2020 Fashion on the Ration Challenge

PipneyJane

Tete_en_l'Air said:

PipneyJane said:

@Tete_en_l'Air and anyone else who suffers from static:  the best cure I’ve ever encountered is to rub your tights/stockings lightly with hand cream/body lotion once they’re on your legs.  Seriously.  When I was nursing, I suffered from dreadful static - I once walked into work, took off my coat and found the skirt of my uniform had wrapped itself around my waist with static - and I tried everything to cure it:  antistatic sprays, fabric conditioner, hand-washing my tights...nothing worked...until the Sister in my last department told me about the hand-cream trick.  Any type of moisturiser will do and you only need a little, say enough to cover a 5p piece, smoothed over your tights.  (Whatever they made British nursing uniforms out of back in the 1980’s, it really didn’t play well with nylon.)
HTH.
- Pip

You may have changed my life with this!!! Tried it yesterday and it worked like a dream all day long, even after putting on and taking off my coat, going in the car, everything. It did still crackle a bit when I took it off but didn't stick to me at all. Thank you!! 

Glad it helped! 

@CAFCGirl what are you planning to make with your new yarn?  Tell all!  (If you have already mentioned it, apologies.  I have a memory like a sieve.)  

I will have some finished object photos to post over the weekend.  

- Pip

RicardaRacoon

Thank you for the static trick, I might try it with my dress that has is always clinging to my legs.

I might have turned a bit loud at work today... One of my coworkers told me that her brother has bought 10'000 face masks about a month ago, hoping he could sell them on with profit in case corona virus will spread further.... She thought it was a genious money making scheme and justified it all with "well, since they are sold out in most places, at least people could still get them from folks like him." Oh boy, did I told her off...! Bloody profiteer!

But it got me thinking. It is so easy to say on here that I have bought something off the black market - a kimono that fell off a lorry (aka 75% off in a rather expensive departement store...) and a winter coat to replace my worse for wear one, not to mention all the American stockings - and I wondered what I would have done in a real rationing situation. I would certainly not have bought the kimono as it was a want and not a need and I expect a silk kimono on the black market would have been ways too expensive for me in WWII anyways and as for the stockings, I might have gone without. But the coat... I might have managed to get the points together, if not for a coat at least for some fabric to patch it up, but if not... I am not sure if my principles would have been strong enough to be cold all winter....

Laura_Elsewhere

Interesting question, Ricarda (and well done on ticking off your profiteering-approving co-worker!).

I don't know what I'd have done - I know what I like to THINK I would have done, but...! Like you, say, come the bitterly cold weather, etc... 

Mind you, I suspect you'd have kept darning your lisle thread stockings, because trust me, bare legs and a skirt in winter is very nippy! 
It's one of the reasons women in the past managed stockings on fewer coupons - because many of them wore thicker cotton lisle ones, or knitted fine-wool ones (think fine lambswool jumper gauge) much of the time, and kept nylons or silk for absolute best, special dates and nights out, and would never have wasted them on a day at the office! 

I've been slow this week - Things getting to me... but I've got back to my green skirt and am partway through putting the pockets on, which will then only leave something like 170 inches of hem (four panels each 40 inches wide straight across, made a bit longer by being curved), and the same for lining-hem, to hand-sew... 

I tried to go and buy things in Primark but all their stuff looked like such a waste of coupons to me - I don't want to buy things every few months because they've worn out!

RicardaRacoon

Me again. I might have just solved my spring coat dilemma. My black trench coat is about 6 years old and starting to look a bit bad, but each year I tell myself by next autumn or spring I will have lost enough weight to justify buying a new one in a smaller size... So far it has not happened but I still feel quite reluctant to spend 14 coupons to replace a coat that is still somehow wearable...

I thought I might look for one second hand and now just searched online and found one in my size, nice blue, basically unworn, and the seller lives one train stop from my workplace, so it would be very easy to pick it up. So I guess I will contact her and for the price it is I can also risk just buying it and then passing it on to someone else if it doesn't fit....

Laura_Elsewhere

Oooh well done! No coupons AND saving money too! Hurrahs all round  

My gran had a trenchcoat she always called her raincoat, which she wore much of the year, with a fleecy lining that poppered in for colder weather (she had an overcoat for real winter) - it must have done her for thirty years, that coat - Aquascutum, iirc! Mind you, it must have cost a fair bit in the first place... 

CAFCGirl

@PipneyJane
So far there's a rainbow blanket, plant pot covers, 2 tea cosies, yoga socks, a yoga mat bag and a cowl pocket scarf OH and some fingerless mittens.
I'll probably get started on a pot cover first as I posted a photo of it on FB and had two friends fall in love with it.... So my I've got two made and just need a third so I can keep the original.

Tete_en_l'Air

RicardaRacoon said:

I might have turned a bit loud at work today... One of my coworkers told me that her brother has bought 10'000 face masks about a month ago, hoping he could sell them on with profit in case corona virus will spread further.... She thought it was a genious money making scheme and justified it all with "well, since they are sold out in most places, at least people could still get them from folks like him." Oh boy, did I told her off...! Bloody profiteer! 

Good for you!! 

Love those CAFC Girl!

Spurred on by getting a "new" dress from mending an old one last week, I'm going to have a go at mending a tear in an old favourite dress this weekend. Not really sure where to start though as it's jersey fabric, black and white striped, and the tear is quite large and between the stripes so I don't even know what colour thread to use - which is why I stuck it in a cupboard. I'll have a go and if it doesn't work then I'll finally chop it up for dusters, and at least it's being useful.

CAFCGirl

@Tete_en_l'Air Is it something that could work with a embroidered patch over top, or make a feature of the repair itself. Ive seen lots of youtube videos of this that don't involve much fussing

PollyWollyDoodle

Could you iron a bit of Bondaweb or similar on the back to stabilise the tear?  Then you might be able to just sew down the edges so it’s not loose, if you see what I mean - invisible thread?  

My friend confessed the other day that she had tried to fix the hem on her trousers, and it came down again straightaway. I said I’d do it, and she handed over a bag with this, a cardigan where the seam had gone under the arm, and a favourite wool dress with two moth holes in. I turned up the trouser hem and fixed the seam, and managed to do an invisible darn on the holes - I didn’t think it was great to be honest, but she was absolutely ecstatic. I have a bottle of wine in return, I am very happy with that for less than an hour’s work!  

I don’t think of myself as a particularly expert sewer, so I was surprised that she couldn’t even turn up a trouser hem.  I am so lucky to be able to do things like this, and I am eternally grateful to my mum for teaching me to sew. 

Laura_Elsewhere

An old trick is to place the torn fabric flat on a firm surface (I use the back of large hardback books...) with a sheet of paper beneath and use large running stitches to stitch the fabric to the paper wherever is needed to stabilise the whole area - like using Bondaweb only without the permanent stiffening that leaves - then you can work out how much you can match up the edges and so on, much more easily when it's not flopping about. I agree about finding a way to make the mending attractive and not trying to hide it - embroidered patch, or even use plain fabric to patch but use high-contrast thread - so maybe a black patch on your black and white stripes, sewn with scarlet or bright royal blue thread... 
If you really want to mend it less obviously, could you shorten the length or shorten the sleeves, thus acquiring enough original fabric to patch it, but position it so the patch has a black stripe on the white, and a white stripe on the black - or use old black and white t-shirts or vest tops to make up a patch in stripes if you really want! But deliberately reversing the stripes can help the eye ignore a whole load of things like the patch being sightly wonky or the fabric a bit puckered or whatever