2019 Fashion on the Ration Challenge

Laura_Elsewhere

Crafty_Lisa_Hampshire wrote: »

I have no view on tights myself. I'm happy to go with whatever everyone else thinks regarding the coupon spend. I rarely wear them and the ones I do have have lasted me for an age. I mostly wear the 40 denier with the usual ones for special occasions like weddings.


I have a spend to declare. I have been looking for a decent sized leather handbag to use at weekends as the one I currently have is too small and my rucksack I use during the week for walking to work etc is too awkward. I went into a charity shop the other day and saw one which I wasn't sure about so I left it and looked round a few more shops with no real success. Anyway I have been thinking about it ever since and went back to the shop and they still had it. It was obviously meant to be. I am now the proud owner of a leather handbag, second hand, for £15.00. That is what I call a bargain.

It may be a spend of £15 in cash, but it isn't a coupon-spend, as second-hand things cost NO COUPONS so it's even more of a bargain! Well done!

thriftwizard

Oooh the overlocker has arrived, and it's brilliant - it's instantly shown me that the Janome was never right, for me at any rate. Several elderly towels have bitten the dust & been turned into face-cloths & cleaning cloths, and a few rags have been cut & seamed in interesting directions! One lovely old slightly-felted Laura Ashley jumper is well on the way to becoming a warm winter jacket; I just need to remember where I stashed the sari trim that will finish the job. The other jumper, a huge old cotton one with beading, proved alas to be too tough, (it was in a very bad way so I'm not heartbroken; it was destined for cushion-hood & we're not short of cushions anyway!) so I've also had a crash-course in re-threading, and it's a (relative) doddle.

So now I hope to be able to tackle my UFO pile and turn a few "old rags" into new & interesting garments. Including my long-standing aim to turn old t-shirts & polo-necks into underwear a little more durable than the multi-packs I've been buying...

diminua

I think the last time I wore tights was my brother's wedding six years ago, so I'm going to sit on the fence about that I'm afraid. I do remember what a pain they were when I had a uniform with a skirt.

I have just bought some boots for winter - brown and somewhere between walking and smart if that makes sense - you can only see the toes anyway so they'll be fine for work, and solid enough it I want to go for walks on the way home in winter.

That takes me down to 25 coupons. And reminds me I need to get a winter coat cleaned before it gets colder.

Laura_Elsewhere

Hurrah, I've finished my new jumper - here it is on the right, with a longer, snugger big cowl neck and shorter less flappy sleeves... and the old supermarket jumper it's replacing on the left, tatty, pilling, wearing thin and becoming increasingly shapeless and saggy!

I'm really pleased with this - I had an item I wore a very great deal that was becoming worn-out, and I was able to find ways to use 7 different laceweight yarns, most of which I already had, to knit as a heavy Aran-weight yarn, to make a very lightweight replacement, that is nicer in many ways than the original and should last years and years. Most of the yarn is silk or alpaca with only small amounts of wool, so it's very warm, soft and light!

PipneyJane

Laura_Elsewhere wrote: »

Hurrah, I've finished my new jumper - here it is on the right, with a longer, snugger big cowl neck and shorter less flappy sleeves... and the old supermarket jumper it's replacing on the left, tatty, pilling, wearing thin and becoming increasingly shapeless and saggy!

I'm really pleased with this - I had an item I wore a very great deal that was becoming worn-out, and I was able to find ways to use 7 different laceweight yarns, most of which I already had, to knit as a heavy Aran-weight yarn, to make a very lightweight replacement, that is nicer in many ways than the original and should last years and years. Most of the yarn is silk or alpaca with only small amounts of wool, so it's very warm, soft and light!

Congratulations, Laura, it looks lovely! Nobody would know that you had to dye all the yarn and then match them for tone; at first glance, it looks like you'd used a commercial, tweedy yarn.

- Pip

Laura_Elsewhere

Thanks, Pip! Wearing it today and it's really an improvement on the original, not simply a replacement!

And it's made me really keen to see what else in my wardrobe I really wear a lot - it was a couple of years ago that I needed a photo for a work webpage thing, and we went through loads of pics looking for a suitable one and it was very odd, seeing how many of the photos, taken over several years, had me wearing the original of this jumper! So I started looking for another similar, but no joy, so...

Now I want to work out what else I have that is a real workhorse, and steadily work to find or make really good-quality versions of those things.

PipneyJane

Laura_Elsewhere wrote: »

Thanks, Pip! Wearing it today and it's really an improvement on the original, not simply a replacement!

