2020 Fashion on the Ration Challenge

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That helps me, thanks for hunting the post out for me. I don't have stash yarns as I buy what I need for each project and I think because of the work involved by using a drop spindle I will feel fine about it being exempt from coupons. That will be a likely strategy because I am soon to use a chunk of my coupons just on arran weight hat and gloves. Even second hand yarns are expensive but carded slivers are much more suited to keeping the coupon levels ok and my finances ok as well. 

Laura_Elsewhere

I've finally broken my dressmaking block! 
I started by cutting and making myself a second mask, to make 3 in all, as we're off shortly to get shopping and this time I'm going into 3 different shops as we're running a couple of errands for My Intended's son.

But, the big advance is in making myself a straight copy (except for lengthening it) of a blouse I already have, wear and like: 

Blouse pattern has been cut from brown paper, lifted from extant blouse.

Blouse pieces have been cut from cream and pale blue striped cotton. 

Blouse fronts x2 have had hemmed facings sewn on and pressed; shoulder seams x2 sewn (French seamed); one sleeve is sewn on (French seam) and the other has had its first line of stitching but the light is going, my eyes are a bit startled, and I need to sort out some supper soon as we're off shortly, so I'm stopping now :slight_smile: 

Tomorrow, I can finish that sleeve's French seam and press both. Then I shall do the collar and collar-band. I am still a little anxious about the automatic buttonholer on my 1902 Singer as I've only had it a little while, 2-3 years, and it is not as automatic as modern ones! I shall practice on some spare fabric until I am confident enough. Then I shall find buttons, count and space and mark them and then sew the buttonholes. Which I think will only leave the hems of sleeves and tails... I may be wearing this next week! 

It does take an awful lot of fabric being this big, though. Yet another reason I'd love to lose some weight... i have several 1-metre pieces of 112cm (ie 40" of 44" wide) cotton that would make lovely blouses but I shall have to get clever with perhaps doing a yoke front and back in a different fabric, perhaps using piping or trim to tie it all together visually... 

Luckily this one is all in the same fabric. Admittedly, it's striped and, being me, I'm matching all the stripes... It would be a lot faster in one of those "ditsy" sprigged cottons! 

CapricornLass

Hi folks - just dropping in to catch up on the news.  Not spent anything as I don't need anything.  So it gives me time to ponder on some of life's little mysteries - like why do several pairs of knickers decide to develop holes suddenly all at the same time? (And do I sew them up, or is that taking things just a little too far..)

I use the Knitpro wooden needles that screw into the circular wire too.  I find them easier on my finger joints than the steel needles.  One thing I have done is to attach the little thingy that tightens the needles up to a key ring.  Saves me hours hunting round for it, or even worse, losing it.

thriftwizard

"Hmmm.... Fleece, if you could get hold of it, didn’t cost points.   It was just very difficult to get if you didn’t live on a sheep farm or weren’t personal friends with the farmer’s wife.  There are stories about women going “wool gathering”, picking bits of wool out of hedgerows, but that was highly unpredictable."

One of my favourite moments when out & about with my stall was when an older, but not seriously elderly, gentleman told me about his grandmother, who used to spin unprocessed wool & knit sea-boot stockings for sale. She lived in the depths of the Dorset countryside outside Weymouth, which had (still has, to some extent) a thriving fishing industry, and this was her living. She had 17 grandchildren, who all used to go to hers at weekends, and she'd send them out to gather wool from the fences. In the evenings they'd pick & card it for her and she'd sit & spin or knit and tell them tall stories; occasionally there'd be a knock at the door & there'd be a customer asking for his stockings. They weren't cheap, but they were the best & she was never short of customers; I think this would have been in the 50s. He finished up by saying,"We didn't have TV, computers or phones, but we never had a cross word & we always had lots of fun and plenty to eat. I watch my grandkids go cross-eyed & squabble over what to watch, although there's only four of them, and they whinge constantly when they don't get what they want & they just won't eat good plain food. I can't help wondering where we went wrong?"

