We are now starting our new study of the year 1940. Charles and I have been shifting furniture around and removing some items and packing them away. We like to get the feel of the year that we are studying. So we remove some items that they did not have during the time that we are studying with the exception of our heating and cooling and necessary items of today. This is not necessary to do, it is just something we do to make the study a bit more exciting and we also get the house extra clean from moving furniture. :)
.jpg)
For those that will be doing this study with us or just reading along, there are some things to remember. The skills of an adult keeping a home in 1940 came from the 1800's and early 1900's depending on how old we are right not. Even the younger adults between the ages of 20 and 40 would have been born in 1900 to 1920.
In 1940, furnishings, curtains, kitchen items and dishes would have come from the 1930s or much earlier. Regular home folks were slower to change so studying pre 1940 from 1900 to 1930 is helpful.
We do these studies to learn from our generations before us and even if you just read along you should learn some things from this study.
I have put together some things that you can do for homework because learning new "Old" skills is fun and beneficial.
I have done quite a bit of research and will start with a few simple things that might be of interest. One other thing before I forget to mention is that Charles and I find that including genealogy studies is helpful to these studies.
I write about what are in articles and photos below each photo or article.
This article from 1920, some women saved their twine that they received with parcels and crochet dishcloths. We rarely receive parcels wrapped in twine these days but this led me to studying the dish cloth.
It turns out there was a dish cloth, a sink cloth and a drying cloth. Also a hot pad holder to remove hot pots and pans.
knitteddishcloth1889.jpg)
In the late 1800s and 1900's children were taught to crochet, sew and knit and often made dish cloths and other handmade items as well as the adults.
If anyone has wondered, to get rid of grease, they would scrape out the skillet or pot and dishes, and then use newspaper to soak up the grease and then burn the paper and grease.
.jpg)
Sometimes it is very difficult to follow the very old antique patterns and I found this article posted in the year 1899. This is part one of this article where they were explaining crochet and knitting.
.jpg)
Part 2 above, Thank you Mrs. B for this information.
Several years ago I purchased a dish cloth at an antique store. I had seen them before and noticed that the crochet dishcloths are crochet with cotton thread which looks to be size 10. Crochet dish cloths made with thread instead of yarn are much softer and easier to use than crochet with yarn.
I hope to sit down this week and crochet a dishcloth from number 10 cotton. If anyone has ever crochet one of these more thin and open dish cloths please share with us.
I do have some information coming in the mail this week as I have added to my research material so this will be helpful for our study. For now I have some links to add below for some of the things that would be helpful for all of us to learn. So this is going to be just a small way to start and I will be popping in here and there.
We do not need all of the cleaning products they sell when we have a simple bar of real (non synthetic) soap. Cleaning the china cabinet glass door with soap and water.
A good thing to have for this study is an apron. Aprons were worn to protect clothing, quick dusting of something missed and wipe noses when necessary.
The forum can be a place to talk about or ask questions, everyone can help each other, post pictures, it would be better if you can reduce the size of the pictures if you know how but send them however you can.
If you do not like to use forums you can send me an email, if you send photos of something that you are making or have made that is related to the study please let me know if I can share the picture in a blog post.
Below an older post I did in 2011 about aprons.
https://gdonna.com/living-like-the-past/i-love-vintage-aprons/
The link below is helpful to knit or crochet a more open dish cloth using thread.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58dxlSNem8s
The link below is helpful to learn to hem without a sewing machine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0VweGuxp8A&list=WL&index=107&t=15s
This link below is helpful to learn basic hand sewing. Learn to hand sew three basic stitches.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oE1LnH8egMk&list=WL&index=109&t=406s
