2020 Fashion on the Ration Challenge

Laura_Elsewhere

I'm avoiding buying new by re-knitting the thumbs of my fingerless mitts which have both worn right through on the inner side (it seems my thumbs are made of sandpaper...). It's a bit complicated by being stranded colourwork but I've got one done, so with luck the second is less tricky! 

PipneyJane

Laura_Elsewhere said:

Oh @PipneyJane, that is rotten... 
I very much hope you can see out the project - when do you find out? Very frustrating to have put in all the work and not see the launch of the ship, so to speak! 

My PM spoke to her boss yesterday morning and made the case for keeping me.  He seemed to agree with her but, since I’m officially owned by Finance not the Project, he’s now got to convince my Finance boss.  

Today’s task is to figure out what I’ve been doing for the last year and update my CV.  I’ve seen a couple of project accounting jobs on LinkedIn.  Might as well apply.

In the meantime, I can’t knit on my new project.  Last night, I managed to snap my only 2.25mm circular needle!  I’m 4cm into the 10cm waistband.  It took me 6 online yarn shops to find one that carried a 2.25mm circular in the right length (100cm), so I’ve ordered 3 replacements.  (Two are for insurance.). A few stores had the right thickness but only in 60cm or less lengths - far too short.   Humph!  I have no idea how long they’ll take to get to me.  (Thanks Covid-19.)  At least I always have a pair of socks on the go, to fall back on.

- Pip

Laura_Elsewhere

Well my ginfers will be frimly scrosed that your boss's boss's boss is convinced!

Re the online ordering time - at the start we had a few things take several weeks, but everything in the last month or so has been ordinary posting-times. Hope your circs arrive soon! 

I've had puzzled questions over the years as to why I have so many knitting needles (at the last count a few years ago, over 250 DPNs) but then I use 4 or 5 of them at a time, and they do range from 0.75mm up to 9mm, so... And I often have a project 'furloughed' (see how up wid da kidz I am, with my new trendy 2020-jargon!) while I knit other things... it is useful having spares!  

I've just finished crocheting a lace edging onto the second pair of little black cotton-jersey shorts - I bought the shorts years and years ago but because of the painfully-tight hem on the legs I rarely wore them, so I am really pleased to have brought them into use for under skirts to keep my poor plump legs from chafing. Mind you, I'm now lighter than I have been since we bought those scales about 5 years ago, so my legs are becoming fractionally more streamlined I also enjoy the silliness of having dainty lace edging with a 1/4-inch organza ribbon threaded through  

PipneyJane

@Laura_Elsewhere, you can never have enough DPN’s. I like wooden needles because they are more grippy and I like KnitPro because they come in sets of 6. I knit socks on 2.5mm DPNs and I always have a sock on the go, as travel knitting/handbag knitting.  My first set of wooden DPN’s were 8 inch bamboo Addi’s, which came in packs of 5.  I had one snap spontaneously in my suitcase, when I went to Site to work for a week.  I had needle-tip holders keeping it together with its brethren and the sock was wrapped around it.  It was one of the needles that didn’t have any stitches on it. No damage to the others.  (That was in 2008; we were building a diesel refinery in a remote part of the UK.).  

I worked out that it was because of the tension the needles were put under to get into the tip-holder; they had to bow.  I now only use those tubular holders, the ones you slide the DPNs into.

But even if I don’t break them, DPN’s are easy to lose.  Of my original set of KnitPro 2.5mm, one got lost at the Rugby World Cup - no, I don’t know when it disappeared.  I went to the game with 6 needles, knitted throughout the match and, when I got into the car afterwards, discovered that I only had 5.  

Another disappeared in France, last September.  I was knitting in the front passenger seat.  We stopped at Services and, when I got back into the car - before we even started the engine - I discovered that I’d lost a needle.  We looked throughout the car and all around where it was parked.  (For all I know, Lucky-car will cough up the needle when it is least expected, but he’s been serviced and valeted twice since then and no sign.)

- Pip (Yes, I have 2 backup sets of 2.5mm DPN’s, one of which is getting gradually cannibalised.)

Laura_Elsewhere

I crochet in the car - my chap pointed out quite reasonably that in the event of an emergency stop, let alone a shunt, he didn't think having multiple pieces of sharp pointed wood or metal around my abdominal area was a very good plan, and I had to agree with him! So I crochet instead... 

I'm lucky and haven't had any DPN losses - I carry mine in various ways, mostly just wrapped in the knitting and in a small container of some kind. I have 5 weeks most years when I commute weekly, 6-hr journeys with a long wait on a platform in the middle, and I usually take my laptop-bag on a shoulder-strap, and a holdall with a shoulder-strap, and a small jute tote-bag, the open sort, and that's my train-bag, and it has drinks and apples and books and a notebook and pencil/pen and a crochet project and a knitting project, usually a sock so I can look at the scenery as well, with headphones and an audiobook... 