PipneyJane

Good morning All

Laura_Elsewhere said:

I've finally broken my dressmaking block! 
I started by cutting and making myself a second mask, to make 3 in all, as we're off shortly to get shopping and this time I'm going into 3 different shops as we're running a couple of errands for My Intended's son.

But, the big advance is in making myself a straight copy (except for lengthening it) of a blouse I already have, wear and like: 

Blouse pattern has been cut from brown paper, lifted from extant blouse.

Blouse pieces have been cut from cream and pale blue striped cotton. 

Blouse fronts x2 have had hemmed facings sewn on and pressed; shoulder seams x2 sewn (French seamed); one sleeve is sewn on (French seam) and the other has had its first line of stitching but the light is going, my eyes are a bit startled, and I need to sort out some supper soon as we're off shortly, so I'm stopping now :slight_smile: 

Tomorrow, I can finish that sleeve's French seam and press both. Then I shall do the collar and collar-band. I am still a little anxious about the automatic buttonholer on my 1902 Singer as I've only had it a little while, 2-3 years, and it is not as automatic as modern ones! I shall practice on some spare fabric until I am confident enough. Then I shall find buttons, count and space and mark them and then sew the buttonholes. Which I think will only leave the hems of sleeves and tails... I may be wearing this next week! 

It does take an awful lot of fabric being this big, though. Yet another reason I'd love to lose some weight... i have several 1-metre pieces of 112cm (ie 40" of 44" wide) cotton that would make lovely blouses but I shall have to get clever with perhaps doing a yoke front and back in a different fabric, perhaps using piping or trim to tie it all together visually... 

Luckily this one is all in the same fabric. Admittedly, it's striped and, being me, I'm matching all the stripes... It would be a lot faster in one of those "ditsy" sprigged cottons! 

@Laura_Elsewhere, I'm impressed!  That's confronting the Fear Demon, taking it by the horns and giving it a good shaking.

CapricornLass said:

Hi folks - just dropping in to catch up on the news.  Not spent anything as I don't need anything.  So it gives me time to ponder on some of life's little mysteries - like why do several pairs of knickers decide to develop holes suddenly all at the same time? (And do I sew them up, or is that taking things just a little too far..)

I use the Knitpro wooden needles that screw into the circular wire too.  I find them easier on my finger joints than the steel needles.  One thing I have done is to attach the little thingy that tightens the needles up to a key ring.  Saves me hours hunting round for it, or even worse, losing it.

I had a similar problem with a batch of knickers.  I guess it's just wear and washing, since I know exactly where and when they were bought.  (Miami, Christmas 2014.)  They all started wearing out at the same time.

My replacement 3.25mm tips arrived and are being held "in reserve".  There is life in the current ones yet.  While I was waiting for the new tips, I swapped the left tip to the right end and vice-versa, which had the effect of hiding the irritating flaw from my fingers, so I will continue using them.  I just have to remember for next time.

thriftwizard said:

"Hmmm.... Fleece, if you could get hold of it, didn’t cost points.   It was just very difficult to get if you didn’t live on a sheep farm or weren’t personal friends with the farmer’s wife.  There are stories about women going “wool gathering”, picking bits of wool out of hedgerows, but that was highly unpredictable."

One of my favourite moments when out & about with my stall was when an older, but not seriously elderly, gentleman told me about his grandmother, who used to spin unprocessed wool & knit sea-boot stockings for sale. She lived in the depths of the Dorset countryside outside Weymouth, which had (still has, to some extent) a thriving fishing industry, and this was her living. She had 17 grandchildren, who all used to go to hers at weekends, and she'd send them out to gather wool from the fences. In the evenings they'd pick & card it for her and she'd sit & spin or knit and tell them tall stories; occasionally there'd be a knock at the door & there'd be a customer asking for his stockings. They weren't cheap, but they were the best & she was never short of customers; I think this would have been in the 50s. He finished up by saying,"We didn't have TV, computers or phones, but we never had a cross word & we always had lots of fun and plenty to eat. I watch my grandkids go cross-eyed & squabble over what to watch, although there's only four of them, and they whinge constantly when they don't get what they want & they just won't eat good plain food. I can't help wondering where we went wrong?"

