In the British Army every subunit is entitled to train someone in sewing and using sewing machines so that they can repair the subunit’s clothes and webbing equipment, including in the field. It’s a very creative course and people come back able to build you all kinds of rigs and pouches and things like this from webbing and Cordura that are extremely robust. The soldiers are all super keen to get on the course and to learn to sew.
My grandmother was a girl during WWI, just married before WWII (with my grandfather going to fight in 39), and of course she saw Korea, Vietnam, the cold war, etc.
When I was young, maybe 4, I remeber her teaching me to sew. It is one of my earliest memories of her, along with her saying "hay is for horses!", every time I said "hey grandma" to her.
I recall asking her why, and she became very soleoum, and said that I had to learn how to fix my own socks, that no one would do it for me, in a trench, during a war.
Can't say I blame her thinking, with it being the height of the cold war, the Cuban missile crisis just over, and her whole life and mind filled with the knowledge war.
Edit: I just remembered something more HN relevant. At one of the
London hackspaces there was a machine, maybe a Roland IIRC, that you
could program to do really intricate embroidery. TBH it looked like a
real hassle to set the thing up with different bobbins of thread and
whatnot.
"Home Economics", was a thing at my school too, then we did sewing
again in scouts and cadets, as the GP says make-and-mend is considered
an essential survival skill. Thing is, I'm rubbish at it and usually
stab my finger with a needle, but to this day I still pack a mini
sew-kit wherever I travel.
>I'm rubbish at it and usually stab my finger with a needle, but to this day I still pack a mini sew-kit wherever I travel
Even if I'm rubbish at it and take forever to thread a needle, I've still made field repairs to gear while traveling that were a lot better than having no repair at all.
If you add a length of thin wire from a crafts store, the kind that feels like a stiff thread, and a slightly bigger needle, you can even temporarily reattach backpack straps and securely mend rips in suitcase fabric for the flight home.
I remember my mum saying "if you're going to program you better learn to type" - that was when I was going into gr 10. I didn't always follow her advice but I did take the typing class.
I learned how to type by playing online multiplayer games in before teamspeak or whatever they use now became a thing. Although it was still quicker to type to communicate even after teamspeak.
They typing class I took was a proper typing class though, so much more learning than just where the keys are located. Old Skool stuff too like double spaces at the end of sentence puntucation. How to set up tabs. How to format letters. Just to completely date myself, I was taught PASCAL!
The US Army had dedicated Military Occupational Speciality “43M - fabric repair specialist” for sewing (renovation) until 2001. It was then merged with another to become “92S - Shower, Laundry & Clothing Repair Specialist”. In 2015, the sewing component was removed to allow extra training on operating bulk laundry machines, apparently:
