2020 Fashion on the Ration Challenge

thriftwizard

I've made masks for all of us & for DS2, his partner & her mother, but none of us have felt the need to wear them yet; even where they live, in the city & much nearer the beach & sea, it hasn't yet got nearly as crowded as where DS1 lives in London or DS3 in Southampton. Mask wearing seems much more common (and necessary) Up East! We have no need to travel by public transport & I can avoid busy times for my weekly supermarket trip; most of my shopping is done at the local market (which has tape keeping us 2m from the stalls unless you're the one being served) and the small town-centre bakery, butcher & greengrocer. I'll wear a mask if it becomes compulsory in public, as I suspect it may, but otherwise I just carry one round in case of the unforeseen.

Didn't get down there to try on a dress in the end; DS2, partner & dog came round for a roast dinner under the gazebo in the garden, which was lovely, and social distancing was carefully maintained, with some inventive use of garden tables etc. Nice though investing in a dress might have been, it was better still to see them.

Laura_Elsewhere

How lovely for you to see DS2, partner and dog, @thriftwizard!  I hope sometime in the autumn that we can drive up to sit at the end of the garden path to see my parents, as they've not set eyes on us except by Facetime since we got engaged and I rather think they'd love to see my Gran's ring on my hand! But for now, a trip from the Welsh border to Edinburgh is not really happening...! 

My Intended's son is having some more of the less-urgent surgery (for those not around then, he was hit by a car and spent 5 weeks on life support, months in hospital, and astoundingly had just got back to work in little over a year, when lockdown came in and he went back into his home!; still needs his jaw re-broken and so on, but starting with an ankle ligament), and needs to go back and forth several times over about a week, and it isn't a local hosp, so either it would be multiple different taxis, or else his Dad drives him each time, so after tomorrow we both go into full shielding, so that the hospital will allow him as a driver (all very complicated!). We're allowed our morning walks and I can do the garden, as both of those involve no contact, but nothing risking contact is allowed. 
So no supermarket outings for me for nearly 3 weeks - we can of course do an online order, and we've checked with a neighbour who is totally happy to get any urgent bits for us, but I'm basically trying to work out today what we need for the next few weeks...! Salads are going to be less leafy and more grated-veg as the days go by  

Still, I'm back down to almost my lowest-recorded weight since we bought the scales 5 years ago, so maybe the lack of shopping will be good for my waistline  

joedenise

I understand they won't stop us catching anything but as CAFC Girl says people are more likely to give you the 2m social distancing that's supposed to be happening.  They are also now compulsory for hospital visits, which currently I have two for next month as long as they aren't cancelled!  Not planning on using public transport though!

thriftwizard

"I hope sometime in the autumn that we can drive up to sit at the end of the garden path to see my parents, as they've not set eyes on us except by Facetime since we got engaged and I rather think they'd love to see my Gran's ring on my hand! But for now, a trip from the Welsh border to Edinburgh is not really happening...!"

Fingers crossed for you, Laura! Hopefully it won't be too long... The two DDs & I did drive down to see my Mum early last week, 43 miles west of here, and also over to see DS3 (DD1's twin) 30 miles east; Mum is 94 and every day we still have her is a blessing now. And DS3's basically been on his own for the duration as his flatmate had moved in with his fiancee; however he's busy writing his thesis so hasn't been too downcast, though he won't now be able to finish it for September as he has to conduct several face-to-face interviews, which can't be done at present. Never mind, they've extended his stipend until next March.

Re the public transport thing - it's just as well we don't need it, as services were slashed to the bone a couple of years ago & it'd be quicker now to walk the 4 miles down to DS2's than to get the bus down into the centre, then another one eastbound. Not too bad if all you want to do is go into the centre to shop, but terrible - and rather unreliable, too - if you want to go anywhere else. 

PipneyJane

This will make you laugh.  Later this week, I’m planning to cook something vaguely Thai, that requires bean sprouts.  Since I have dried mung beans in the pantry, I decided to grow my own and soaked some last night in a jar.  I’ve just spent the last half an hour going through my “stockings bag” trying to find a pair of tights or a pop sock that is sufficiently religious to sacrifice, to become the cover for the mung bean jar*. 

I haven’t bought stockings/tights/pop socks since 2017 and those went into the freezer for 24 hours, in the blind hope that freezing them does make the nylon stronger**.  Last year, I made a conscious effort to wear a skirt to work, once a week, because I have several but tend to just wear trousers, loafers and hand-knit socks.  (Admittedly, this last winter was the first in four where I wasn’t working in  an uninsulated, badly heated porta-cabin.  I got out of the habit.)

