects there was knitting too and I made a dishcloth, an outfit for a dolly, knitted coat hanger covers and a scarf. And there were two tea tray cloths, one out of the much despised gingham and another where the design was printed and it was proper embroidery and not just cross stitch. All of this in the early seventies. In senior school I made a pair of jeans to a Vogue pattern and a velveteen blazer. I would have liked to take it further but I didn't get the chance as my timetable was all academics and no frivolous subjects.

Looking back on it, we did spend an inordinate amount of time on handicrafts in the junior school. When my daughter was at school in the mid nineties she did no handicrafts at all.

Oh God, me too
Gingham with my initials in cross stitch

You CAN do it! I did a textiles gcse in the 90s and feel like it was some kind of experiment! We weren't taught about patterns AT ALL and had to kind of freestyle with interesting results! My dd is just finishing her first year of a textiles gcse and they're learning all sorts of useful techniques for hemming, binding, adding darts etc which is a lot more useful! Together we have done some projects at home. I really recommend the Tilly and the buttons books with patterns (available on amazon). She assumes that you know nothing and everything is explained really simply. There are also loads of You Tube videos out there if you get stuck.

Thinking about it I also made a gingham drawstring bag that I still have which is used for shoe cleaning equipment.

A cushion with a clock design. A school bag and a hessian shopping bag with a boat stitched on with very rough wool.

My sister made a cuddly seal that she kept on her bed the rest of her life.

A draw string bag with an embroidered panel
A skirt
A toddlers dress (sent to an orphanage in Africa)
Knitted baby booties
knitted hat

It was fun unless we had to listen to pan pipes which was dire.