Knitting, Sewing and Such - Part Three

                                                                   

I left Westleigh College when I completed grade 6. It seemed a good idea to start the high school levels from form 1.

My sister and I both left in 1960: by then she was already in the high school levels which possibly stopped at form 3, or maybe even 4.

Miss Clarice did not hide her displeasure when my mother informed her we would be leaving the school.

In fact, many of my original classmates had been leaving during my time there. The numbers were diminishing slowly as mentioned here.

This decision was also influenced by the fact that my family had moved from Preston to Hawthorn, and the commuting was not as easy as it had been when we lived closer to the school.

Fortunately there was another family who lived in Hawthorn and they were able to drive us to and from Westleigh most of the time.

One appreciates a good turn, but one doesn't often like to be beholden to anyone either.

Sometimes we went on public transport and that involved two trams and a bus. It seemed like an incredibly long trip!

I am quite sure Miss Clarice played a large role in organising this arrangement with the other family.

She really tried so hard to keep the school going and also to keep it relevant in such changing times. The '60's were fast approaching.

Possibly my biggest regret with regard to leaving was missing out on weaving, and not seeing my friends any more.

The school had several 4-shaft looms and this was something I was really looking forward to attempting.

I had seen the senior girls weave some very beautiful tartan scarves. This was not a very simple skill, but it was very rewarding as well as being an unusal craft in those days and it still is, although a lot of old crafts are enjoying a resurgence nowadays.

It also looked like a lot of fun to me!

I was very impressed with some of the efforts which were not unlike the one here.

My sister made a scarf on the loom. Her's was not exactly tartan but a plaid pattern of light blue and white. Many of the other girls also did a two-colour scarf, rather than a complicated tartan pattern.


Setting up the loom was time-consuming and very frustrating, especially if the yarn broke. I saw this happen several times. It makes one appreciate just how difficult, and expensive, a hand-woven item can be, and why it sometimes has knots in it.


Overall, in hindsight, I was lucky to have left when I did for quite a variety of reasons.

The video clip above shows a similar loom.