2019 Fashion on the Ration Challenge

PollyWollyDoodle

And Pip, thanks for that - I think you’re right about tension. Because the first pair I made worked fine without any adjustment I should have thought more about that. Yarn Harlot is very firm about ALWAYS knitting a swatch and washing and blocking ... I’m too impatient!

thriftwizard

Seconding PWD about the moon cup; I used one for the last 5 years or before menopause and it was brilliant. And the menopause wasn't horrendous, either, though I'm aware from friends' experiences that I may have been quite lucky!

I'm sooo looking forward to actually being able to spend some coupons before too long! My last operation should happen next Tuesday, then I'll find out what shape I've been left with! I've lost a little weight - not much, 3 or 4 kilos - but a LOT of condition; my waist seems to have wandered off altogether.

But in the meantime I've discovered an amazing resource; our local waste company have opened a "warehouse" style shop on an industrial estate down in the conurbation. They literally have about 30 builder's bags of clothing & textiles that people have thrown out, at 50p per item, refreshed daily. There's a lot of modern cr8p in them, of course, but also some absolute gems; high-end designer stuff, vintage handmade dresses, impeccable made-to-measure tweed jackets & pure wool suits etc. etc. In the space of ten minutes, I picked out 12 lovely items and was charged just £5, as I'd also picked a hat-pin out of a designer jacket & handed it in before it spiked anyone. It's mostly stuff for my stall, but also a lovely 80s floral cotton cardi for me, a huge, heavy pink glittery curtain for DD2 (a pink-&-glitter-aholic if ever there was one) and a fabulous heavy pure Norwegian wool jumper that DD1 has laid claim to, with no moth damage! I shall have to be very selective, and make sure that something goes out for everything that comes in! And no coupons spent... You'd be grinding your teeth at all the pretty little lambswool/merino/angora tops & cardis I had to let go, because they're "out of season" and I don't have suitable storage for them.

The friend who told me about this place found two items (a "Next" top for herself, and a Monsoon party dress for her grand-daughter) that still had their price tags on. Essentially brand new, although chucked out! If I were lucky enough to find similar things, would that incur a cost in coupons?

PipneyJane

Laura_Elsewhere wrote: »

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...

I didn’t know about the tradition of renewing baptismal vows at Easter. Thanks for explaining it. Next year, perhaps you can have a really nice pair of new undies for Easter (silk cami knickers maybe?).

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...

I can roller-skate (badly), and I did own a pair of white jeans but I never wore them..... )

There’s an American company, Thinx, that makes machine washable period panties, which are designed to absorb a heavy flow for 12 hours or so. I heard an interview with the founder, who came up with the idea after discovering her sister - a surgeon - would be operating all day and unable to scrub out and go and change her tampon/pad when needed.

I’ve considered buying them or buying one of those vaginal cups, but I’m nearly 54 and expect that as soon as I invested the money, I’d immediately become menopausal...

- Pip

PipneyJane

PollyWollyDoodle wrote: »

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.

Mooncup! That’s the word I was struggling to remember when I wrote my last post. Yes, one of them.

thriftwizard wrote: »

Seconding PWD about the moon cup; I used one for the last 5 years or before menopause and it was brilliant. And the menopause wasn't horrendous, either, though I'm aware from friends' experiences that I may have been quite lucky!

I'm sooo looking forward to actually being able to spend some coupons before too long! My last operation should happen next Tuesday, then I'll find out what shape I've been left with! I've lost a little weight - not much, 3 or 4 kilos - but a LOT of condition; my waist seems to have wandered off altogether.

But in the meantime I've discovered an amazing resource; our local waste company have opened a "warehouse" style shop on an industrial estate down in the conurbation. They literally have about 30 builder's bags of clothing & textiles that people have thrown out, at 50p per item, refreshed daily. There's a lot of modern cr8p in them, of course, but also some absolute gems; high-end designer stuff, vintage handmade dresses, impeccable made-to-measure tweed jackets & pure wool suits etc. etc. In the space of ten minutes, I picked out 12 lovely items and was charged just £5, as I'd also picked a hat-pin out of a designer jacket & handed it in before it spiked anyone. It's mostly stuff for my stall, but also a lovely 80s floral cotton cardi for me, a huge, heavy pink glittery curtain for DD2 (a pink-&-glitter-aholic if ever there was one) and a fabulous heavy pure Norwegian wool jumper that DD1 has laid claim to, with no moth damage! I shall have to be very selective, and make sure that something goes out for everything that comes in! And no coupons spent... You'd be grinding your teeth at all the pretty little lambswool/merino/angora tops & cardis I had to let go, because they're "out of season" and I don't have suitable storage for them.

The friend who told me about this place found two items (a "Next" top for herself, and a Monsoon party dress for her grand-daughter) that still had their price tags on. Essentially brand new, although chucked out! If I were lucky enough to find similar things, would that incur a cost in coupons?

Sounds like a brilliant resource. Enjoy your visits there.

Re coupon cost, even if you found something there with a price tag on it, by definition since it’s been thrown out, it’d still be secondhand and coupon free.

- Pip

Laura_Elsewhere

PollyWollyDoodle wrote: »

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!). .

Oh, I'm hoping to follow family tradition!

When my mum was 56, I enquired on day whether she shouldn't be getting hot flushes and mood swings, and she looked puzzled and then said, in sudden comprehension, "oh! you mean the menopause? I went through that last year".

To which both Dad and I swung round and gaped at her, chorusing, "did you?!" - invisible even to her loving husband, that's the good sort of menopause - and afask, her mother had similar...

Sadly, mooncups are out for me, external only, so I shall continue to investigate homemade pads, and wrestling with the infuriating false shame that society has imposed on me! I generally have little time for society's instructions on How To Be A Lady so it's very annoying when I come up against one of the subconscious brainwashing bits... I still feel worried going out dressed up and wearing spectacles and not contact lenses, because of the decades of being told that you "mustn't" wear glasses if you want to look nice!

PipneyJane

Laura_Elsewhere wrote: »

Oh, I'm hoping to follow family tradition!

When my mum was 56, I enquired on day whether she shouldn't be getting hot flushes and mood swings, and she looked puzzled and then said, in sudden comprehension, "oh! you mean the menopause? I went through that last year".

To which both Dad and I swung round and gaped at her, chorusing, "did you?!" - invisible even to her loving husband, that's the good sort of menopause - and afask, her mother had similar...

Sadly, mooncups are out for me, external only, so I shall continue to investigate homemade pads, and wrestling with the infuriating false shame that society has imposed on me! I generally have little time for society's instructions on How To Be A Lady so it's very annoying when I come up against one of the subconscious brainwashing bits... I still feel worried going out dressed up and wearing spectacles and not contact lenses, because of the decades of being told that you "mustn't" wear glasses if you want to look nice!

My sister, 4 years older, keeps asking me (with glee) whether I’ve started having hot flushes. She’s suffered from them but apparently, my mum never did. (My answer: no.) My mum had a hysterectomy at the age of 56 and was still having periods up to that point. (Nothing sinister. She was having bowel surgery for diverticulitis and her surgeon suggested doing it, since he was in the neighbourhood.)

If you aren’t up to home made pads, then Thinx may be an option. I’m considering them but I suffer from the periods from hell - virtually nothing one minute and then the next it’s like a tap has turned on full - and I’m not sure how they’d cope. It’s totally unpredictable. The last thing I need is to have to lug spare knickers around at work. (It’s bad enough having pockets stuffed with tampons and pads.)

I’m going to give a ruling: period undies like Thinx are coupon free. They are sanitary products, after all.

- Pip

Laura_Elsewhere

Because I'm counting my coupons, I'm putting much more thought into the clothes I already have and don't wear... a really nice blouse that i don't wear for two reasons: a) upper sleeves too tight, and b) it's a shirt-style front-buttoning blouse but the upper part is cut-away so it can only be buttoned to low-cut-plunging which I don't like.

I've suddenly realised I can almost certainly cut the sleeves short, to make cap-sleeves that are the right dimensions for my arms, and use the cut-off sleeve fabric to sew onto the front as an upper yoke, moving the silly button-band back to a straight line so i can do it up decently!
It's a mixture of warm russet-brown-and-cream plaid cotton and a very tiny floral print in the same colours, so I reckon i can get away with some butchery!

PipneyJane

Laura_Elsewhere wrote: »

Because I'm counting my coupons, I'm putting much more thought into the clothes I already have and don't wear... a really nice blouse that i don't wear for two reasons: a) upper sleeves too tight, and b) it's a shirt-style front-buttoning blouse but the upper part is cut-away so it can only be buttoned to low-cut-plunging which I don't like.

I've suddenly realised I can almost certainly cut the sleeves short, to make cap-sleeves that are the right dimensions for my arms, and use the cut-off sleeve fabric to sew onto the front as an upper yoke, moving the silly button-band back to a straight line so i can do it up decently!
It's a mixture of warm russet-brown-and-cream plaid cotton and a very tiny floral print in the same colours, so I reckon i can get away with some butchery!

I can’t wait to see the results, Laura.

- Pip

Laura_Elsewhere

Not clothes-rationing, but I can't think of another group who'd understand so easily - I was just thinking of Easter, and how different it must have been during rationing!

Maybe those new undies were an awful lot easier to get than chocolate, so more of a 'thing' was made about them? My parents were children during the war, so maybe that's why they are so clear that "this is the tradition" - perhaps it was rejuvenated or even brought back after absence, and hence why only some people remember it now?

But imagine trying to 'do' Easter for a family of several youngsters nowadays with almost no chocolate or sweets to speak of?! Impossible...!

monnagran

I can help you out with Easter during the war having lived through it. There certainly was no chocolate or sweets, much less Easter eggs. No fuss was made about Easter at all in my neck of the woods. In fact I was 10 before I had my first Easter egg and it wasn't chocolate but a beautiful white sugar egg with a sort of peephole in one end. When you looked through you could see a tiny diorama, I think it was a scene from Cinderella if memory serves me right. I've never seen one like it again. Where it came from I have no idea.