2021 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

Cherryfudge

Those stripes are bee-ootiful @Laura_Elsewhere, both in their extreme precision and in their lovely colours.

Re the headscarf, history would seem to indicate it was a very effective way of getting the housework done, but I can't give personal evidence on matters of housework.  

I'm increasingly seeing the practicality of mid-century fashions. Those shorter sleeves would keep you warm enough but wouldn't fall in the washing up, and as for headscarves, I thought of them wistfully the other day when it was windy. I might just restart a fashion there! After all I'm over 50 so I can get away with anything because I simply am not all that bothered.  

Laura_Elsewhere

@Cherryfudge, thankyou but really - I can't claim any credit for either! In terms of the stripes' precision, that's simply what happens when you knit top-down in the round in stripes.... and I can't even claim credit for the colours - I would never have chosen turquoise and pink and brown and green and aqua and purple, but a friend did and then posted all that Noro yarn to me with a note saying it had sat in her cupboard for ten years and it was my turn now... I looked online to see what other people did with the stuff, never having used colour-changing yarn in anything other than socks, and found someone on Rav who'd used it in narrow stripes, so I just started knitting, using a made-up pattern I had used before for 2 or 3 plain cardigans that were of no particular interest, and suddenly it turned itself into this gorgeous little number! 
I am quite pleased with the sleeves though - my friend the yarn-donor finds it hilarious and keeps calling this my cardigan with five sleeves... I did two different sleeves, as I couldn't choose; then I undid the one I didn't like and re-did it to match the one I did like; then a few months later I felt they were too full at the puffed shoulder, so I undid both and re-knitted them a little less full - five sleeves! 
I am quite pleased with the sleeves, I must say - it's the opposite of how you turn a heel on a sock, ie I picked-up the stitches I had left on wasteyarn when I knitted the cardi neck-down, and started knitting in the middle of the sleeve-stitches, then I knitted into the front and back to dd a stitch, worked one to stabilise and turned; purled along he same distance from the midline and purled front and back to add one stitch, worked one to stabilise and turned.... I think it ended up being every second time I'd add  stitch and I ended up with lots more stitches than I needed for the ribbed cuff, so I arranged them on several DPNs held parallel and knitted one round, making a box-pleat into the ribbing. It looks very 1940s, I think, but I've yet to find the method in any pattern so it's possible I invented a way of doing slightly-puffed (or very puffed if you prefer) shoulders and a box-pleat into a fitted ribbed cuff... 

PipneyJane

@Laura_Elsewhere thanks for taking a look at the instructions.  I think I will have to invent the collar as I go along...


I love the way the stripes square-off on your cardigan.  Sorry to have to break it to you but your box-pleat cuff is similar to the sleeve cuffs on "Summer Jumpers Are Casual" .  The pattern dates from 1935 and is available for free on Trove.   I've finally sewn the buttons on mine and will try and take some photos this evening/tomorrow, since I don't have one with me wearing it, and none of the photos available on Ravelry show off the cuffs.  The technique is quite clever and would look even better if I'd made the sleeves slightly wider.  (I reknitted the collar twice, to get it looking right.)

- Pip

Laura_Elsewhere

@PipneyJane - except that jumper involves knitting a flat sleeve and then sewing it in, and the 'pleat' is only a gathering, k4tog-four-times.

Mine has no sewing at all - I started by knitting the middle 10 or 15 picked-up stitches at the top of the shoulder, making one at each end every so often, creating the puff of the puffed sleeve as I went, but the sleeve is not sewn in, there is no seam. 
Then the box pleat is literally placing layers of knitting over each other just as you would for a box-pleat in fabric. As I recall I held three DPNs parallel and knitted the stitches three-as-one, and then held another three the other way round for the mirrored other side of the box-pleat. The pleat is about an inch and a half either side of the midline.

It's the seamlessness that I haven't found before...

PipneyJane

@Laura_Elsewhere - yours looks far more clever than the jumper I mentioned  Are you sure you only have two hands?  I'd have dropped stitches multiple times before I got things so square and boxy.

I am in awe.

Pip

Laura_Elsewhere

Hang on, I'll just do a quick re-count. 

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Well, I make it two...