That is a lovely story.

At some point, I want to learn to spin with a spinning wheel, not because I want to take up spinning as a hobby but because I want to try out the skill.

Since I'm halfway through the body of my current sweater, I have been going through my stash and queue on Ravelry, deciding what to knit next.  I keep looking at the Drift Cardigan by Norah Gaughan.  It's in worsted weight and I'd like to knit it in some Pallette Collection Series 120 Vintage yarn I bought in Hobbycraft a decade-ish ago.  I have two colourways:  Red Bud (which is a plummy red) and Macadamia (which is white).  On reading other people's project pages, someone noted that they'd used 1200m for the large (40inch bust) and 1000m for the medium (36 inch).  Ideally, I'd knit the large or the next size up from that which is 44 inches. I have been procrastinating over this pattern for years.  The problem is:  I only have 9 balls of each colour (i.e. 1128m), so reckon I'll be playing yarn chicken the entire way through.  One thought is to knit the body and sleeves in the red and the front yokes in the white.  What do you think?

- Pip (I have tried to link to the image but the Forum doesn't want to play today.)

PollyWollyDoodle

That’s a lovely cardigan. For some reason I don’t knit for myself, only for other people;  I think it’s time I tried something. I think that would work very well with the yokes in a different colour, although I like it as it is. I suppose there is no hope of getting any additional balls of yarn?

Laura, congratulations on breaking the block on dressmaking. Strangely enough, it is mask making that has got me back into sewing, although so far I have only shortened the sleeves on a pair of pyjamas for an elderly friend. I have decided that as nobody is coming to the house at the moment I can leave the sewing machine set up on the dining table so I can get on with things. I’m impressed with your attention to detail, French seams are still on my ‘must learn’ list

Laura_Elsewhere

@PipneyJane, I usually eke out a block colour by adding Fibonacci stripes as they don't distract the eye too much from the stitch pattern - worth trying that so it's white on top, segueing via Fibonacci striping to red by cuff and hem?

(Fibonacci sequence is the number sequence found all over nature, in the cellular structure of stone to the layout of a sunflower centre and seashells; our eyes respond warmly to it, and it's found in much Renaissance art and the best modern architecture, esp 1930s Art Deco proportions. In its simplest form, you introduce stripes, each one being the sum of the previous two - so you star with 0 rows in contrast, then do 1 row; next you do 0+1=1 row again; then it's 1+1=2, and then 2+1=3, etc., etc. For some reason people knit these with a steady number of the main colour between, which baffles me, as it never occurred to me. I knit the other colour in *decreasing* Fibonacci stripes  
It goes:
1 (8) 1 (5) 2 (3) 3 (2) 5 (1) 8 (1) 
and looks like this:

Laura_Elsewhere

@PollyWollyDoodle - when I moved here I assumed, as it's only a tiny flat, I'd bring one of the family Singers, which are just tabletop ones - but My Intended said, "I thought one of them was yours?" and I said, yes, that big treadle-stand there, that's my Singer, and he said, "right, so we'll take that one then" and dismantled it all and got it into the car and lugged the bits up the stairs here and re-assembled it all, and then looked at the sitting-room and said, "isn't it best in front of the window?" so I not only have my own sewing machine, but it has the best light, and a view out over 37 miles to the North Welsh Berwyn Hills to boot! 
A keeper, yep... 

