2020 Fashion on the Ration Challenge

Laura_Elsewhere

Grundl sock yarn is excellent - these are both Grundl, from last year - the dark green is Hot Socks Pearl, and the long colour-change one is Hot Socks Spectra IV... excellent, hard-wearing yarn, machine-washable and just generally nice stuff. 

My beloved LYS Ewe & Ply sell Grundl by mail order, in case you wanted more... they have some on offer at the moment! I'm desperately resisting their 'Admiral Hanf' by Schoppel-Wolle (the red ochre, red pepper and elephant skin are crying out to be made into a cardigan but it's just way outside my budget - one skein for socks, yes if I was being very lavish, but the amount for a cardi for my size would be... yikes...! )
I do drool a lot over Ewe & Ply's website, it has to be said... 
https://eweandply.co.uk/collections/yarn/grundl

skogar

Forgot my most exciting find on my drawer clearout. In the small chest of drawers I found the felted dark grey with a white top felted slippers that i bought as a treat when  was on holiday in Iceland  about 4 years ago. I had  completely forgotten about them - never been  worn. They have been  freed from  the drawer and  are now in use.

Have gone wild and bought 2x5 pks knickers. That's quite enough clothes shopping excitement foor this  week. I am wondering whether to do a hat or something  similar as a Christmas present - something I might actually get finished, so if anyone has any good suggestions for good (and easy hat patterns) preferably knitted in the  round as I don't like sewing things together that would be great. Perhaps in arran so it doesn't take too long to knit - but any suggestions welcome. I have made one adult hat before (a few kids ones), the one I did before was in a fairly chanky wool but I think something a bit closer knitted  would be better as it would  be  warmer.

PipneyJane

Let’s see if this will work.  The sock on the left is the one where I had to change yarns.  I think you can just about see where.  Working down from the toe, you can see diamonds.  The change is between the first and second diamonds, nearer to the point of the second.



Laura, I will keep Ewe & Ply in mind if I need more of the Gründl.  (The shop in Gloucester doesn’t do mail order.)

- Pip

Laura_Elsewhere

Those look jolly nice - and no, even with your coaching, I can' see any obvious change - well done! 

We went to Shrewsbury on Thursday afternoon - our first time out to a non-essential shop since whenever-it-was! I was looking for fabric to buy, for making a range of things for my trousseau, from some brushed cotton or similar for winter blouses, to silk or fine wool suitable for getting married in whenever that happens, to lighter fabrics for making some long-leg Fenchknickers for wearing under skirts, to good-quality 200+cm sheeting in strong colours for flat sheets.... no luck on any front and we left empty-handed...
All to the good as it means I shall look harder at my existing stock, AND get round to dyeing the sample of @thriftwizard 's needlecord! 

I did wash lots of my me-knitted bootsocks, and thought they looked rather colourful  


And I made us new face-coverings, with various minor improvements for fitting each of us better than the basic template. 

Mrs_Salad_Dodger

Laura, your face covering looks great 👏 Can you point me in the direction of the template you use. Thank you so much ☺️ 

Laura_Elsewhere

It's this one - but be aware that the original pattern was developed for use against pollution in the East, where people have more gracile, light bone structure - I used the 'adult male' pattern for both My Intended and Me, and his has needed quite a bit added, and mine a bit added, to improve the fit, as we found that if you sit them high enough up on your nose for a good fit there then it only just covers your chin! Worth a quick experiment with an old tea-towel or something, to see if you need to add to the height or width. We added about half an inch either side, and mine has about an inch added in height, and M.I.'s has over two inches, even though he isn't lantern-awed or anything! 

I use tightly-woven cotton for the outside, and pure linen, tightly-woven and boil-washed to shrink it first, for the lining against our skin; in between I use four layers of muslin, with the weave at different angles. 
I sew the lining and muslin layers as one, and sew the outer - then place them together in such a way as to be able to turn them inside-out and end up with the outer outside and the lining inside; Then I unpick them and re-do it correctly  

A friend had made several dozen before someone gently pointed out that by sewing all the layers together down the centre-line in one seam, she was making a row of needle-sized holes all down the front... hence why it's important to sew the outer and press seam allowance one way; then sew the middle and lining together and press their seam allowances the other way. Then sew the upper and lower edges and turn it right way out. 

Changes we've found useful: 
- I sew an extra strip of fabric or ribbon along the middle of the top edge of the outer, before assembly, so that a length of sturdy wire can be threaded through afterwards and removed for washing or replacement. I just leave one narrow end open a tiny bit, just enough to pop the wire in and wiggle it back out. 
- We do t-shirt ties long enough to go round the back of the head, as it saves your ears a lot of hassle and rubbing - AND with my specs it's the only thing that works. I believe hearing-aids also need ties round the back. Because ours are custom-made, with these ones we actually don't have ties, but the upper is one piece of stretchy t-shirt-tie that is exactly right for holding it snugly against our faces - you do need the upper ties to be quite snug. Then the lower one is tied behind the back of your neck. So we put these on by slipping the upper loop over the back of the head, pull the mask down over the face and then do up the lower ties. Whether you do ties or loops or what, it definitely helps if you sew the ties/loops firmly to the mask the the top of the sides, because you want the 'pull' to gather up the sides, not to jsut haul more and more on the bridge of your nose. 


https://www.craftpassion.com/face-mask-sewing-pattern/

skogar

Pip - no can't see the change in the photo - looks good to me.

Laura - those boot socks look fabulous as does your new face mask. I am toying with the idea of trying to make some facemasks (if i can work out how to thread my Mum's old sewing machine), yes I am that inept. I did make a duvet cover and some curtain linings once but that is the limit of what I have produced on a sewing machine although I can hand sew fine. The tips on the nose wire are useful. The only way I could think of doing it was having it so the wire was removable so it could be taken out for washing. I was wondering about bias binding or similar for the pocket for the wire. Went to the wool shop in town today (they are good so want to support them) bought a ball of wool for the present hat and ordered some more cables for my interchangeable circular needles. Am wondering if the wool is a bit vibrant for my mum but will see how it knits up. If it's too scary I might need to wear it instead. Its this sirdar jewelspun daybreak delta. Now to find a pattern for the hat.....

Laura_Elsewhere

@skogar - you can handsew the masks! I did my first one hand-sewn, no problem - jsut make sure you don't at any stage sew through ALL the layers at the front (you do sew through the layers at the side to make the channel for the loop/ties/elastic, but that's okay). 

Your knitting wool looks lovely - and remember you could always get a very very plain one and just do alternate rounds in each yarn, and it can totally change a lurid yarn to a rather subtle one. 

This is a pair of rather dull socks in a self-striping sock-yarn (not my pic, just one off the internet, but mine look just like this):

And if you do stripes with plain cream yarn, and some rounds where you do one stitch from each alternately all the way round, you get this! Totally different 'look' to the self-striping yarn! (these ones are mine - i love them!)

Laura_Elsewhere

@skogar - Ravelry has a lot of problems at the moment, not least that it has consistently refused to acknowledge disabled-accessibilty issues for months worldwide, but it is still he go-to place for free patterns, and also - incredibly useful! - to look at what other people made with one's new yarn and how they found it to work with!

Here are some hats people made with Sirdar Jewelspun https://www.ravelry.com/yarns/library/sirdar-jewelspun/projects?view=cards&search=&categories[]=hat
And if you click on the tab marked 'Comments' you can read that two people liked it, although one thought it was a little thin for a yarn classed as 'Aran'. 
And you can explore - if you look along the top of the page, you'll see "Patterns" and then you have oodles of options down the side - look for 'Category' and then 'Accessories' and 'Head' and you'll find lots of different kinds of hat typs, or 'All hats' and then look for the 'Weight' bit and click 'Aran', and so on and so forth - I usually click 'Yes' for whether it has a photo, and being a cheapskate (which is why we're in this forum!) I usually start with the 'Free' option! 

skogar

Laura - those socks of yours look lovely and I would never have realised that it was not as complicated as I thought to do. I haven't really done any colour work - it is another thing for me to learn which i haven't tried yet. I did look on Ravelry for a free hat patttern but couldn't quite find what I  wanted although I did like the ones with the twisted spiral effect and those looked quite easy but wasn't sure about the ear coverage - needs to be nice and  warm for walking dogs in winter. I really wanted one with a bit  of a fold over at the bottom as I think it helps with keeping your ears a bit warmer.

I really want to make  this hat https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/baa-ble-hatmwhich was originally done as a free pattern (but as you can see colourwork and probably too difficult to get it done for this Christmas as I will not know what I am doing) so I decided i would try knitting the pattern (just as a plain hat) in this wool and see how it looks. The other advantage being if I have knitted the pattern once with no colour work hopefully i will only need to work about the colourwork when I am confident enough to knit the hat if that makes sense. Your self striping yarn / white / alternate stitch idea might be a good thing to try first though. I would agree that the wool is maybe a little thin for aran but i think it will be fine with this pattern. If it doesn't work I will pull it back. If the hat ends up a bit bright I will keep it and knit another for my Mum. I could do with another hat anyway as I only have one and sometimes it hides from me (despite being  bright pink for ease of finding it).It is a big ball of wool so there would be plenty left if I went down the mixing it with cream route.