2020 Fashion on the Ration Challenge

PipneyJane

@skogar - as Laura said, no one way is perfect.  With some practice, you'll work out the best way for you.

Welcome to Socktober everybody!

Anyone care to join me in setting a sock knitting goal for October?  Mine is to finish the pair of socks that have been on my needles since February.  I am half way through the leg of the second sock.

- Pip

Laura_Elsewhere

Can sleeves count as sort of long socks without feet?  

I've just tidied up my ongoing socks in order to get back to my Tiki jumper (using the wool I bought in 1987, years before I ever thought about learning to knit!), and also start knitting a pair of sleeves joined together (I know, bear with me...) like a sort of shrug, in 4-ply, to wear under my cap-sleeved Rail Replacement Jumper in colder weather, so I can move away from the last-6-months-if-I'm-lucky Primark long-sleeved tops that are so useful under it but are now made so thin I have to wear two at a time for decency unless I wear a jumper or slipover... 

I shall use a provisional cast-on at the shoulder and work down, decreasing like I would knee-high socks, to the cuff, and then just a wide strap joining them behind my shoulders. 

Can they count? I'm combining two Alice Starmore design ideas and hope they will look jolly nice... and using big cones of wool wih 10% silk, I was given a couple of years ago for a few days being House Elf for a friend... so no coupons!

skogar

Many thanks Pip and Laura for all the tips re the sock knitting. I had wondered whether picking up and extra stitch and then decreasing might work but after reading all the suggestions I think I may try the twisted stitches and maybe try and pick up a slightly different loop at the bit where the hole is first and see how that goes. Its not a big hole now so hopefully it will be enough to fix it. I'm afraid I am not a very good or experienced knitter so can't see how to fix things by looking at them.

Laura - I do find some of your descriptions of your more unusual clothing items interesting. I was meaning to ask if you had a picture of your waterproof overskirt - sounds very practical. (I can see me deciding I need one of those.) What is it made from? Your joined together sleeves - are they going to be like arm warmers but with shoulders and something  bit like the top bit of the neck of a jumper to hold them together or something completely different. I'm struggling to imagine what this would look like.

Cherryfudge

Laura_Elsewhere said:

... knitting a pair of sleeves joined together 

Is this like the Mary Portas creation? I thought that was a very good idea but I never saw any for sale.

PipneyJane

Laura_Elsewhere said:

Can sleeves count as sort of long socks without feet?  

I've just tidied up my ongoing socks in order to get back to my Tiki jumper (using the wool I bought in 1987, years before I ever thought about learning to knit!), and also start knitting a pair of sleeves joined together (I know, bear with me...) like a sort of shrug, in 4-ply, to wear under my cap-sleeved Rail Replacement Jumper in colder weather, so I can move away from the last-6-months-if-I'm-lucky Primark long-sleeved tops that are so useful under it but are now made so thin I have to wear two at a time for decency unless I wear a jumper or slipover... 

I shall use a provisional cast-on at the shoulder and work down, decreasing like I would knee-high socks, to the cuff, and then just a wide strap joining them behind my shoulders. 

Can they count? I'm combining two Alice Starmore design ideas and hope they will look jolly nice... and using big cones of wool wih 10% silk, I was given a couple of years ago for a few days being House Elf for a friend... so no coupons!

Laura, if you call them socks, then that's fine by me.

skogar said:

Many thanks Pip and Laura for all the tips re the sock knitting. I had wondered whether picking up and extra stitch and then decreasing might work but after reading all the suggestions I think I may try the twisted stitches and maybe try and pick up a slightly different loop at the bit where the hole is first and see how that goes. Its not a big hole now so hopefully it will be enough to fix it. I'm afraid I am not a very good or experienced knitter so can't see how to fix things by looking at them.

.

Any time.

Talking of knitting.... Does anyone else receive the History Hit emails?  They have opened an online shop and the most recent email shows items that are quite clearly crocheted labelled as "knitted".  I wrote them a snarky email yesterday.

- Pip

Laura_Elsewhere

Cherryfudge said:

Laura_Elsewhere said:

... knitting a pair of sleeves joined together 

Is this like the Mary Portas creation? I thought that was a very good idea but I never saw any for sale.

I hadn't heard of those, so I googled - they're on Amazon for sale, but this seemed a useful pair of photos - yes, something very like these, although it's all still in my mind at present  

https://www.thewomensroomblog.com/2011/09/01/mary-portas-armery-heres-what-we-thought/

Here's the jumper I want to wear them with: the original Sainsbury's TU is the faded pilled one on the left, a good decade old, and the replacement on the right last year when newly-knitted (in fact still got some markers and yarn-lines in it, I notice! )

basketcase

@PipneyJane

If sleeves are included I may well take the opportunity to knit those for the Dreaded Alpine Jumper.  That chart's much easier to follow and it progresses the work.  So I think I'll join Sock-that-looks-suspiciously-like-a-sleeve-tober after all...

I'd never heard of History Hit, so I googled it and, being warped, find myself chuckling at the recommendation below.  That said, maybe if some people saw the problems faced during a pandemic with no vaccine etc, they could better appreciate the need for a little caution.

Laura_Elsewhere

skogar said:

Laura - I do find some of your descriptions of your more unusual clothing items interesting. I was meaning to ask if you had a picture of your waterproof overskirt - sounds very practical. (I can see me deciding I need one of those.) What is it made from? Your joined together sleeves - are they going to be like arm warmers but with shoulders and something  bit like the top bit of the neck of a jumper to hold them together or something completely different. I'm struggling to imagine what this would look like.

See the link above to the M.Portas things, only mine will be more like fine-wool jumper-sleeves  

The Skirtbrella is dead simple. It's dark green ripstop nylon fabric, and I simply cut a long rectangle, iirc 2.5m long by the width I wanted the skirt to be in length. I made a waistband out of the ripstop nylon that was just long strips joined to make a 3" wide strip that was long enough to go twice round my waist and tie. Then I just pleated the 'skirt' rectangle onto part of the wasit-tie, so that I put it on by just holding the middle of the wrap-around skirt behind me, one front across my front, other front across that, and the waist-tie goes round the back, and back to the front to tie. So it's got two flat unpleated fronts and the pleats round the sides and back. The extensive wrap-around overlap means even in windy weather my skirts stay dry - it's invaluable for going through unkempt woodland footpaths in wet weather! 

TwibbleDee

I have skirts designed for fly fishing that tend to keep anything underneath them dry if I wear them with pants or leggings (obviously NOT while IN the water).  I primarily use them for kayaking (we don’t do white water - not worried about flipping and getting tangled), but will wear them on cold, wet days with yoga pants and cowboy boots (or days that end in Y with regular shoes...).  

PipneyJane

Consider me underwhelmed on the Mary Portas Armeries.  I'm in agreement with the poster on the blog you linked to, @Laura_Elsewhere, they're missing a key "ugly area" of the body:  the armpit.  Also, hers seem designed like a pair of control knickers so will create a "muffin top" around the top of the arm.  (Incidentally, the armpit is a key place to cover up if you want to keep your arms feeling warm. The blood vessels are very close to the skin.)

Yours will be better, Laura, because you are designing them to be like detachable sleeves, to be worn with those two jumpers.

- Pip