I am about to get back to the blouse shortly, to finish the second sleeve-seam, and then start on the collar. My Intended is off out this afternoon ferrying his son to hosp appts, and today is the 7th anniversary of my 'difficult' and damaged and damaging sister dropping dead abruptly from drink, yesterday having been what would have been her 55th birthday, so all in all I'm glad I have something I can concentrate on properly... 

the blouse fabric is cream with pale blue narrow stripes, a Rose & Hubble that was reduced to £2/m a few years ago. I don't actually like it terribly much but I have it, it's very good stuff, will wash and wear well, will go with a lot of things, and it means if I do mess things up I haven't wasted some fabric I love! Somewhere I have 4 or 5m of similarly-reduced R&H cotton that is narrow cornflower-blue stripes alternating with narrow stripes of blue floral on a cream background, and when I find it I want to make a 3/4-circle skirt with the stripes diagonally, and a blouse to wear with it, and possibly a sun-top, so I have a couple of 'dresses' as they used to do in the 1940s!

PipneyJane

Laura_Elsewhere said:

@PipneyJane, I usually eke out a block colour by adding Fibonacci stripes as they don't distract the eye too much from the stitch pattern - worth trying that so it's white on top, segueing via Fibonacci striping to red by cuff and hem?

(Fibonacci sequence is the number sequence found all over nature, in the cellular structure of stone to the layout of a sunflower centre and seashells; our eyes respond warmly to it, and it's found in much Renaissance art and the best modern architecture, esp 1930s Art Deco proportions. In its simplest form, you introduce stripes, each one being the sum of the previous two - so you star with 0 rows in contrast, then do 1 row; next you do 0+1=1 row again; then it's 1+1=2, and then 2+1=3, etc., etc. For some reason people knit these with a steady number of the main colour between, which baffles me, as it never occurred to me. I knit the other colour in *decreasing* Fibonacci stripes  
It goes:
1 (8) 1 (5) 2 (3) 3 (2) 5 (1) 8 (1) 
and looks like this:

Those socks are lovely.  I think it depends how much you have of each yarn.  Also on my To Do List is a top-down jumper in 4-ply Plassard Alpaga, to use up the leftovers from my 1930's Sweater, which is in cream and charcoal.  I managed to purchase more of the cream but only have 3 balls of the charcoal.  I'm considering applying a loose Fibonacci sequence to that, but keeping the stripes of white the same size each time.  (By "loose", I mean keep the charcoal stripes the same size until I divide for the sleeves, then Fibonacci-ing them down to a charcoal cuff.  Depending on how much I have left of the charcoal will determine when I do the same on the body.)  It really depends on how far a ball of yarn goes and I didn't record that useful detail when I made the 1930's Sweater, so my "best guess" will be to weigh the swatch from that and do some maths.  (Hmmm... Where is the swatch.... Hmmm...  Hopefully I filed it with my copy of the pattern.... Hopefully I filed the pattern...)

Laura_Elsewhere said:

I am about to get back to the blouse shortly, to finish the second sleeve-seam, and then start on the collar. My Intended is off out this afternoon ferrying his son to hosp appts, and today is the 7th anniversary of my 'difficult' and damaged and damaging sister dropping dead abruptly from drink, yesterday having been what would have been her 55th birthday, so all in all I'm glad I have something I can concentrate on properly... 

Big hug to you, Laura.   Anniversaries bring back painful memories.   (I remember you mentioning your sister a while back.)

- Pip


PS:  Just spoke to my Project Director.  He's going to speak to my Finance boss and get me extended to at least the end of September.

PollyWollyDoodle

Oh hurrah for extension! At least it gives you some breathing room. 

I love the idea of Fibonacci stripes, I am familiar  with the sequence from e.g. sunflowers, shells etc and it’s one of those things that fills me with wonder that mathematics and nature are so perfectly aligned, I wish they had taught me about that when I was struggling to learn maths. I’ve never thought of applying it to knitting! Those socks are beautiful. And you are making me think that I should really rearrange my house a bit, sewing is one of the things I get the most pleasure from, and I have a whole house to myself, I really should be able to find a space for a permanent set-up. I am still lusting after a Horn sewing cabinet!