2020 Fashion on the Ration Challenge

Laura_Elsewhere

Well, my heavy satin dressing-gown is half-made and shaping up well! Why not go for some 1940s starlet glamour and make yourself a dressing-gown, or maybe pyjamas? My satin is upholstery/curtain satin, too heavy for pyjamas, but it's making a gorgeous dressing-gown which I intend NOT to save for best!

Laura_Elsewhere

I've been thinking about buying 3m or so of light, good fabric for my next everyday skirt, and have just bought three metres of dupion pure silk in a nice dark green, for only £30 - and the best bit is that it's a remnant listed as 'Used' on eBay so it's coupon-free, as it's second-hand! Hurrah!

ConstantKathyPatient38

Lucky you, well done!

lykkelig

Laura, excellent find! Excellent couponing tactic as well.

I pop on to the thread to report a 100g 80% BFL & 20% bamboo blend of yarn purchased. So I think that is 4 coupons down and sadly I need another 100g as well so it's all a bit of it ouchy. I'm knitting up a shawl that I will use as my scarf next autumn and winter. I wanted to try a yarn that wasn't strengthened with nylon while being a mindful knitter, not churning out project after project which my WIP basket suggests I am doing now. The shawl, should you be interested, is Caravan of Love by Potter and Bloom on Rav.

Laura_Elsewhere

lykkelig wrote: »

Laura, excellent find! Excellent couponing tactic as well.

I pop on to the thread to report a 100g 80% BFL & 20% bamboo blend of yarn purchased. So I think that is 4 coupons down and sadly I need another 100g as well so it's all a bit of it ouchy. I'm knitting up a shawl that I will use as my scarf next autumn and winter. I wanted to try a yarn that wasn't strengthened with nylon while being a mindful knitter, not churning out project after project which my WIP basket suggests I am doing now. The shawl, should you be interested, is Caravan of Love by Potter and Bloom on Rav.

Have you tried the stash-search option on Rav? You can search for a yarn by brand and name and narrow it to your own country, and to those willing to sell - I have been able to get yarns I wouldn't have afforded, full-price, because people often really just want the space so charge far less than the going shop-price. Last year someone even threw in 1200m of pure cashmere, free!, just to get rid of it when I bought a couple of skeins of yarn!

So it's worth going to Rav and clicking 'Yarns' along the top, then 'search in stashes' and click on "will trade or sell' and your country, and you may be lucky!

I often start there, actually, because you can, for example, choose the fibre types and weight and colour-family and see what's around... currently no BFL/bamboo, but if you widen it to wool/bamboo there's lots of Zitron Trekking, although none in the UK - but postage from the EU is often only a few quid...

Anyway - I totally recommend it as a way to help your fellow-knitters get rid of unwanted yarn whilst getting lovely stuff yourself AND not spending any coupons! :_

basketcase

Hi!
This seems like a really interesting challenge. Bit late to the party, but please could I join? I’ve been going to Slimming World for a while and have gone down (almost) 2 sizes since joining. But I’ve got a couple more stone to lose to get back to my fighting weight, so I don’t want to go overboard buying stuff if it takes me a while to get there.

I kept a few classic, timeless things (blouses/skirts/waistcoats) in smaller sizes, so hopefully won’t fare too badly. My daughter’s going to help me have a sartorial ‘makeover’ when I reach goal-weight. Fortunately, she’s a vintage/charity shop goddess. (The only word she likes better than ‘bargain’ is ‘free’!!)

I’m not sure how well I’ll do. I think I’d’ve been one of the ones who were initially horrified but determined to improve. My sewing’s passable and I have made clothes in the past; I’m better at hand-sewing than using a machine. My knitting’s reasonable but on the slow side – the war would probably be over before I’d finished a jumper! – and I can crochet very badly, but have the tools to improve (A set of metal hooks, some suitable yarn and a book that has diagrams for lefthanders as well as righties).