- Pip


* If you have never grown your own bean sprouts, put a couple of tablespoons of beans into the bottom of jar and soak overnight.  Securely cover the opening with fabric and drain out the water through that.  On a daily basis, fill the jar with water and then drain.  Continue until your sprouts are grown and ready to eat.

** I think the tip to freeze nylon stockings to make them last longer comes from The Tightwad Gazette, but I’ve read it elsewhere.

maryb

Hello, I've been catching up with this thread and I'd like to join if I may.  It's a bit late in the year but I haven't bought much so I do have 51 coupons left.  I thought I had more than that until I went through my accounts for the year.  Easy to forget the odd item here and there and that's what adds up to too much - too much spending and too much consumption.  I actually keep my clothes for years but I get bored and buy unnecessary stuff  This will help me focus and use up my stash of wool and fabric.  
If I run out of coupons it will be in the fruitless quest to find comfortable shoes that I can wear with a skirt AND walk in. Walking is my exercise but I'm finding jeans which fit my hips quite uncomfortable on a post menopausal waistline and skirts are more accommodating and easy to make to my own measurements.  Winter is fine, I have some black shoes with a 5cm heel which are actually more comfortable than flats, which look good with black tights and which I can walk for a good 40 minutes in.  But summer is harder.  I have some Ecco walking sandals but pretty they ain't!  Anything else seems to have high heels or else be completely flat with no support at all.  Not that keen on the Converse with a skirt look

PipneyJane

maryb said:

Hello, I've been catching up with this thread and I'd like to join if I may.  It's a bit late in the year but I haven't bought much so I do have 51 coupons left.  I thought I had more than that until I went through my accounts for the year.  Easy to forget the odd item here and there and that's what adds up to too much - too much spending and too much consumption.  I actually keep my clothes for years but I get bored and buy unnecessary stuff  This will help me focus and use up my stash of wool and fabric.  
If I run out of coupons it will be in the fruitless quest to find comfortable shoes that I can wear with a skirt AND walk in. Walking is my exercise but I'm finding jeans which fit my hips quite uncomfortable on a post menopausal waistline and skirts are more accommodating and easy to make to my own measurements.  Winter is fine, I have some black shoes with a 5cm heel which are actually more comfortable than flats, which look good with black tights and which I can walk for a good 40 minutes in.  But summer is harder.  I have some Ecco walking sandals but pretty they ain't!  Anything else seems to have high heels or else be completely flat with no support at all.  Not that keen on the Converse with a skirt look

Hello @maryb.  Welcome to the challenge.  Please grab a cuppa, pull up a (socially distant) distant chair and join our crafting circle.  What are you making at the moment?

I hear you regarding shoes.

- Pip

PollyWollyDoodle

Welcome, MaryB. Never too late to join in, and this exercise does focus the mind. 

I share your pain, it’s hard to find comfortable shoes that look right with a skirt and I’m afraid I have given up and wear my lovely ‘Mary Jane’ type sandals and to hell with what people think! However I mostly wear trousers anyway, for a number of reasons my legs are not something I want to draw attention to, although in winter I will wear opaque tights and a skirt with boots or ankle boots. 

My coupon expenditure has been pretty low this year.  I try to buy most things secondhand, and as I haven’t been to a charity shop for nearly 3 months there hasn’t even been much opportunity for that.  Since January I have bought (new) two pairs of boots and a sports bra, there have been some other purchases but they were all secondhand so coupon free.  This could be the year when I come out with some coupons saved.

maryb

I'm knitting a jumper in Shetland Wool at present.  When My DDs flew the nest I turned a spare bedroom into a sewing room.  But DD1 came back to the parental homestead to see out lockdown and she has taken over my sewing room, as she also sews - rather better than I do, in fact.  
I might boot her out for a bit though, as I've got a bit of my sewing mojo back after spending the last few days downloading all my Craftsy classes onto a hard drive before they all disappear when Bluprint closes down. Craftsy was never the same when Bluprint took it over.  They said they were looking at various options to allow downloading of the "Own Forever" classes but that seems to consist of enabling you to download onto an IPAD using their app for offline viewing - an app that certainly won't be supported going forward and whose IPAD is big enough to store more than a couple of classes anyway?

Laura_Elsewhere

Argh the system has suddenly gone back to sending me an email for every single comment made by anyone on every single discussion... drowning in emails! Wretched thing has no setting for a daily or weekly notification, but it had been daily, hadn't it?