2020 Fashion on the Ration Challenge

MrsCD

Your 'granny' is lovely, Laura. I have one or two doilies to stand vases on in case of drips when I water them. Also some of the supermarket houseplants come in containers that can scratch furniture so I like something for them to stand on.

Laura_Elsewhere

I suppose this really should go in the Make Do & Mend group, but I like it in the village hall here in Much Mending on the Borrow better, so...  

Normally we have a green-and-white gingham polycotton tablecloth, which looks nice, but I wanted something a bit festive... so I hunted in my 'velvet' box and found an old 'portiere' - a door curtain - which is just right! And a much better contrast for making Younger Niece's requested dishcover, a circle of sparkly white tulle with a simple crocheted edging in white with small round clear glass beads and iridescent white tiny glass hearts... 

thriftwizard

Oooh, that's gorgeous, Laura! What a rich colour.

Depending on where we're eating, I tend to use a lovely old silk sari as a festive tablecloth. Luckily it washes quite well ("garden" silk, i.e. viscose, maybe?) It's a creamy colour striped with gold thread and decorated with green leaves and little red flowers; very pretty! And the only thing long enough to cover 2 x 2m tables end-to-end, if there are 9 or more of us eating. But we'll only be 7 plus one dachshund & 3 hopeful moggies this year. Mind you, with social distancing in mind (2 households) I should probably use both tables anyway...

PipneyJane

@Laura_Elsewhere, I love your gargoyle.  And the velvet is a lovely colour.

@thriftwizard - That sari does sound pretty.  I'm not certain if it's connected but Google tells me that "Garden Silk" is an Indian company specialising in polyester-based filament.  (I was wondering if it was a type of weave.  Obviously not.)

There's nothing wrong with re-using a curtain or a sari.  People have been doing it for centuries.

- Pip

Laura_Elsewhere

@PipneyJane - he's known in the family as the haggis-eater, bought on Skye in 1981, from the potter, a retired London bobby, whose wife did the faces individually, modelled on the primary-school kids she used to teach! They had a big three-foot haggis-eater on their gatepost...
I hang my engagement ring on his sticking-out tongue when I go to wash up or knead bread, so it's kept safe! 

This morning I'm crocheting the edging onto a circle of sparkly while tulle, then adding glass beads in the final round for a dish-cover for Younger Niece's xmas by request - then I'm having a go at the wartime pattern for a handbag with a gas-mask holder in the bottom, in pale pink fairy-scattered PVC-fabric (!) for Older Niece, to use as an OCD-compliant face-mask carrier - clean masks and wipes in the top half, and used ones in the lower part, and all of it PVC inside as well as out so she can just spray it with Dettol aerosol or whatever... 

PipneyJane

Laura_Elsewhere said:

@PipneyJane - he's known in the family as the haggis-eater, bought on Skye in 1981, from the potter, a retired London bobby, whose wife did the faces individually, modelled on the primary-school kids she used to teach! They had a big three-foot haggis-eater on their gatepost...
I hang my engagement ring on his sticking-out tongue when I go to wash up or knead bread, so it's kept safe! 

This morning I'm crocheting the edging onto a circle of sparkly while tulle, then adding glass beads in the final round for a dish-cover for Younger Niece's xmas by request - then I'm having a go at the wartime pattern for a handbag with a gas-mask holder in the bottom, in pale pink fairy-scattered PVC-fabric (!) for Older Niece, to use as an OCD-compliant face-mask carrier - clean masks and wipes in the top half, and used ones in the lower part, and all of it PVC inside as well as out so she can just spray it with Dettol aerosol or whatever... 

You must do a show and tell of the handbag, @Laura_Elsewhere.  I am intrigued.  Where did you get the pattern?

If today's weather is anything to go by - temperature currently -1C, frost and heavy fog - I am beginning to feel very sorry for our wartime counterparts, who braved the cold winter nights to sit out the bombing raids in their bomb shelters.  Today, this well dressed home worker is wearing knee-high ugg boots, handknitted socks, Lidl's thermal tights under my M&S stretch jeans, a Damart thermal top under my handknitted 100% wool jumper, a pure wool scarf, handknitted woollen fingerless mitts and my work fleece, with a blanket wrapped around my legs.  I am toasty.  They would not have been.

