2021 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

Liverpool_Anne

I think my sock problem is probably a combination of lots of things, some I probably do lose to the sock monster in the machine, some I think get left in the machine and end up getting washed again with the next load by which time the first one is already in the odd sock bag and also I have to say this is not the first time I have found things inside the clean duvet cover . I once "lost" a very nice white shirt for several weeks which I discovered inside the white duvet cover, it must have been in there for at least 6 weeks and 3 washes lol. 
're washing the slippers, I do wash mine about every 6 - 8 weeks, not because I have smelly feet and I do wear socks with them, but because they get grubby as I do trot outside in them, especially when hanging washing out as I am walking on the grass which is usually a bit damp so they do need a wash every so often.  Pip, yes, I have also washed sheepskin mittens, thank you for reminding of that, and they were fine. Also I have a friend who used to work in a dry cleaners and she told me that when everyone was wearing sheepskin jackets and used to bring them in to be cleaned they used to put them in an industrial washing machine, makes you think.
Polly re the stuffed toy, after watching the repair shop, they do amazing things and quite often have stuffed toys, they always seem to remove all the stuffing and give everything a gentle hand wash in very dilute mild soap in warm water and repeat until it's clean before repairing and restuffing, usually with new fireproof stuffing. Not sure if this is helpful as it is a lot of work.
Anne

Cherryfudge

Liverpool_Anne said:

Polly re the stuffed toy, after watching the repair shop, they do amazing things and quite often have stuffed toys, they always seem to remove all the stuffing and give everything a gentle hand wash in very dilute mild soap in warm water and repeat until it's clean before repairing and restuffing, usually with new fireproof stuffing. Not sure if this is helpful as it is a lot of work.
Anne

I was thinking of precisely this. I love that programme! I think that on occasion they've also lined fragile fabrics - or was that Secrets of the Museum?
ETA - this one.

PollyWollyDoodle

Yes, my friend has been watching The Repair Shop and I think she’s over estimated my skills! Because of the way puss is constructed I think taking it apart would be too risky. I’m hoping I can just sponge it very carefully with a damp cloth and let it dry out. Thanks for the advice. 

PipneyJane

Good morning all

I have a spend to declare:  5 coupons on a pair of ASICS trainers.  I don’t need them just yet but they fell within my price range.  (I was watching football yesterday, when I saw an ad for the on-line sale of a well-known sports retailer.   Thought it was worth checking out.  These were 60% off.)  I will hit 300-miles in April, so need to line up a replacement.

Interesting chat about shoes and feet earlier.  I was watching QI last night and they talked about a Mexican tribe of endurance runners, who run in sandals between their widely dispersed villages.  I don’t remember the name of the race but one of their women beat 54 professional ultramarathon runners, while dressed for popping to the shops.

There is a “barefoot running” movement, which argues that our feet are built as shock absorbers for our joints, so are best served by not wearing shoes for running.  There are even “barefoot running” trainers which look like toed socks with a hardened sole.  One of the basses at choir wears them.  You can feel everything but you won’t get your feet dirty.

- Pip

Laura_Elsewhere

thriftwizard said:

It might be your machine that's the anomaly, Laura. Or maybe your very excellent hand-knitted socks? 

Nice ideas, but nope - I have never ever lost a sock, going back long before I taught myself to knit at 30 and properly started knitting socks at 40ish, and washing machines from when I've lived in, let me see, Edinburgh, Australia, Dorset, Wales, Yorkshire, South of France and two washing-machines here... so it can't be either the machines or the socks! 

I think it's probably just that both My Intended and I have a habit of manually checking the inside of the machine for anything else when emptying, rather than checking by eye? 

Laura_Elsewhere

PollyWollyDoodle said:

Yes, my friend has been watching The Repair Shop and I think she’s over estimated my skills! Because of the way puss is constructed I think taking it apart would be too risky. I’m hoping I can just sponge it very carefully with a damp cloth and let it dry out. Thanks for the advice. 

What you want is never to soak the fabric - watch he Repair Shop and you will see them doing this with the most fragile things: get a bowl of water and mild detergent (avoid colour, perfume, additives, etc. - the plainest anti-allergy shampoo is very good, or the plainest washing-up liquid). Add enough detergent so you can whip up a froth, and use an egg whisk if need b to make a good froth on top of the water. Now use a clean cloth to roll the lather-froth onto the toy's surface. Never rub, but just roll repeatedly, turning and re-folding the cloth so you are always using a clean bit of cloth. You will need a lot of clean cloths... when you've gone over the whole surface, roll it up gently in yet another clean dry cloth to dry it a little and hen stand to let it air-dry gently. 
The good thing about doing this is that it's so gentle that you can repeat it, again and again. Because you are rolling on the lather and never soaking the cloth, it means you can do small areas repeatedly and not leave lines and the edges of the small area like you would if you were wetting it. 

Your Visible-=mend approach sounds lovely, and much better than plonking harsh new fabrics onto a faded, much-loved toy! 
But if anyone else is trying to repair less visibly: 
Textile conservators use specialist conservation-net to sew onto the outside of fragile textiles to support them. That might be a bit scratchy but you might find some soft tulle that is a similar colour and then you could lightly stitch that over the most fragile places. Silk organza is also possible but that tends to catch the light and look more obvious. I would start by trying tulle - smooth a piece over the fragile area and use pins to hold it smooth, pinned-in deeply so they aren't stressing the fabric. Then use small stitches covering the whole area - you could work back and forth, up and down or spiralling in from outside or out from inside - you could of course make this a deliberate decorative feature, using contrast thread. 

