QBeth

With all due respect to Home Ec courses and teachers, I think it would be good if they were still required but, not having had them myself, I learned most of it on my own. I'm in my late 50's (arrgggh, just realized it's my LATE 50's) and, for different reasons, I wasn't offerred Home Ec in school.

But, my fake Barbie doll needed clothes, my clothes mending, and I did what I had to do. Now-a-days, I don't believe most youngsters have such needs because they're usually handed everything and, they're tied up all day playing video games. We've become such an affluent, spend-spend-spend community, the need to "make do" or be creative isn't there anymore for most. That's both a good thing and a bad thing, in my opinion.

nana2

I don't own a ham either, Alaska Sunshine. Just today I needed to press a seam open in a rather difficult area of one of the totes I am making. I rolled up a large towel and it worked perfectly. This is not the first time I have done that!!! There are several things I do to compensate for things I don't have, I am from German heritage also and was born in the U.S. in 1940. War time made a shortage of a lot of things. Just recently I related to my youngest brother how my grandfather took a washer and a screw to "patch" a hole in a kettle used from heating water dailey for washing dishes, baths, etc. We have also been cleaning out our mother's house and have made comments that the older generations did not have to be taught about recycling. They recycled just about everything. We found lots and lots of white plastic bleach bottles which had had the top cut away making a great storage container for stuff which was under her sink and even in her pantry. I use to do that and was reminded that I still should.

nana2

Hey, I know how to do hospital corners!!!!! AND my mother has bought flat sheets that were on sale and made flat sheets into fitted sheets. Sometimes the sheets on sale are only flat sheets and when it gets down to this one can buy some of the bette sheets for a very good bargin.

Debra Mc

I didn't take Home Ec either but I already knew how to cook & sew. I guess I'm a pack rat like my 84 year old daddy. He saves lots of stuff. He & mom taught me to be frugal. I can usually find some use for anything. I save those gallon ice cream tubs to stand my embroidery stablizer in when I'm working on stuff. Can't throw a pair of jeans away. I used my DSIL's old navy blue uniform shirts in a quilt They were 100% cotton & made some nice pieces. Didn't grow up poor but wasn't rich either. Mom was always telling us stories about WW II & how you had to save stuff & grease. She said in school they use to knit squares for blankets for the soldiers. They called it Knittin for Britian. Kids today don't know what it is like to have to do without. Granted there are some but most are pretty well off. I hope the day doesn't come where we are rationed again.

Debra Mc

I'm also from German-Scots- Irish heritage & some French somewhere.

tarbender30

Hey Odessa Quilts, Which water in Michigan do you live by??
I live in Port Huron, just across the "creek" from Canada, ah.Pretty here in Port Huron
Bev

tarbender30

Hey witchypoo,which JoAnn's does you friend work at??
I also worked at JoAnn's
Bev

sewhappy57

Was at Jo-anns the other night just looking around and saw a "Ham" I busted out laughing just thinking of your post. People staring at me and I just said you'd have to have been there. :D

Pzazz

I have 3 children, (all boys), and 2 step-children, (one of each). My "stock-in-trade" is clothing designer/seamstress, (yes, I know what a ham is...AND I own one, as well as a sleeve roll ;) ). Any time my boys wanted to know how to do something with fabric, I would teach them. All 3 took home-ec for one year in school. As a single mom, I also had them turns making a meal, so now as young men, they are all very good cooks, (even without a microwave!!!), and all can do their own mending. The youngest owns his own sewing machine. My step-daughter will be away to college next year, so we bought her a sewing machine last C'mas. She is going to come to quilting/sewing day at our church once we get the time organized.

One of my co-workers wants me to teach her some basic sewing skills. I suspect I may have a couple of the other gals join in. These gals did not have home-ec offered in school. So, even tho' they didn't have the opportunity to learn in school, they are keen to do so now. And I know I will have fun teaching them!!!

Oh...I am Canadian, and unless it has changed in the last couple of years, the schools "back home" do still require students to take at least one semester of home-ec. My step-daughters' school in ND does not offer it anymore.

Patti

OdessaQuilts

I'm about a mile away from the Saginaw Bay, which you likely know is just off Lake Huron, near the "anatomical snuffbox" of the mitten. :wink:

It's been warm here today (in the 60's -- rare for Nov. 9th!), so yes, it's beeen beautiful here, too.