I am almost completely ambidextrous, which might help - about 60% right, 40% left, but most things I use two hands for where most people use only their dominant hand. That was something I only found out when my spine collapsed and I quite often had one unusable arm or hand for a while; limited to only one hand I found out that most people only use one hand to brush their teeth instead of changing hands, left for the right-side teeth, right for the left-side teeth. It was bloomin' awkward trying to learn this weird back-hand technique all of a sudden!
Clothes-pegs I can only do right-handed, though. No idea why, but I am completely unable to operate a normal spring-loaded wooden clothes-peg with my left hand! 

Laura_Elsewhere

But if you can do a three-needle bind-off then that box-pleat is really simple; it's just an extra needle. You could slide them all onto one needle if you wanted, so long as you got them in the right order. 
Imagine you want to make 30 stitches into a box-pleat. Ignore 15 for now, and put the other 15 onto 3 needles, five stitches on each. You'd have the nearest 5 stitches as the outside surface of the pleat so the preceding fabric continues to the fold; then stitches 6-10 are held inside those, 6 behind 5, 7 behind 4, 8 behind 3, 9 behind 2 and 10 behind 1; finally, you have the inside of the pleat, 11-15, running behind those. So your first triple-stitch is stitches 1+10+11, then 2+9+12 and so on. 

maryb

Pip if you do want to mitre the corners, wouldn’t it be similar to doing the rib for a V neck but with fewer decreases to make it less acute?

I have a coupon spend to declare.  I mentioned I had a 20% off voucher for Marks and Sparks so I ordered several things.  If I had kept them all it would have been 38 coupons 

im keeping a pair of blue chinos. Total spend 6 coupons 

I’ve discovered that Marks have changed all the lengths on their trousers.  Standard length would now be fine for me whereas previously I always needed long.  But the chinos were ankle grazers and I prefer them a bit longer so it was a happy accident.  The waist is very comfortable. I don’t know if that’s another change to their standard sizing or just their haphazard production.  Certainly nothing else fitted 

Liverpool_Anne

Hi all, 
Love the colours in your cardigan Laura and am in total awe of the technique. I am afraid your instructions are way above my skill level but I hope to get there one day . 
I also have a spend to declare. I went shopping yesterday to Mr. T's for the first time in about 6 months, I spent a stupid amount of money as the shop was practically empty so had a good long wander around. Along with all the food etc I bought a pair of slippers. As mentioned previously I have been in need for a while but as I really don't like buying clothes online I have made do. They are probably not the best quality and probably won't last ages but they made me happy so worth it. 5 coupons spent
The 333 challenge made me think, as most of my clothes have been packed away for ages due to house renovation mess I can easily achieve this but then I haven't had any occasion to dress up for over a year but I will keep it in mind when I get to the unboxing

CraftyLittleLisa

Hello all.  I hope you are all well.  Hugs to those who need it.

I don't post very often as I just don't have much to report really on what I have been up to on the clothes front.  I have just managed to finish a casual comfy dress (which I started following Laura's suggestion of a Make it March challenge).  I didn't quite finish it in March but I did finish it this week.  I made it from some double gauze I got in my sewing subscription box back in October.  I used 2.5 metres so I make that to be 7.5 coupons.  That leaves me with  71 coupons left.

I'm currently in the process of a general spring clean and declutter this month.  I have started with the lounge as I had decorated that and thought it would be good to do a thorough clean and declutter after that.  I will do the bedroom (thus clothes) later on but I am hoping to go through it all to see if anything I don't wear much due to fit or not sure about it generally can be revamped.  I am already planning on revamping a pair of pyjama bottoms (I made in January with some lovely warm brushed cotton) into a pair of fitted trousers as the fabric is too nice to just have for bedtime use and I am desperate for trousers (rather than jeans).  I also want to go through my fabric haul and really work out what I am going to use and what I should think about passing on.  I have done a quick look to find "winter" fabrics so that I can focus on making clothing for now.  I will have to bear in mind though that some of my clothes are really "going out" clothes and it would not be good to pass that stuff on just because it hasn't been worn in the last year.  Hopefully I will be able to go out again sometime in the future and wear them items again.

I had a quick look at the 333 challenge and thought it was rather interesting.  I may not do it per se but it is something I will bear in mind.  I'm not a big spender on clothes (I don't really enjoy clothes shopping and I usually only do it with girlfriends on a day out which obviously hasn't happened for a significant period of time).

Anyway, that's it for me on this occasion.  Take care all.