Liverpool_Anne

Pip, I was watching football yesterday as well, I hope you were happier with what you were watching than I was I like the idea of barefoot running and I can believe our feet are designed to work that way, evolution and all that plus our ancestors lifestyle of hunting and gathering would have involved a lot of running and walking so survival would be dependent on being able to do this well.  Having said that they didn't live as long and some of them may have had problems with feet getting cut and infected, probably why we first started covering our feet, long before we got to colder climates and needed to keep them warm. I have a friend who swears by the barefoot technology shoes for relieving stress and pain in her legs and back but have never tried them myself. According to my chiropodist my main problem is boney feet, apparently most people have a layer of fat on the soles of their feet for padding. I don't and as I told her it must be the only part of my body that doesn't . As for the racing in Mexico, the local lady probably has the benefit of being born and living at altitude. Iirc there is a genetic thing found in these populations that is impossible to replicate even with altitude training, though it does help. I remember seeing a program about training facilities at my football club that showed a whole gym set up in a room that could have the environment controlled to mimic high altitude, I'm sure they have them at other training centres. But good for that lady, what a wonderful achievement.
Cherryfudge, yes I think they do line fragile fabrics, makes perfect sense when you think about it.
Polly, maybe your friend needs to send her puss to the repair shop other conservators are available , depending how precious it is, though I am sure your skills are excellent

PollyWollyDoodle

@Laura_Elsewhere thank you so much, that’s brilliant advice - I’m going to try that, luckily I have lots of white lint free cloth in the ragbag. That was my worry, that I didn’t want to soak it too much, but you’ve explained it really clearly. The tulle/organza is a good idea as well.  This is a very much loved home-made toy so I think the repairs on making will be in keeping with its spirit.

@Liverpool_Anne I too have very bony feet apparently, and like you it’s the only part of my body that would fit this description! I get corns/calluses on the sole of my feet which I’m told are caused by the toe joint striking the ground without enough padding.  I see a podiatrist regularly and it’s fabulous to get all the painful bits sorted out. 

PipneyJane

Liverpool_Anne said:

Pip, I was watching football yesterday as well, I hope you were happier with what you were watching than I was I like the idea of barefoot running and I can believe our feet are designed to work that way, evolution and all that plus our ancestors lifestyle of hunting and gathering would have involved a lot of running and walking so survival would be dependent on being able to do this well.  Having said that they didn't live as long and some of them may have had problems with feet getting cut and infected, probably why we first started covering our feet, long before we got to colder climates and needed to keep them warm. I have a friend who swears by the barefoot technology shoes for relieving stress and pain in her legs and back but have never tried them myself. According to my chiropodist my main problem is boney feet, apparently most people have a layer of fat on the soles of their feet for padding. I don't and as I told her it must be the only part of my body that doesn't . As for the racing in Mexico, the local lady probably has the benefit of being born and living at altitude. Iirc there is a genetic thing found in these populations that is impossible to replicate even with altitude training, though it does help. I remember seeing a program about training facilities at my football club that showed a whole gym set up in a room that could have the environment controlled to mimic high altitude, I'm sure they have them at other training centres. But good for that lady, what a wonderful achievement.

My DH is a Liverpool fan, so we were a very unhappy household yesterday.  (Me?  I'm Chelsea, so Liverpool are my second team.  We have season tickets to Chelsea because it's nearby.  If we lived near Anfield, we'd have season tickets there instead.)

The thing I remember about QI was the comment about the young lady's sandals, being roomy enough to allow the foot to function naturally.  They may also be perfect for barefoot running.  They were described as classic Mexican sandals but they looked very similar to ancient Roman ones - flat soled with just enough straps to hold them on your feet without flapping around.  Frankly, I'd like a pair. 

- Pip

Laura_Elsewhere

Liverpool_Anne said:

 According to my chiropodist my main problem is boney feet, apparently most people have a layer of fat on the soles of their feet for padding.

I have to say (having a Master's degree in Osteology and aspects of anatomy/pathology), if someone actually hadn't got this layer of fat padding on their feet it would be as unusual as not having an entire arm, and you wouldn't just have sore feet, you would actually not be able to walk at all normally, from infancy onwards. It can atrophy a bit as you go into old age, but any notable atrophy is usually accompanied by ulceration and other major foot pathologies, or is related to repeated steroid injections, etc. It's a mixture of fat and connective tissue, known as a fascia. 

Maybe they over-simplified their explanation? 

What's much more common in Western feet is that by middle age (which in evolutionary biology terms is your mid-late 30s!) your feet spread at the forefoot, at the same time lowering the arch's natural spring - if those become extreme enough then you have bunions and fallen arches, but it's very very common for people to have the very early stages of them without it developing further. 
What that means is that your gait alters, the way your foot interacts with the ground when you walk - think of a child's footprint when they walk across a surface with bare feet - there's the outside of the foot from heel forwards, and then the ball of the foot (often not quite across the full width, the area behind the big toe barely in contact) and the toe-tips. Have a look sometime at the average adult's, and a lot more of the inside of the foot behind the big toe is in contact. If the metatarsals are spreading out at the forefoot, plus the foot is rolling a little inwards in terms of pressure then what you get is weight pressing on an area it's not evolved to be pressing on, and that can cause pain. 

Sorry, I'll switch my professional head off again now!