My mother was an ace at this sort of thing. I remember her telling me that she used her wedding dress (sky blue silk) to make a dress for my sister and a couple of shirts for my brother. She made do and mended too. I think it’s lack of skill/practice rather than lack of ideas that stops me!

I have a couple of knitting projects that I’m determined to finish before next Christmas :rotfl: and small fabric and yarn stashes. Could I just double-check that these don’t count against my coupons because I’ve had them for (mumble) years?

lykkelig

Laura_Elsewhere wrote: »

Have you tried the stash-search option on Rav? You can search for a yarn by brand and name and narrow it to your own country, and to those willing to sell - I have been able to get yarns I wouldn't have afforded, full-price, because people often really just want the space so charge far less than the going shop-price. Last year someone even threw in 1200m of pure cashmere, free!, just to get rid of it when I bought a couple of skeins of yarn!

So it's worth going to Rav and clicking 'Yarns' along the top, then 'search in stashes' and click on "will trade or sell' and your country, and you may be lucky!

I often start there, actually, because you can, for example, choose the fibre types and weight and colour-family and see what's around... currently no BFL/bamboo, but if you widen it to wool/bamboo there's lots of Zitron Trekking, although none in the UK - but postage from the EU is often only a few quid...

Anyway - I totally recommend it as a way to help your fellow-knitters get rid of unwanted yarn whilst getting lovely stuff yourself AND not spending any coupons! :_

Laura Elsewhere! Your help and advice have truly surpassed any MSE expectations. I feel like the world has opened. We both know how I'm spending my evening then.

I searched for nettle fibres but it came up with cellulose which sounds really quite man-made to me. Does anyone know anything about nettle in terms of a natural fibre?

Laura_Elsewhere

lykkelig wrote: »

Laura Elsewhere! Your help and advice have truly surpassed any MSE expectations. I feel like the world has opened. We both know how I'm spending my evening then.

I searched for nettle fibres but it came up with cellulose which sounds really quite man-made to me. Does anyone know anything about nettle in terms of a natural fibre?

Mwahaha It's a glorious rabbit-hole, isn't it?!


Nettle, you'll find listed under "ramie" for reasons I don't understand...
Cellulose is just the technical term for lots of natural fibres - bamboo is cellulose, linen and hemp are cellulose, it's to do with the cellular structure that plants use to have stems that stand up - it does sound like cellophane, which most people think is a plastic film, but actually real cellophane is plant-material!

So you're absolutely fine with cellulose or cellulosic fibres for natural yarns - and lots of them like nettle/ ramie and hemp and linen are very sustainable. Bamboo is less definitely sustainable - some of it is, some of it isn't...

And nettle and hemp and linen are all far better in terms of resources used in production than cotton which is dire, and of course they're all far better for any washable garment than synthetics - some dreadful research findings over Xmas about all the acrylic "Xmas jumpers" and what the acrylic yarn production does to the environment, not to mention washing non-natural fibres, argh...!

It all comes down to "you can only do what you can do" - nobody's perfect, nobody can do all of it (I certainly don't!), but reducing the amount of new materials we use, and choosing materials that pollute less in washing, those two definitely help!

I'll get off my soapbox now, shall I?

(And before anyone thinks I'm a bit Holier Than Thou, that satin dressing gown I'm making is synthetic fibres right down the line...! Like I said, "you can only do what you can do" - just make sure that you DO do that much!)

dolly84

Laura_Elsewhere - I agree with you about the choice of fabrics, those Christmas jumpers are an outrage and should be knocked on the head immediately, they make me cringe when I see them never mind touch that nasty fabric.

Laura_Elsewhere

I am now going to be speed-sewing the pink satin dressing gown, because the very very cheap silk I bought on eBay has already arrived, and she kindly threw in, free, 3m of pistachio-green lining - it's only polyester but it's a very good quality, and a much richer warmer deeper colour than this pic looks on my laptop screen - the silk is a dark rich conifer-green, but the lining is really nice too!

I can't wait to get sewing!