Do you think the travel accessories of today are new inventions? Wrong! Travel bed sheets were modern already in 1941, but you made them yourself. Lifecruiser now tells how to make vintage travel sheets.

(Translated travel related article from a 1941 magazine)

THE VACATION NOW BEGINS

I take travel sheets with me

In these days it’s both thoughtful as well as practical to take bedlinen with you when making temporary visits at friends, family or hostels and similar. As suitcases has a huge tendency to become heavy and overloaded, one is hesitating before packing ordinary bedlinen. But the “travel bed sheet” I want to recommend, is made of nature colored shantung, it’s very light-weight, take very small place, is very easy to wash and on top of that very heavy-duty.

The travel sheet, that looks like a bag, with a slide slitter on each side, is easy to sew. Buy 4,5 meter shantung, fold it double so that one part is 26 cm over the other part. Sew together at both long sides 140 cm from the double folded edge. Where the seam line ends, it’s suitable to attach a piece of ribbon to strengthen the edge. At the shortest of the loose parts, sew a 5 cm wide hemline which will be used as upper linen folded over the blanket. Sew a 2 cm hemline at the other part, double fold it 30 cm and sew together the edges. The “sewed in” part is the pillow pocket and also used as bed sheet. To make it even more neat, you can make a garnish motif and marking with a cross stitch embroidery.

For those who might not know, shantung is a kind of Chinese silk, which is produced of Tusser silk (wild silk).

Kinda old new invention wouldn’t you say? And who knows how old this idea of using silk as travel sheets could be, since silk has such an ancient history.

I’m pretty sure that today’s manufacturer of travel accessories have stumbled upon old articles (if they hadn’t already an old tradition of making them) just as this one and got the idea from there.

Silk is said to be one of the best bedlinen, hypoallergenic and with a natural temperature regulation. I haven’t tested it myself, but if I would choose a good quality: meaning one with many threads, tight woven. That would make it last longer.

Now I wonder if it’s the same with many other things around us, how many of them really are new inventions…? Is the wheel just re-invented over and over again?

Lifecruiser ♥ Vintage Travel