2021 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

Cherryfudge

I'm not offering to do swatches for you as I get confused enough with my own knitting ( ) but I do like the look of those socks!
My current knitting is another string bag as they are useful and fairly mindless... and tension doesn't matter at all.

Laura_Elsewhere

@PipneyJane try a swatch using your worsted plus a very fine laceweight or even cobweb - I often bump a yarn up one by adding a fine laceweight strand. "Lace" varies (as does "worsted" as you've found out") but you should be able to pick up some dark blue stuff to try on eBay or Ravstash-search (hereis cobweb OR lace, colour blue, country UK, will sell: https://www.ravelry.com/stash/search#photo=yes&color-family=Blue&stash-status=trade&weight=cobweb|lace&country=united-kingdom&sort=added&view=thumbs) 

Also, if you put "5.5mm" into the search box in the 'projects' tab of the pattern page on Rav, you get quite a lot of people who have used 5.5mm needles, so their notes might be of use? https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/cobblestone-7/people?view=cards&search=5.5mm&view=cards

PipneyJane

Laura_Elsewhere said:

@PipneyJane try a swatch using your worsted plus a very fine laceweight or even cobweb - I often bump a yarn up one by adding a fine laceweight strand. "Lace" varies (as does "worsted" as you've found out") but you should be able to pick up some dark blue stuff to try on eBay or Ravstash-search (hereis cobweb OR lace, colour blue, country UK, will sell: https://www.ravelry.com/stash/search#photo=yes&color-family=Blue&stash-status=trade&weight=cobweb|lace&country=united-kingdom&sort=added&view=thumbs) 

Also, if you put "5.5mm" into the search box in the 'projects' tab of the pattern page on Rav, you get quite a lot of people who have used 5.5mm needles, so their notes might be of use? https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/cobblestone-7/people?view=cards&search=5.5mm&view=cards

Thanks for posting the Ravelry search, @Laura_Elsewhere.  I’ve had a look and their are a couple of people who’ve used the exact same yarn that I have.  I’m just being lazy (and stubborn).  It’s totally irrational.  I will knit another swatch on 5mm and 5.5mm - half each - and see what I get.  Also, I’m still debating whether to do a Cobblestone or not.  The more pictures of it that I see, the less I think it will work when worn by me.  The yoke will hit at the wrong point on the bust.

The other jumper that attracts me is Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Aran Sweater with Rounded Yoke, from Christine Probert’s Knitting In Vogue book 2.  I knitted it in cream back in the 1980’s*.  It’s got just enough texture in the yoke to show off the worsted-spun yarn, while still being mindless and it was easy enough to do from the written instructions.  (I will chart it up this time, though.)  It does require the same tension as the Cobblestone, though.  This time, I’ll do it with single rib collar, cuffs and waistband.

- Pip


* No, I no longer have that jumper.  It got irreparably stained about 6 months after I made it and I ended up binning it in 1989.  I dried it on a wooden clothes horse next to a space heater and the bits that were in contact with the wood yellowed.  I have no idea what yarn I used, just that it was something I’d picked up from the discount haberdasher’s that occupied the basement of one of Melbourne’s shopping arcades.

Laura_Elsewhere

@PipneyJane, I'd blame the wood's varnish rather than the yarn! But nowadays, you would have a go at removing the stains and if that didn't work, you'd go for some white vinegar and food colouring and your biggest overproof pan to dye it navy blue or dark red to cover the marks  

I am planning some coupon-spending - Ewe & Ply should re-open within a few weeks, if everyone can just hang on a bit longer without being morons and keep that case-rate steady, and I have both Xmas and birthday money waiting! I want to see the colours myself, rather than trying to buy online...

And I shall also be buying fabric in due course, once Thingie & Wotsit in Shrewsbury re-open... I want some soft satin for '30s-style undies in '30s-style pastel colours, pale peach, eau-de-Nîl, hyacinth blue... and possibly also some good firm cotton for undies in less-delicate versions of those colours  

I finally got started sewing the pink-fairies pvc-fabric into a 1939 gasmask-handbag for Christmas for my niece who is about to turn 29; she's the OCD one, so it's PVC inside and out, wipe-clean, Dettol-sprayable, etc. Top compartment a triangular zip-purse to carry clean masks and wipes, then just tilt that up to open the square box below (where he gas-mask was supposed to go) where she can jsut drop the used, dirty, stuff in without contaminating her hands, etc. I've completed the bottom section's assembly, but need to finish the top edge-flaps on the two sides, and then I need to make the purse, carrying-straps, and put that all together with the bottom box... it's simpler than it sounds  

Here it is: https://imgur.com/a/Z5TUy

maryb

I went to Ewe and Ply when we spent a weekend in Shrewsbury a couple of years ago.   A shame they've closed the market shop but they've got other branches, haven't they?  Another yarn shop I luurrve is YAK in Brighton.  I got some lovely sock yarn there which was wool and nettle rather than wool and nylon.  I try to avoid artificial fibres as much as possible but sock yarn does need some strengthening fibre

Laura_Elsewhere

@maryb, yes, I first knew them from the Shrewsbury Market shop, which had to shut down - but they've kept their Oswestry shop, and that will re-open, hurrah! 

I'm with you on the problem of strengthening sock-yarn - I have some very thin Shetland wool I found in a charity shop years ago, no label but it's extremely useful for heel reinforcing! It's cream, so if it's dark wool I put it round the needle first and then put the sockyarn over it and make the stitch, which is a bit of a faff but works to hide it; if it's a pale sock-wool then I jsut knit the two strands together and let it make a marled pattern as it likes Or you can "run the heel" after knitting it by running the sock-yarn up and down the lines of stitches on the inside; I slip alternate purl stitches on my unpatterned heels which makes it very easy to run the heel afterwards. 

zoeblowe

Hi All
quick question - would a second hand leather handbag from eBay be coupon free, the same as second hand clothing?
thanks 

Laura_Elsewhere

zoeblowe said:

Hi All
quick question - would a second hand leather handbag from eBay be coupon free, the same as second hand clothing?
thanks 

I would say so, yes - second-hand shoes, clothing, all those things needed no coupons!

PipneyJane

zoeblowe said:

Hi All
quick question - would a second hand leather handbag from eBay be coupon free, the same as second hand clothing?
thanks 

Hello @zoeblowe. Please pull up a chair and join us around the wood-fire stove in our virtual village hall.  Cup of tea?  Piece of cake?  I believe there’s simnel cake in the tin.  Are you joining us in the Challenge?

Yes, a secondhand bag is coupon free, as are secondhand shoes and secondhand clothes.

- Pip

Laura_Elsewhere

@PipneyJane, you're having an absent-minded moment! @zoeblowe joined us in January! She's just not as noisy as me