2019 Fashion on the Ration Challenge

[Deleted User]

I have just discovered this thread and it sounds a fun way of controlling my expenditure on clothing, also, as a avid reader of WWII novels I think it would be fascinating to try to experience some of the difficulties they faced. As it is April I have added up the coupons I have used so far and I taken them from the 66 coupons allowance therefore have 44 coupons left for the rest of the year.

CAFCGirl

Deleted_User wrote: »

I have just discovered this thread and it sounds a fun way of controlling my expenditure on clothing, also, as a avid reader of WWII novels I think it would be fascinating to try to experience some of the difficulties they faced. As it is April I have added up the coupons I have used so far and I taken them from the 66 coupons allowance therefore have 44 coupons left for the rest of the year.

Welcome :j

Laura_Elsewhere

Deleted_User wrote: »

I have just discovered this thread and it sounds a fun way of controlling my expenditure on clothing, also, as a avid reader of WWII novels I think it would be fascinating to try to experience some of the difficulties they faced. As it is April I have added up the coupons I have used so far and I taken them from the 66 coupons allowance therefore have 44 coupons left for the rest of the year.

Oh, it is great fun!

I hadn't thought til I read your post, but gosh, just picture it - we could be po-faced and solemnly just reducing our spending, grimly totting up and castigating ourselves, and struggling onwards, bickering about cost versus quality...

Instead of which we have the coupon system to save arguments, we have some very inspiring women before us whose situation compared to our luxury really helps encourage us to think more, and we have a cheerful group who work by being friendly and nice and positive about the challenge!

Coo, ain't we the lucky ones?!

****

Also - I am buying some lurex thread to add to yarn I already have, to knit a doubt-excluder* for a friend starting a new, scary but good chapter in her life in her 50s... but lurex doesn't count as yarn, does it? I mean... it's thread... isn't it?

*a doubt-excluder is like a draught-excluder, but helps stop doubts creeping in. It looks quite a lot like a lacy scarf...

PipneyJane

Deleted_User wrote: »

I have just discovered this thread and it sounds a fun way of controlling my expenditure on clothing, also, as a avid reader of WWII novels I think it would be fascinating to try to experience some of the difficulties they faced. As it is April I have added up the coupons I have used so far and I taken them from the 66 coupons allowance therefore have 44 coupons left for the rest of the year.

Welcome!

I have to confess that I'm fascinated by the social history aspect of WW2: how people lived; what they cooked; growing your own veg; the clothes, etc. I loved reading Simon Garfield's books, We Are At War, etc, which used Mass Observation diariy entries from the period.

Laura_Elsewhere wrote: »

Oh, it is great fun!

I hadn't thought til I read your post, but gosh, just picture it - we could be po-faced and solemnly just reducing our spending, grimly totting up and castigating ourselves, and struggling onwards, bickering about cost versus quality...

Instead of which we have the coupon system to save arguments, we have some very inspiring women before us whose situation compared to our luxury really helps encourage us to think more, and we have a cheerful group who work by being friendly and nice and positive about the challenge!

Coo, ain't we the lucky ones?!

****

Also - I am buying some lurex thread to add to yarn I already have, to knit a doubt-excluder* for a friend starting a new, scary but good chapter in her life in her 50s... but lurex doesn't count as yarn, does it? I mean... it's thread... isn't it?

*a doubt-excluder is like a draught-excluder, but helps stop doubts creeping in. It looks quite a lot like a lacy scarf...

Laura, sounds lovely. A hug in a scarf.

As far as I know, the lurex yarn is coupon free. I've never been able to find out the coupon cost for non-woollen yarns, hence the note in the first post about the cost only applying to natural fibres. (When I went to the WW2 clothing exhibition a couple of years ago, they had a rayon yarn on display. Their sign didn't give the coupon cost, only that it was cheaper.)

- Pip

Laura_Elsewhere

New technique for Not Spending Coupons (or money!) buying yarn I don't technically actually need: I took a jar of homemade jam into the brilliant little independent knitting shop and gave it to the nice lady who runs it

It meant I could go in and wallow, without feeling bad that I didn't buy anything - she seemed happy with the idea!

PollyWollyDoodle

I really love the idea of a 'doubt excluder', what a great gift!



I am inspired by all the knitting talk. I would love to knit 'Continental Style', which I think is what you are describing, Laura - I do know someone who learned to do this but I think I would find it very hard to change now, it is much faster than 'traditional' knitting I believe. I have had to think about what I do, because it's instinctive - I hold the left needle in my left hand, and I somehow grasp the right needle in my right hand and manipulate the wool with my fingers ... I couldn't really describe it, I don't let go of the needles at any point and I knit quite fast, but I'm not sure if it's a proper technique!



I knitted my first pair of socks about three years ago after getting a book on sock knitting for Christmas, I was thrilled with them and then for some reason since then every time I have tried it has come out too big, too small or too floppy and I've given up. I might have another go following the notes from Laura and Pip above.



All the talk of wartime books has made me revisit my favourite, Nella Last's War (the basis for the wonderful Victoria Wood film 'Housewife, 49'). She could sew, and even had an electric sewing machine and at the start of the war she is making cot blankets out of what she calls 'tailor's pieces' - scrap fabric, I assume. I started re-reading it this morning and had to stop or I would have got nothing else done!

diminua

I have to declare another 2 coupons gone on underwear - which takes me down to 52 now, which still seems comfortable given how much I already own. I notice by the way (not completely incidentally) that sanitary towels were not rationed.

