2021 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

PipneyJane

Cherryfudge said:

@PipneyJane, that yoke is a beauty. I am torn between thinking it must have been fun and wondering how much concentration it needed. No sun up north today, either, so I do sympathise with the need for woollies. I even pulled DH's winter fleece over me and fell asleep on a car journey today!

...

As for me... I took the blue jumper (WIP) away with me and never dared touch it once. I have developed a fear of What Happens When I Tink It (again). What happens if I am still remaking that row and still getting 113 stitches come Christmas?

Not a lot of concentration, @Cherryfudge. It's a repeat of either 6 or 12 stitches, depending on the pattern. I don't recall if I've mentioned that I've knitted this jumper twice.  The first time (30-mumble years ago), I followed the written pattern; this time around, I charted it because I find it significantly easier to keep my place when I follow a chart. I will add a photograph to the project page of the chart. I'm quite visual.  When I follow a chart, I can compare where I am now to what happened on the previous rows, to ensure I'm in the correct place.

Laura_Elsewhere said:

At least, @Cherryfudge, you won't be looking at 6 weeks of knitting, with up to 460 stitches in a round, and an XXL cardigan in 4-ply that you realise you just don't much like.... I think it's going to be frogged... 

Ouch!  As Cherryfudge said, we all winced and groaned when we read your post.  Big hugs, @Laura_Elsewhere

@Liverpool_Anne I'm going to make a "Drift".  It will mean, possibly, reworking the pattern because it was written for worsted-weight yarn, not DK, but I've always visualised it in a cherry red. If there are any leftovers, I'll make a beret.  (Hopefully, I can find a matching lipstick.  Very 1940's.)

- Pip

Cherryfudge

Liverpool_Anne said:

@CAFCGirl, on the coat front, it really depends how much you feel the cold. I usually get by with a fleece over a big jumper so you may be ok with your usual winter things with the addition of a scarf, hat and gloves. I do think you need to think about it being waterproof though as my experience of the north is that you get more rain, certainly on this side of the country anyway and I have a long waterproof coat for when it's absolutely persisting down.

@CAFCGirl... having lived both sides of the Pennines, my experience is that the west is a lot wetter than the east! Anne is quite right about the rain in the west: it comes in off the Atlantic and Irish sea and falls on the northwest - hence Manchester's reputation for having a raincloud overhead. (I lived there for a while). So the high country gets most of the water before it reaches us.

The east is colder and drier. I think the lowest I've come across over here was a report of -13C on Thirsk Road one winter years ago. Certainly -10C happens every now and then. However when it's as cold as that, it's also nice dry air so it's not as bad as cold and wet. Much of the time it's above freezing, too, so don't think it's always artic.

This is the end of the weather forecast.

Fleeces are a really good idea, indoors or out. However a longer padded coat is still my favourite for winter proper. I'm not a hat wearer and use gloves only when it's very cold, but I do wear scarves: I suppose you will have to play it by ear depending on what kind of winter we get.

Oh, and warm footwear - makes all the difference!

CAFCGirl

Wise words all round ladies!

I do have a waterproof jacket which is big enough on me to fit a fleece underneath so that covers wet cold days out. I love a good beanie and have a plethora of scarves and snoods, mittens and gloves.

Winter footwear is on my list as well though. 
I think the 'duvet coat' will be my aim, the cold, snowy weather type of thing. I'm only short so I do fear looking like the Michelin man if I buy a knee length one, but I'll be aiming for a comfortable amount of 'glute coverage'.

thriftwizard

@Liverpool_Anne, the pattern is http://theessentialsclub.com/blog-posts/bucket-hat - nice & simple! And no, @MrsCD, it's not very thick - just about the same as if I'd used a lightweight fabric with stiffening. It's quite light & airy to wear.

Today, taking DS3 over to his university (now his employers, temporarily at least) for the weekend, I wore one of my 2 pairs of charity shop jeans - the Laura Ashley ones again - and a blue striped top bought a couple of years ago, also at a charity shop, but rarely worn because whilst the body's a nice fit, the arms would look great on the average orang-utan (with apologies to the Librarian, who'd never wear stripes - or anything else...) So whilst my big sewing machine was playing nicely, I chopped the sleeves off at elbow level, zig-zagged round the edge, then stitched them under. Which works fine & renders the top much more wearable! Now to do the same to the other two tops awaiting the same treatment... in fact, I might just do the same to the hem of the  cashmere jumper, now I've found a thread that disappears into it nicely. At the end of the day, it's lovely, but I didn't spend £275 on it, I spent 50p...

Laura_Elsewhere

Cherryfudge said:

Laura_Elsewhere said:

At least, @Cherryfudge, you won't be looking at 6 weeks of knitting, with up to 460 stitches in a round, and an XXL cardigan in 4-ply that you realise you just don't much like.... I think it's going to be frogged... 

I think we all just groaned in sympathy. Do you like the yarn but not the pattern, or have they both failed to live up to expectation?

The pattern is fine and I love the yarn - but I just made very very poor decisions in the design of the striping... I did 2-round stripes which from more than a few feet away just blurs into a mumbled-mess of neither colour so the pale grey and vivid bright orange turns into a muted peach, and the rich egg-yolk yellow and pale grey turns into a nasty acid-lemon.... and it just looks like a peach jumper with a weird broad lemon stripe... 

Wider stripes might work- or using only the three different oranges OR the three different yellows but not both... but this just really doesn't work. 

Ah well, it's a learning curve  

And at least I can unravel it now *before* I cut it up the front to cardigan it! 

thriftwizard

Oh dear goodness, done it again... 50p for a pink Brora cardi, with a tiny hole near the side-seam - now mended - in DD2's size & favourite colour. Gulping slightly and despairing of a society that throws something like that, so easily mended, out without a second thought...

Wraithlady

I do remember, in a charity shop long ago, some obnoxious man throwing a hissy fit and wanting a full refund on a jacket he'd bought there (whilst keeping the jacket, obviously) and just kept going on about it 'not being in a saleable condition' and Trading Standards (like some sort of verbal talisman).

The dreadful flaw leading to this attack on his mental health? (Yes, he brought that up when the sales assistant refused to acquiesce immediately) The jacket had a small hole in one of the pocket linings. 

Suffice it to say the manager informed him that it was a charity shop and the item was second-hand (duh) but he was very willing to sew the pocket lining for the customer immediately. Said customer then stormed out in high dudgeon.

Who can't sew up a pocket lining? Even if you make a right hash of it, it's not going to be visible.

thriftwizard

Can't help relaying a conversation from today that might make you laugh - or despair - I got a phone call from a friend who runs a bit-of-everything shop in town; she had a customer looking for fabric, which is about the one thing they don't do. She put said very-well-spoken customer on to me:

"Can I help you?"
"Well, yes, actually, I'm looking for some fabric to lengthen a skirt with."
"Ah yes. What sort of fabric?"
Baffled silence for a moment... then
"Well, skirt fabric, obviously!"
"Erm - what sort of colour?"
"Red! Or blue. Or something... Look, I just want to lengthen it, you know? Where are you?"

So I had to explain I don't keep premises in this town, but she could come to my house & look through what I have here that might work. Needless to say, she got impatient halfway through the address, talking over my attempts to explain that our house, though close by, isn't easy to find, and never turned up. I could hear children in the background, so wasn't surprised. But I'm still baffled as to what, exactly, skirt fabric is!

Liverpool_Anne

@thriftwizard, you lucky thing, I really wish we had a recycling facility like your warehouse near me. Amazing As for the skirt material are you sure it wasn't candid camera

PollyWollyDoodle

It’s surprising that somebody who was willing to try lengthening a skirt (not an easy task) didn’t seem to know anything about fabric! Perhaps she was planning to use staples or glue 😱

@thriftwizard I too am very envious of your warehouse. I know I’ve posted on here before about my friend who was about to throw away her son’s school trousers (from Next!) because the seam had come undone. I showed her son how to fix it. Fast forward a year or two, son is now twenty and at university. When my friend asked him what he’d like for his birthday a couple of months ago, he requested a sewing machine! My work is done 😎