All things paper

You must be a real paper arts enthusiast then! (Sorry - should't have rambled on about it in the tech forum!).

At my local primary school in London, the 11-plus crafts curriculum was very much of its time; the boys got to do modelling in plasticine (probably progressing to other materials), while we girls did needlework, of a far more elementary kind than I was used to at home.  So anything more interesting was done in our flat.  I was an only child, and a 'Latchkey Kid'; a big problem according to the media, who blamed working mothers.  (I just felt sorry for the children who didn't have their own key, and was lucky enough never to suffer from boredom at home).

The first relevant thing I remember making in that period was a would-be vending machine (inspired by chocolate machines on stations), from an old shoe box, plus bits of cardboard cut out from the bottom (which went against the wall) and the odd bit of old wire etc from my father's workbench hoard.

There was no guidance for this to be found in the library, bookshop etc.(though my parents were good at answering specific questions properly), and my R&D was incomplete. But it did get as far as an internal see-saw arrangement, which enabled a coin/chocolate one to be inserted near the top, and made to slide onto the back of the seesaw via an external pull-down lever, raising the front of it just enough for a small pretend chocolate bar to slide onto an external tray formed by cutting 3 sides of the rectangular front opening.  (I think I managed to get as far as dispensing the top bar of 2 or 3 stacked just inside, by somehow varying the force used).

By then, the box was too damaged for any more changes l, what with retrieving the coin each time, and trying things like different positions for the seesaw fulcrum, and any further progress would have had to be with shoebox mk 2.  Being an artistic type, I used prototype mk. 1 for practicing the external appearance of it.  Some paint, tinfoil and collage later (and probably a bit of gold paint lent by my artist mother), it looked quite convincing on my bedroom shelf, as a bit of fun decor (by which time I was into some other project).

Yes! A not-quite-finished summer blouse was the only needlework I remember getting done at that school (while accustomed to running up e.g. skirts gathered into a waistband on our home treadle, with no need for a pattern).

But I think school dressmaking had to go through all the steps, in the easiest order, in order to empower all the girls to make clothes etc (or at least do alterations).  Helped by the plentiful choice of patterns then available just about anywhere.

To me, creating clothes is structural engineering.  And I wonder if the powers-that-be in architecture would have removed their barriers to women earlier if it had been a CV item accepted beyond applying for fashion degree courses!