PipneyJane

Laura_Elsewhere wrote: »

New technique for Not Spending Coupons (or money!) buying yarn I don't technically actually need: I took a jar of homemade jam into the brilliant little independent knitting shop and gave it to the nice lady who runs it

It meant I could go in and wallow, without feeling bad that I didn't buy anything - she seemed happy with the idea!

That was a sweet thing to do. (No pun intended.)

PollyWollyDoodle wrote: »

I really love the idea of a 'doubt excluder', what a great gift!



I am inspired by all the knitting talk. I would love to knit 'Continental Style', which I think is what you are describing, Laura - I do know someone who learned to do this but I think I would find it very hard to change now, it is much faster than 'traditional' knitting I believe. I have had to think about what I do, because it's instinctive - I hold the left needle in my left hand, and I somehow grasp the right needle in my right hand and manipulate the wool with my fingers ... I couldn't really describe it, I don't let go of the needles at any point and I knit quite fast, but I'm not sure if it's a proper technique!

Laura describes an older British style, not Continental but something that existed in areas where women knitted for a living, while they were doing other jobs. They’d wear a “knitting belt”, into which their needles were jammed, frequently using one hand to do their day job - herd goats or whatever - while using the other to knit as they walked.

In Continental knitting, you hold the yarn in your left hand, similar to the way you would when you crochet. I’d did a quick search of YouTube and this was the most popular video teaching Continental Knitting.

Again, however, there are plenty of variants. My friend, Kate, is Ukrainian and, while she holds the yarn in her left hand, her technique involves picking at the yarn with her right needle, regardless of whether she’s knitting or purling. She moves the needle round the yarn not the yarn round the needle, and is very fast.

(I can knit Continental, but my purling is terrible and not comfortable. Ribbing is a nightmare.)

I knitted my first pair of socks about three years ago after getting a book on sock knitting for Christmas, I was thrilled with them and then for some reason since then every time I have tried it has come out too big, too small or too floppy and I've given up. I might have another go following the notes from Laura and Pip above.

Dare I mention the dreaded T-word? You really have to match the tension specified in the pattern (at least the stitches per inch), even if that means starting over a couple of times, with different sized needles. Until you’ve found your “forever pattern” formula, I’d knit the cuff and then an inch or two of my first sock, then count my stitches per inch. If it doesn’t match the gauge specified by the pattern’s author, rip it out and start again. You will have only wasted a couple of hours, at that point.

For a good, basic pattern, you’re welcome to use mine, quoted above. I’ve edited it to add my tension. It has been heavily influenced by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee’s book, Knitting Rules. (She’s the “Yarn Harlot”.)

All the talk of wartime books has made me revisit my favourite, Nella Last's War (the basis for the wonderful Victoria Wood film 'Housewife, 49'). She could sew, and even had an electric sewing machine and at the start of the war she is making cot blankets out of what she calls 'tailor's pieces' - scrap fabric, I assume. I started re-reading it this morning and had to stop or I would have got nothing else done!

I’ve read Nella Last’s War. Victoria Wood did her proud. I’ve also got vague memories of visiting as a child, the sculpture garden her son Cliff created in the Dandenongs outside Melbourne. (I’m pretty sure it was his work.)

- Pip

Laura_Elsewhere

diminua wrote: »

I have to declare another 2 coupons gone on underwear - which takes me down to 52 now, which still seems comfortable given how much I already own. I notice by the way (not completely incidentally) that sanitary towels were not rationed.

New undies were always a present at Easter - my parents both grew up with the custom.... I've asked friends over the years and only a few had the same tradition, but apparently it's a remnant of an ancient tradition of people renewing their baptismal vows at Easter, which involved wearing a linen shift - so possibly people associated new body-linen with this season, and by the 1970s it had turned into new knickers for a little girl!

I still want new undies, even now, though... maybe next year I shall plan ahead and include just one really nice pretty pair of Easter undies on my coupon-count! And that would make them more special, too...

A good point re sanitary towels - one of those barely-mentioned things there are many myths about, but I suspect in the war a lot of women made their own and just managed. I know the disposable sort weren't around (at all? or just commonly?) til well after the war, much like disposable nappies weren't - but I think a lot of women probably bought pads made by someone else out of ideal fabrics and fillings, but during wartime had to make their own from whatever was available.

As it's such a huuuuge waste of plastics and chlorine bleach, I do want to move from bought towels to homemade washable cloth ones, but can't quite bring myself to inflict on my chap the essential lidded container of used, rinsed pads soaking in cold water awaiting washing - even though a) I know he won't mind and will wonder why I think he would, b) it isn't anything shameful but perfectly natural and c) as you rinse them out as soon as you've used them, the waiting-for-wash container wouldn't be a vile thing and d) my chap has a child AND was house-husband when said child was 2-4 years old so is entirely familiar with bodily functions, quite apart from having recently been doing a LOT of bodily care for said son who is now home from hospital but did need a lot of personal care...

I feel so brainwashed! But still, society does pile on the pressure, that really periods should be invisible, unsmellable, unmentionable and ideally just non-existent in some convenient way.
I can't roller-skate and don't have any white jeans, though...

PollyWollyDoodle

Laura, thankfully I am past all that (and I really mean it, ignore all the scare stories you read about the menopause, it meant freedom for me!). However before I reached that stage I had a Mooncup and I highly recommend it.