And it's made me really keen to see what else in my wardrobe I really wear a lot - it was a couple of years ago that I needed a photo for a work webpage thing, and we went through loads of pics looking for a suitable one and it was very odd, seeing how many of the photos, taken over several years, had me wearing the original of this jumper! So I started looking for another similar, but no joy, so...

Now I want to work out what else I have that is a real workhorse, and steadily work to find or make really good-quality versions of those things.

I’m glad you love it. You worked really hard to get the colours to match and flow.

- Pip

CapricornLass

I'm afraid that I'm going to sit on the fence re the nylon tights issue too. I'm tall with long legs 5 ft 8 with 33 inch legs, and I had to endure too many ill-fitting pairs of tights when I was younger, so in my late forties I made the decision that henceforth I would wear trousers/trouser suits with either socks and boots or sandals instead. Best decision I ever made, more comfortable, more practical (I worked in IT infrastructure and server rooms can be cold) and saved me shed- loads of money too. Especially as I have large feet for a woman, and find getting getting suitable shoes that fit properly an absolute nightmare.

I now only wear summer skirts when the thermometer is 25 degrees or more.

The tights I had were used as soft ties for plants

PipneyJane

CapricornLass wrote: »

I'm afraid that I'm going to sit on the fence re the nylon tights issue too. I'm tall with long legs 5 ft 8 with 33 inch legs, and I had to endure too many ill-fitting pairs of tights when I was younger, so in my late forties I made the decision that henceforth I would wear trousers/trouser suits with either socks and boots or sandals instead. Best decision I ever made, more comfortable, more practical (I worked in IT infrastructure and server rooms can be cold) and saved me shed- loads of money too. Especially as I have large feet for a woman, and find getting getting suitable shoes that fit properly an absolute nightmare.

I now only wear summer skirts when the thermometer is 25 degrees or more.

The tights I had were used as soft ties for plants

What is the thing with the sizes of tights? I just don’t get it. At 5’8”, you aren’t that tall!

I’m 5’4” myself, size 14 and I’ve had issues in the past with tights in the UK. When I was growing up in Oz, tights came in short, medium and tall as well as regular and large. Or maybe that is just what I bought. I spent most of the 1980’s nursing, wearing expensive support tights that rarely laddered and cost about $10 a pair. (I wish I remembered the brand.) Once I got here, I struggled to find tights to fit me - often the legs were too long! In the 1990’s, once I’d got an office job, I wore stockings to work (Debenhams’ own brand, 4 pairs in a pack, £1.99/pack, IIRC). The good thing with multi-buy stockings is that, if you ladder one, you’ll still have 7 that can be worn.

These days, I’m back wearing tights because a) I can’t find a decent pair of suspenders - my favourite died of old age - and b) stockings are hard to find. At least MrT’s own-brand, multi-pack tights fit me. Like you, Capricorn Lass, I mainly wear trousers to work with loafers and hand-knit socks. Since I always buy the skirt (if available) as well as the trousers when I buy a suit, I have been making the effort to wear a skirt to work at least once a week to spread the wear. (NB four of my suits are charity shop bargains which didn’t have skirts, while at least two others never had skirts.)

Thanks for the feedback. I think, for next year, we’ll go for one multi-pack of stockings or tights for 2 coupons, but with an annual maximum of 8 coupons to be spent on that type of nylons. What do you think?. That will discourage waste as well as meaning people will not spend their entire coupon count on tights.

- Pip

thriftwizard

You'd all be proud of me! Having cleared a space for the overlocker to "live" in, I started to tackle the UFO pile today. First item up was a Fair Isle type cardi snapped up at the recycler's for 50p, due to be chopped into a pair of leg warmers and possibly a skirt.

BUT on closer inspection, it turned out to be a pure new wool hand knitted Susan Duckworth cardigan, underneath a fair amount of West Highland Terrier hair! It had one hole, which I've darned with wool reclaimed from various remains-of-tapestry-kits; it wasn't possible to do an invisible darn, so I've made a little feature of it & changed a small flower shape into a heart. As the (acrylic) cardi I'm wearing is fast reaching the end of its useful life, it'll make a very good replacement for that once the dog hair's safely removed. Provided it doesn't shrink in the wash... (autocorrect seems to think it might "drink" in the wash!)

A kimono has also been re-hemmed, by hand, but that's as far as I got. Next job is to attach an elastic waistband to an ex-jumper skirt, then using a short piece of left-over elastic to join a tribal-style dance belt.