- Pip

Laura_Elsewhere

The wartime handbag I found online a while back. Here's one somebody made as a handbag some years bag, and if you scroll down it has the diagram and instructions. It just occurred to me as an idea when Older OCD Niece asked for a mask-case - and I'd bought the pink fairies PVC ages ago half-price with her in mind! 
I quite fancy making myself one as a make-up case, with little loops and narrow pockets in the two upper flaps for lipsticks and powder-brushes and whatnot, and larger items in the box below, box of loose powder, hair-combs and so on... 

https://imgur.com/a/Z5TUy

I am wearing long over-the-knee wool stockings with plimsolls as house-shoes; cotton leggings under a me-made wrap-around mid-calf skirt in fine black wool fabric, over a me-made ruffled petticoat that was once a plum-coloured sheet; a grey cashmere-blend vest (present from aunt 15 or so years ago), and then a 70% silk/30%cotton long-sleeved top (charity shop a decade or more back), with my me-made Tiki jumper over that, cap-sleeved and cowl-necked in New Zealand wool and silk alternating. I have my feet resting on a hot stone pig  
My Intended at his desk across the room is wearing normal work trousers and normal thin socks, with thick me-made felted house-socks; t-shirt, plaid flannel (ie brushed cotton) shirt, thin BHS lambswool jumper, and a fleecy throw round his legs. I also put the stone pig on his chair first thing so he had a heated seat to start with  

They definitely felt the cold in the shelters, as "siren suits" were a big thing for women! But also in the diaries and journals there was a definite tendency not to go to the shelter in very bitter weather unless the raid seemed absolutely overhead. People kind of weighed up the risk themselves as amateurs and decided whether or not to take shelter, regardless of the advice of the sirens warning that there was clear and present danger... 

skogar

Laura - I'd love to see a picture of the mask case when you've finished it.

Being driven up the wall here with my Christmas hat knitting - saw a hat knitted up in the wool shop some time ago which looked like a simple quick knit in chunky wool. I got the pattern knowing it was a pattern that was for knitting flat but thought it would be easy enough to convert it. it's not quite as simple as I assumed. I think the pattern is false fisherman's rib. If that is the pattern I can't find any instructions for knitting it in the round.

Pattern for flat knitting is

row 1 knit

row 2 knit 1 below, p1 repeated.

I assume that means in the round it must be

row 1 knit

row 2 k1, purl 1 below

Oddly my rib rows seem to start with a purl so am now trying row 1 knit, row 2 purl 1 below, k1

Will keep going and see if it looks to improve. If anyone has  any suggestions it would be much appreciated. very much numpty at large at the moment.

Laura_Elsewhere

@skogar

I think you've basically got it right, y'know. 

If you get a piece of paper and write out on it:

k1b p1 k1b p1 (to represent the knit 1 below, purl 1)

And then turn it round and look 'through' it, so to speak, you'll see that it's the other way round completely. When you knit flat, you do the wrong-side rows by literally turning it and knitting in the other direction. Like reading a line left to right but then the next line is right to left. 

Like reading a line left to right
tfel ot thgir si enil txen eht neht

When you knit in the round, from a flat pattern, what you have to do is knit to the end of the first row, then knit the next row from the far end, just as in the two lines above you have to read the second one starting from the right. What is a k-p-p on the wrong side is a k-k-p on the right side. 

Why anyone knits flat is beyond me. I can't imagine repeatedly having to do everything the wrong way round on the wrong side in the wrong direction... so much easier always to work in the same direction on the same side!

So, tldr: you wanr to do:

FLAT: 
a:  knit

b: knit 1 below, p1 repeated.

ROUND:
a: knit
b: k1, p1below

I rarely use patterns but I think I've read that in converting it's sometimes necessary to add or subtract a stitch or two (you don't have to allow a bit extra for sewing together), so maybe you could remove one stitch, thus starting your 'b' rounds with a purl. 

But try writing it out on paper and holding it to the light to check your reckoning - it's the kind of thing I often do, because it's so mcuh simpler than trying to work out the logical deduction  

CapricornLass

Gosh  - I'm away for a few days and you've all gone into overdrive with your knitting and crocheting !  Creative things too!  I'm afraid that all I've done is shorten a lined woollen skirt for my mother (an absolute brute) and do sashiko embroidery over the patches in my son's workshop trousers!