Alterations ~ Make Over ~ Accessories ~ Mending and Darning

Written in a time when conserving and recycling was a necessary part of life. Ideas that never go out of style.

There's probably no satisfaction to equal the thrill of making something out of nothing.  It takes only a little wit, time and patience to turn total losses into handsome profits!

Make your own creations or extend the life of those you own. You have no idea how quickly wilted wardrobes respond to kindness.   Try the needle-and-thread treatment for that "just stepped out of a bandbox" look. Apply First Aid in time; with skillful mending and patching.

CONSUMER'S VICTORY PLEDGE:

"As a consumer, in the total defense of democracy, I will do my part to make my home,
my community, my country ready, efficient, strong.

I will buy carefully - and I will not buy anything above the ceiling price, no matter how much I may want it.
I will take good care of the things I have - and I will not buy anything made from vital war materials which I can get along without.
I will waste nothing - and I will take care to salvage everything needed to win the war."

CONSUMER DIVISION,
Office of Price Administration

MAKE AND MEND FOR VICTORY

Book No. S-10 First Edition
Copyright 1942 by The Spool Cotton Company
52 pages including front and back covers
Soft cover, 7-1/2" x 10-1/2"

***
It's up to you to keep the home fires burning, to see that you and your family stay easy-on the-eyes. Fortunately, you can be patriotic and pretty both. It's easy to teach an old wardrobe new tricks, to resurrect the skeletons in your closet and bring them up to date. Come on, take those old knockabouts and turn them into knockouts, keep that glint in Uncle Sam's eye and still do your stint towards Victory!
***

CONTENTS

What you need in your Sewing Basket and how to conserve what you have.
How to mend and patch
Fit for Anything - Alterations and Restyling
Dickeys and Collars
Smart Headwork - Hats to Make and Remake
Accessories from scraps of yarn, cotton and fabric
How to convert a man's suit into a woman's suit
Interesting ways to use men's shirts to good advantage
Suggestions for restyling women's and girls' clothing
Junior Editions - How to make attractive clothes for young folks
How to reclaim used wool
Suggestions for easy sewing
List of materials
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Fit for Anything
Alterations and Restyling

For external use only: a thimbleful of dressmakers' tricks guaranteed to take the years off your clothes in the twinkling of a needle's eye. Nobody will ever guess the age of your coat  if its hem swings straight and true, or dream your dress isn't this year's vintage if its shoulders are smooth, its collar trim. Follow these simple as ABC directions and watch your tired wardrobe put on new airs, snap to attention like brave and pretty soldiers for service.Alteration frequently involves only a few simple adjustments. Dresses, skirts, and coats may need hems or sleeves lengthened or shortened, "bagginess" eliminated at the back, a waist taken in, a new lining.

 Variety is the Spice of Life

Clothes may make the woman but nowadays there's no doubt that accessories make the clothes. It's no trick at all for a dress to have nine lives. You can give last year's dress a new lease on life, make every costume pay extra dividends with a little needle and thread trickery.

At 9 a.m. a simple crepe dress looks trim and business-like with neat white collar and cuffs. At 9 p.m. the same dress, glamorized with a frothy dickey, a new belt, a gay little hat, may on occasion wear a fresh-as-paint party face.

Many a woman with a well-deserved reputation for chic has only a few basic costumes on which she has learned to ring endless changes. It's good fashion sense and smart dollars and cents to s-t-r-e-t-c-h your wardrobe with a versatile collection of easy-to-make accessories.
A polka-dotted hat and bag, a pair of red gloves and a matching calot or an inch of scarlet flounce peeping out from the bottom of a skirt; a necklace and earrings of bright crocheted stars; a set of buttons salvaged from a bureau drawer or made with a few bits of odd yarn change a dress so your best friend couldn't recognize it.

Smart Headwork
Hats to make and remake

 Telling Trifles
It's the little things in life that count

Cutting Up In a Big Way

Chances are your clots have their quota of old coats and suits, too good to give away but too antiquated in cut to come out in the open.  Every home has it's collection of tired dresses, shirts weak in the collar.... And nowadays many have a number of suites - made of precious priority wools - drooping forlorn and unworn on their hangers while their owners are away wearing Uncle Sam's latest materials.

If you only knew it there's probably a whole winter's wardrobe for you and your family waiting to be rescued form the moths.  Frocks, rompers and swimsuits for your small fry, blouses, and underwear for you out of old shirts; a snug reefer for Junior out of an old suit coat or a pair of flannel trousers.  Pinafores and bathing suites emerge like painted butterflies from the chrysalis of old dresses and the tailed suit you've always had your heart set on is yours for the making out of a man's suit.

The Shirt off His Back

Blouses and clothing from white broadcloth shirts
Includes layouts for cutting garment's from men's shirts

1940's Fashions

3 pages showcasing vintage clothing articles which you could make from purchased patterns.
Although there are no patterns, use this section as inspiration if you want to recreate fashions of the 1940s.
Patterns (not included) featured designs by Advance, Hollywood, McCall, Simplicity, Butterick & DuBarry.