In the first cold winters of the war, all children, boys and girls alike, needed warm, serviceable garments in simple cover-up styles: a hooded siren suit for the shelter, a lumber jacket or windcheater for out-of-doors. Complicated layettes for smaller children were replaced with a knitted all-in-one suit, and a warm shawl was made to wrap a child in quickly, once the alert sounded and it was everyone down to the shelter. There was no real shortage of knitting wool for the children’s clothes in the first few years of the war because the wool-rationing scheme, introduced in the summer of 1941, included a generous allowance for mothers – an extra 50 coupons for expectant mothers (or 100 if twins had been diagnosed with certainty) for knitting baby clothes.

Every magazine extolled the virtues of wool for children’s clothes. Maxine Alexander wrote in Ideal Home, ‘this is the healthiest fabric for insulating small bodies against heat and cold’, while in Good Housekeeping magazine, a Mr Garbutt almost worshipped its qualities. Wool has such exceptional properties that nothing really replaces it. It is strong, durable, elastic, feels warmer than most other fabrics, helps to maintain an even body temperature, is absorbent and relatively non-flammable. Its elasticity means that woollen garments retain their shape well and do not crush readily, while its water-absorbing qualities make it especially suitable for underwear since it will absorb perspiration without feeling damp or clammy. It only gives up moisture slowly, so when wool garments become damp or wet, a chill is not so likely to result.

But as the war progressed, there just weren’t the supplies of this wonderful material available – coupons or no coupons. One way out was to join the multitude of Clothes-Pooling Clubs, which had opened throughout the country and were efficiently run by the W.V.S. (Women’s Voluntary Service). Here you could trade clothes with other people whose children were one size larger than your own. As supplies of wool and cloth rapidly ran out, clothing the children became more often a question of working with hand-me-downs within the family unit. Mr Dalton’s Board of Trade booklet advised that ‘a sound practice is to make only a smaller garment out of the old one. For instance, children’s clothes out of grown-ups’ ones, blouses from dresses, a dress from a jacket and skirt, a coat from two coats. By this means, you can discard the worn parts.’ It is not difficult to imagine some articles left over from the Thirties slowly making their way down a family, becoming progressively smaller and slightly sadder with each member. Often the adult ‘base’ material from which a child’s garment had to be contrived was pretty dire. The most pitiful of Mr Dalton’s tips suggested that ‘woollen stockings with worn feet can have the legs opened up down the back seams and can then be made up into an infant’s jersey when bound with ribbon at the sleeves and hem. The tops of a pair of wool stockings will make cosy underpants for a small boy.’

Not a soul would now subscribe to the old extravagant theory that a worn, out-of-date, or unsuccessful knitted garment should be just thrown away. Instead, we are learning how to unpick old, unlovely garments, making them into attractive new ones, as well as how to renovate and remodel by careful washing and pressing, how to make useful accessories such as gloves, scarves and socks from small balls of wool in various colours leftover from larger garments; how to utilise to the best advantage every scrap of yarn or fabric, old or new.

The magazines cheerfully responded to all the propaganda. ‘Government orders restricting the manufacture of new clothes are really nothing more than a challenge to most of us and our ingenuity,’ said one. The ‘Home-craft’ knitting leaflet series was set up to provide mothers with countless ideas for using unpicked wool; a girl’s dress would save coupons if knitted from unpicked wool, and it was now okay to mix and knit different yarns together, putting cotton in with the wool, for instance. Garments could be made from a combination of cloth and knitted wool, perhaps a cloth dress with knitted sleeves or a knitted waistcoat with material panels at the front and back; extra panels, spare parts from different garments, could be cobbled together, with newly knitted revers and cuffs (cardigan-jerseys with arms and neck knitted in different wool, were called, patriotically, ‘two-colour economy’). These garments would still be smart as long as the ensemble was made to look deliberately contrived instead of merely patched up. When binding worn hems on elbow-length sleeves with a Petersham braid, some could also be added to the neckline. When embroidering a daisy over a moth-hole in a cardigan, a few extra daisies could be dotted around to avoid a patchy effect.

New wool bought with precious coupons needed to be kept for the big items, so the ‘oddment bag’ now took on great importance for anything less (people with grandmothers who still hoard everything today will know just why!). The odd ounce could be knitted into hats or scarves, while smaller amounts would make ‘rainbow’ gloves, ankle socks and hoods for the children, or squares, which were themselves fashioned into a cot blanket, rug or shawl. Even smaller amounts would make a child’s jumper in colourful rows of thin, bright stripes. The really awful bits at the bottom of the bag could be cut into shreds to make perfect stuffing for a knitted toy or a tea-cosy, as a present for Christmas. There was no waste. Mr Dalton said that, if dipped in cold, clear coffee, even old white wool that was soiled could be used to make attractive accessories. A felted garment, even the most shrunken and matted old jumper or jacket, could be adapted for a child merely by treating it like cloth. Once the seams had been unpicked, the main part could be cut into a bolero and bonnet as if it were a piece of felt; then, it might be crocheted around the edge or finished with colourful binding. The unused sleeves would make mittens, babies’ hoods, kettle-holders, toys or an egg-cosy.

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Using decoration was one way to make hand-me-downs less drab and second-hand. Tiny lengths of brightly coloured wool were requisitioned to embroider a little cardigan or jacket. Great effort went into the creation of garments with both personality and charm. A simple lazy daisy stitch in pastel shades could be embroidered along the bodice of a little girl’s jumper, or ‘Jaeger’ could supply a pattern called ‘The Odd Ounce and what to knit with it’, showing a ‘frock for girlie which had a little knot of flowers at neckline and another at the wrist as delightful touches.’ Sometimes, the whole garment could be changed. For example, now that the seaside had been closed off with barbed wire, a beach outfit could easily be changed into a knitted frock by lengthening the skirt part with picot edging; ‘folk’ or peasant designs lent themselves well to such style adaptations. A simple pullover could be completely transformed once a crocheted cord was run as a draw-string through the cables and puffed sleeves added. Or if several rows of a cheerful zig-zag running stitch were worked on moss-stitch at the yoke, this had the appearance of smocking and could be very effective. Ribbing, too, might be smocked by using contrasting wools.

‘Tipping’ was used constantly throughout the war, which meant knitting or crocheting one or more rows on all outside edges – welt, cuffs, collar, neckband. For example, shell-edging could be added to the neck and sleeves on a little girl’s bolero. The idea was to make these additions even more important than the garment itself to disguise the source of the original garment; then, the child would think they had something new. A scalloped hemline or lattice-work of velvet ribbon also had the added advantage of lengthening, as well as smartening a garment, giving it extra life for a growing child. Perennially popular were the Fair Isles because an adult jumper, once unpicked, would easily provide the primary background colour, while the oddments bag would yield the Fair Isle pattern. A child’s Fair Isle bonnet and gloves could be made from as little as one ounce of wool oddments. Socks could be given a pretty Fair Isle border, with a cap and gloves to match. Little figures might edge a cardigan, or flecks of different colours, cunningly patterned together, would make the most expensive-looking outfit.

This extract is taken from:
Knitting Fashion of the 1940s by Jane Waller
Published by The Crowood Press Ltd
ISBN 9781785007897
www.crowood.com