2021 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

Laura_Elsewhere

There's going to be a huge coupon-spending frenzy this weekend - we're driving over to Ewe & Ply, yikes! 

I have made myself A List, though, which should help reduce the impulse-buying... and some of it is on my friend's husband's coupons as it's to make her something as she recovers from her lumpectomy last week... this is the trip we would have done in January to spend my birthday and Christmas money! 

Cherryfudge

Well, you can't have all those coupons weighing you down, can you? Have a great time!

PipneyJane

@Laura_Elsewhere have a lovely shopping trip.

Cherryfudge said:

PollyWollyDoodle said:

If you go to Thefoldline.com, every week they try to source patterns like the ones used on Sewing Bee. 

Ooooh, thanks for this link! I'd not come across them before, I sense another rabbit hole to fall down!

Ditto.  Thanks @Cherryfudge.

- Pip (will be watching this week's Sewing Bee tonight.)

Cherryfudge

PipneyJane said:

Ditto.  Thanks @Cherryfudge.

- Pip (will be watching this week's Sewing Bee tonight.)

Not me. We have @PollyWollyDoodle to thank.

PipneyJane

I still haven’t managed to watch Sewing Bee!

I have a small spend to declare.  2 coupons on a new wallet.  Technically, I didn’t need one, but my old purse was gifted to me and it has always annoyed me by being too big.  (I’ve lived with that annoyance for at least 5 years.).   The new one is shorter, no more than 10.5cm by 7cm.   Only drawbacks are that it only has one slot for notes and it’s already looking over-stuffed with cards and coinage.   However, it’s the closest thing I’ve been able to find to The Best Purse Ever, which I used to death throughout the first decade of this century.  This will look less stuffed if I manage to spend some coinage.  There’s nearly £5 in the zipped coin-purse section, plus €3-€4, both mainly in smaller coinage.

The Best Purse Ever  was about the same dimensions but had 2 notes sections - I prefer one for GBP and one for foreign currency - and more slots for credit cards.  (I have always sworn I bought a second because I liked the first one so much but when I needed it, I never found it.)  Anyway, the new one is smaller, lighter and fits much better into my handbag than the purse it is replacing.  

This leaves me with 35 coupons for the rest of the year.  37 coupons spent.

- Pip

Laura_Elsewhere

@PipneyJane- I'm waiting til Sewing Bee is over and then watching it all in one day...

The wallet sounds impressive - sure you don't mean "purse" as in handbag?!   My wallet is a 1940s or 50s men's leather wallet, just holds cards and banknotes, and a separate very small zip-purse for coins. 

I managed to very very very nearly stick to the shopping list at Ewe & Ply, only one Zauberball finding its way in as an extra... I haven't worked out the coupons yet, but a hundred quid in money! Although some was thread (the little box of twelve reels) which is coupon-free, and some (the cone of Frangipani and the skein of Fyberspates Scrumptious) is on my friend E's husband's coupons, to knit a capelet for her (she's the third one with the breast cancer). 
I make it 5 x 25g Spindrift, 3 x 25g 2-ply jumper, and the Zauberball is 100g, so that's 300g of wool on my coupons, which is... 50g x6, so only 6 coupons! 

PipneyJane

ARRGGHHHH.  Just lost a post!   Damn iPAD refreshing screens when I went to look at something on a different tab, and then wiping what I’d written. Hopefully, I can recreate it.

That’s quite a haul, @Laura_Elsewhere and only 6 coupons.  Well done!

I definitely meant “purse” as in wallet.  

I like handbags that are relatives of the TARDIS.  On a normal day, my current handbag - it’s dimensions are 27cm x 27cm x 9cm -  has to hold my wallet, an umbrella, knitting, my phone, my glasses case, keys, my chequebook, a notepad, pen and pencil, painkillers, migraine tablets, sweeteners, small pillbox of lactase tablets, travel toothbrush, travel toothpaste, headphones, hand sanitiser, face mask, purse-pack of tissues, hand-cream, chapstick, and lipstick.  When I travel, it also needs to take my passport and my iPAD Mini with its keyboard.  The previous convertible bag - an ancestor of this one - certainly did.  It helps that, these days, you can read novels on your phone.

- Pip

ETA:  I knew there was a photo somewhere.  These are some of the contents of the previous convertible bag, on the Eurostar train on a day trip to Paris in September 2015.  The recycled Evian bottle holds squash, while the makeup bag on the right contains my sock knitting.

Cherryfudge

Just going back a page or so to where we were talking about the Great British Sewing Bee.. and hoping I'm not repeating a suggestion already given (I think I read everything): I came across a digital magazine called thepatternpages which has some read-for-free pages including a regular feature on the Sewing Bee. As with a link already posted, there are suggestions for patterns for those wanting to replicate the clothes that are made (except the recycling ones, of course).
I also noticed a nice little article about using up fabric scraps.

dreamyd

Laura_Elsewhere said:

@PipneyJane- I'm waiting til Sewing Bee is over and then watching it all in one day...

The wallet sounds impressive - sure you don't mean "purse" as in handbag?!   My wallet is a 1940s or 50s men's leather wallet, just holds cards and banknotes, and a separate very small zip-purse for coins. 

I managed to very very very nearly stick to the shopping list at Ewe & Ply, only one Zauberball finding its way in as an extra... I haven't worked out the coupons yet, but a hundred quid in money! Although some was thread (the little box of twelve reels) which is coupon-free, and some (the cone of Frangipani and the skein of Fyberspates Scrumptious) is on my friend E's husband's coupons, to knit a capelet for her (she's the third one with the breast cancer). 
I make it 5 x 25g Spindrift, 3 x 25g 2-ply jumper, and the Zauberball is 100g, so that's 300g of wool on my coupons, which is... 50g x6, so only 6 coupons! 

Wow. Those colours are fabulous!

Cherryfudge

Aren't they just! What do you have planned?