PipneyJane

I’d get car sick if I crocheted in the car.  I knit without looking but I’ve never been able to do that when I crochet, even though I’ve crocheted since I was a toddler.  I use 6 inch DPN’s.  Any DPNs longer than 8 inches, I find unwieldy.  (I’ve stabbed myself with longer DPNs.)

When I’d regularly go to Manchester on the train or fly to Glasgow for work, my kit consisted of a small roll-on suitcase with my overnight gear/clothes for the week, my laptop bag and a small shoulder bag that holds my purse, phone and glasses case and was tucked into the laptop bag for flights.  My sock-de-jour lives in a zip top “makeup bag” that is normally tucked into my handbag, so it was slipped into my laptop bag instead.  My personal electronics are an iPad mini with Bluetooth keyboard (which fits into my regular handbag) and an iPhone.  I’ll either knit and watch a download from iPlayer or knit and listen to a podcast/audio book.  

- Pip

Laura_Elsewhere

Ah, I have a range of DPNs from 5" to 12" - but then the reason I can't use circs is that I can *only* knit with the back-end of the RH needle anchored in some way, usually just jammed into my belt or the waist-runkles of my jumper, although I do have a proper knitting-belt. 
My mum knits the more usual way (usual for modern Britain!) and I have tried and tried, because it would be convenient sometimes to use circs, but nope, I just really can't. I taught myself to knit in my 30s from my Gran's late-1920s Weldons pamphlets so I can only knit with an anchored RH needle, and I can only knit in the round. I still have no idea even yet how to sew bits of knitting together!  

diminua

I've bought a top. I have a spend of 5 coupons to declare. Online, not in the shops that opened this week, although I did go into Kensington High Street on Tuesday after I got a phone call reminding me I had a pair of trousers I bought in February that were being taken up - I'd forgotten all about them. 
Luckily I was off work this week - I was meant to be in Dublin for Bloomsday - so hopped on the District Line (and as soon as I got off I went in the chemists and bought a mask, because the scarf I was using kept sliding down and I was endlessly fiddling with it). 
It was surprisingly ok actually, not that busy at all, probably because a lot of office workers are working from home (as am I) so they're hitting their local high streets if anywhere. Sanitiser in the two shops I went into, markings on the floor, good social distancing. But only possible because its so quiet. And I can't help thinking that if stays this quiet - if we all keep working from home and tourists don't come back - a lot places are going to go bust. 

PipneyJane

Laura_Elsewhere said:

Ah, I have a range of DPNs from 5" to 12" - but then the reason I can't use circs is that I can *only* knit with the back-end of the RH needle anchored in some way, usually just jammed into my belt or the waist-runkles of my jumper, although I do have a proper knitting-belt. 
My mum knits the more usual way (usual for modern Britain!) and I have tried and tried, because it would be convenient sometimes to use circs, but nope, I just really can't. I taught myself to knit in my 30s from my Gran's late-1920s Weldons pamphlets so I can only knit with an anchored RH needle, and I can only knit in the round. I still have no idea even yet how to sew bits of knitting together!  

I’d say that you knit the older, more traditional way, @Laura_Elsewhere which, if you think about it, is perfect for an archaeologist and historical re-enactor.

I can help you with the sewing bits together.  Seriously, if/when you get to that point, I can give you written instructions or try talking you through it via Skype. 

Since I can’t work on my latest project, I bit the bullet yesterday and started to pull apart my Acer cardigan, in order to fix the glaring error on the left front.  How could I NOT notice that the left front shoulder is one repeat longer than the right? (That’s 15 rows!) I cursed my button positioning, blamed myself for picking up more stitches on the left button band than on the right.... It took several wears and at least one wash before I realised the true cause of the problem!.  Yesterday, I unpicked the collar and started on the left button band.  It took longer than expected because I am REALLY GOOD at weaving in ends, so took ages to unpick them.  Today, I will work out how to unpick the left armhole - luckily not knitted top down - and the left shoulder seam (probably done as a 3 needle bind off).  Then it’s unravel and reknit.

- Pip

Laura_Elsewhere

@PipneyJane - it would make sense that I learnt from Gran's old booklets so I knit like she did!  

Good for you for tackling the Acer - it may be a lot of fiddly work but it will look and feel so damn good when you are done. Do you sew ribbon or tape inside the button-bands? I never used to, then did one with a bit of grosgrain and it definitely improved the 'sit' of the buttoning, and now I have fun using 1/4" or 7mm velvet ribbon, sometimes two different colours side by side, and on my scarlet mohair short-sleeved cardigan (it has quite full, 40s-style gathered shoulder-caps so when I wear it I vaguely feel like the Disney Snow White...!) I had great fun using magenta velvet 1/4" ribbon and folding a 1/4" organza ribbon in bright orange in half and stitching it behind one edge of the magenta, so when the cardi is open it is really eye-catching, magenta and orange against the scarlet! Very simple and very cheap, but it makes me smile and I think makes the cardigan look a lot better in wear. I do need to sew a length of organza ribbon inside from neck to shoulder though as the sleeve-caps tend to slither off the point of my shoulder which doesn't look so good!  

Here's the scarlet mohair in mid-stitching: