2021 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

Laura_Elsewhere

Yep, I'm another who would say, like @PollyWollyDoodle, that sifters and measuring cups and measuring spoons are all reasonably modern arrivals in the British kitchen! 

Neither my Nana nor Gran had any, and my Mum only has the Tala and I think that's only because she lived twice in the States so has a fair few American cookery books... 

Like Polly says, for a teaspoon we used to use an, er, teaspoon... Other stuff we weigh. I use digital scales and love them, but Mum uses balance scales with a set of Imperial weights down to an ounce, and a few years ago she got a metric set of weights, but I think she hardly ever uses those. 

I can't think why I would use a sifter. If I'm rolling pastry, I have my flour tin to the side with an old dessert spoon in it and just shake a little flour across the worktop as needed. Mum uses a small 3-inch sieve to sift icing-sugar evenly over her unglazed mince pies but I do the same as Gran and sprinkle granulated sugar, between finger and thumb, onto pastry brushed with beaten egg or milk... 

Laura_Elsewhere

@Baileys_Babe, your DS could start sewing before the machine is serviced if you buy something like felt which won't fray. Hobbycraft do online ordering, either as delivery or as click&collect, as do Dunelm, so you could buy squares of felt from Hobbycraft (more pricey way) or a half-metre of felt from Dunelm, and maybe a skein or two of basic embroidery cotton, and he could do a cheerful bright drawstring bag that way?

I can knit but I actually crochet my dishcloths as it's easier and quicker - can you crochet? I get my crochet cotton from Hobbycraft too (I buy very little from them, but have mentioned them twice in two minutes now!!) (Puppets Lyric, it's called, in cream (ecru) or white). 

Baileys_Babe

Laura_Elsewhere said:

@Baileys_Babe
I can knit but I actually crochet my dishcloths as it's easier and quicker - can you crochet? 

🤣🤣🤣 If it involves a needle and thread I am not your person. One of my shirts needs a button reattaching, I was going to ask OH if he would do it, as usually if I do a button it doesn't remain attached for long, but I am going to have a go this week.

I would like to be able to knit and crochet as well as basic sewing. For various reasons including,  it looks fun, they are useful skills to have, it will keep my brain working.

Laura_Elsewhere

How to sew a button on so it stays put:
1. get shirt, button, needle and thread and a matchstick, cuticle stick, cocktail stick, something that kind of thickness. 
2. Thread needle and make thread so that if you hold the needle in your thumb and forefinger, the doubled-thread comes to your elbow and no further. Cut thread and knot the end. 
3. Push needle up from underneath, pull it out the right side of the shirt, not pulling it tight, and push it back in again about 1-2mm away - the first cunning trick is to then put the needle through between the two threads just above the knot; *then* pull it snug, and it should be really securely anchored. 
4. Push needle back up as you did the first time, and through one of the button holes; put it down through the other buttonhole and down through the shirt as you did in the first stitch, but again not pulling it snug yet - now put the matchstick through *under* the button, between the button and shirt, with your first double-thread one side of the matchstick and your down-again double-thread the other side of it. NOW pull it snug with the needle on the back of the fabric. Now sew up through the first hole and down through the second, keeping the matchstick there. 
5. For a two-hole button, you just do this 8 times in all. For a four hole button, do diagonal pairs alternately, 4 times per pair (ie top left, bottom right - then top right, bottom left - keep repeating those pairs to make an X of stitches). 
6. When you've done 8, or 4x2, stitches, slide the matchstick out. Push the needle up through to the front of the shirt right next to the first stitch, and then wrap it four times round the threads between button and shirt. Push the needle back down right beside the stitches to the back of the shirt and stitch in the same place three times to secure it. 

Does that help?

Baileys_Babe

Laura_Elsewhere said:

How to sew a button on so it stays put:
Does that help?

Yes, it does. I knew about the thread shouldn't be longer than from thumb/forefinger to your elbow so it shouldn't knot up. I was aware there was something about a matchstick but not what or how.

Thank you for yet again taking the time to help.

I will be copying this down in my how to book 😊

Cherryfudge

Laura_Elsewhere said:

 for a teaspoon we used to use an, er, teaspoon...  

Um... or the palm of a cupped hand.  

I have a couple of old teaspoons - probably car boot sale finds - for measuring things that might be a bit more sensitive to quantity than my eye and hand allow. I find the older cutlery is deeper which I imagine equates more closely to a measured tsp.

My background is in sociology and I remember reading a theory that the changing shape of our cutlery reflects the increasing individualisation of our society or the disintegration of traditional structures, I don't remember which but the end is similar: in the old days cutlery was kept long term and shared: so items were washed up ad used again multiple times and deeper spoons actually result in more physical interaction with a shared item. Then we moved to an era of disposables, and shallower spoon bowls, meaning less physical contact with the implement and by implication, less touching an area that had been used by someone else. Those plastic coffee stirrers were given as a further development in that direction. I don't know if the above is true or a flight of fancy but there has definitely been a trend to shallower spoons!

Laura_Elsewhere

@Cherryfudge - a fascinating idea but it doesn't quite account for the phenomenally shallow mediaeval spoon-shape! But then your spoon, wooden or horn or pewter, was your own personal possession, carried on your belt along with your knife, so maybe the theory only emerges once spoons are shared, a few centuries on?

I mix pastry and bread dough and cut up sausage rolls and beat eggs and so on with big old table-knives - I have two, yellowed bone handles, and huge old steel blades which must be dried and oiled as soon as they are washed or they rust, and with a crown and VR stamped on them. They were my Gran's, and she had them from her mother (the same great-grandmother the family Singer sewing-machine came from!)... 

I love mixing dough and pastry with my Gran's and my great-grandmother's knife. 

CapricornLass

I'm a bit puzzled by the way people use different ways for measuring out ingredients.  Most of the time, I use scales and a bowl, either in grams or ounces. However, I have other recipes which I have inherited from my mother and grandmother, which are very definitely measured in cups.  Size of cup was immaterial.  The important thing was to use the same cup for masuring out everything.  Thirds and halves of cups were measured entirely by eye, and somehow they always turned out fine.  I bet this is why American recipes are measured in cups.  The pioneers may not have had scales, but they would have had a cup.

Some of my grandmothers recipes do, however, specify the type of cup to be used - usually a breakfast cup, which was larger than a tea-cup

I love old recipe books.  My grandmother's handwritten book has cake recipes interspersed with how to do the washing, and how to bath the baby.  Her recipe for Clootie Dumpling which she sent to my mum has strict instructions on taking it out of the pan, and to take care so that she didn't scald the baby (me!!)  I hear her voice saying it.

skogar

baileys_babe - It sounds like you already have some ideas bout what DS might like to sew. A drawstring bag would be a good first project. If he was making something for a little girl as a present then there are quite a lot of simple options - a little elasticated skirt in a nice fabric, little bag, a cute christmas stocking with her name on, something for dressing up - capes for being a superhero or a cloak would be fairly simple as they don't have arms, a felt crown with a bit of elastic so it fits, a simple toy or shaped animal cushion (I've seen some cool ones shaped like clouds with smiley faces). I don't have much experience of using a sewing machines - my only projects so far have been some curtain linings an a duvet cover but I think I could make all of the above without any problems.

Speaking of people not expecting boys to sew. When we were at my OH's Mum's my OH commented a button had jut come off and my OH's Mum offered to sew it on for him. I said there was no need and said he'd just need to borrow a needle and thread to sew it back on. As she does a lot of sewing I assumed that she knew he normally sewed buttons on and had probably taught him to do it. She seemed quite surprised when I said he normally sewed them on himself. As it's about 35 years since he lived with his parents I wondered what she thought he'd been doing since then when the buttons fell off his clothes. It did make me chuckle as he is very practical.

thriftwizard

I grew up with pounds, shillings and ounces (like Winnie the Pooh!) but am just old enough to have learnt grams and kilos too, then had an American friend & neighbour who taught me her favourite recipes in cups, sticks and quarts, plus a Welsh friend who also uses cups, but they're tea-cups! So I'll switch between weight & volume as best suits the recipe I'm using, and have  all sorts of measuring devices, as well as a set of balance scales with both metric and imperial weights; they never need the battery changing when you're halfway through a recipe! And my assorted offspring have all learnt to cook by my very random methods, and are all very capable in the kitchen.  Although DS2 has a marked problem getting his head around washing up...