2021 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

PipneyJane

@Wraithlady, @thriftwizard is right.  If the socks are for your husband, then it's his coupons you've spent, not your own.

@retiredinfrance I'd love to have a read of that book!  I tried Amaz0n and just G00gling for "Economy Knitting And Patchwork", but nobody anywhere is selling a copy.  The only reference I could find online is that the Imperial War Museum has a copy.  Amaz0n do have a K!ndle edition of one of her other books, Needlework and Crafts.  Where did you find your copy?

- Pip

Laura_Elsewhere

I have a couple of Agnes M Miall's books at my parents', picked up over the years in charity shops and jumble sales. I think mine are earlier than the war though. iirc it's one of her 1920s books that has the frankly terrifying pattern for a crocheted brassiere which is quite literally just two flat circles of tight crochet joined by lumpy straps. The kind of thing that gives "homemade" a very bad name! The photograph is of it lying flat on a table, obviously (although the ladies' vest is photographed on a scowling middle-aged woman who looks very hungry). 

Wraithlady

thriftwizard said:

Wraithlady, surely your OH's socks should come out of his own coupon allowance? Or has he spent all his already?

You're probably right - I did pay for them but considering he hasn't bought any clothes for ages, then, yes, his coupons not mine. Might buy that silk after all 

retiredinfrance

I found Agnes' book in a charity shop some years ago . Inside the front cover is a 10p in biro. I love her gentle voice. I have bought and await a modern book on how to make clothes last, mend etc. and I have a funny feeling it might be a modern no fast fashion version of what Agnes was saying. I have a similar one called Laundry Work for Schools... A grim career choice.They are both part of my small War Economy collection.

PipneyJane

retiredinfrance said:

I found Agnes' book in a charity shop some years ago . Inside the front cover is a 10p in biro. I love her gentle voice. I have bought and await a modern book on how to make clothes last, mend etc. and I have a funny feeling it might be a modern no fast fashion version of what Agnes was saying. I have a similar one called Laundry Work for Schools... A grim career choice.They are both part of my small War Economy collection.

What other books do you have in that collection, @retiredinfrance?  In mine are the Marguerite Patton cookbooks and a couple of the facsimile recipe collections sold by the Imperial War Museum.

I have another spend to declare.  6 more coupons spent on 300g of Roman Pure Wool Superwash Worsted, this time from Black Sheep.  This is to top up the purchase from MCAdirect, because I do think that I’ll need at least another ball.  (Same colour and they’re checking to see if, by luck, they have the same dye lot.  Very sweet of them.)  I still haven’t found a pattern, although there’s a DK pattern, “Larmorna” in issue 158 of The Knitter that I might adapt.  I think it wants to be a gansey.

That brings me down to 47 coupons for the rest of the year.

- Pip

joedenise

Had to look up what gansey meant as I've never heard of it!  At least I know now.

Laura_Elsewhere

joedenise said:

Had to look up what gansey meant as I've never heard of it!  At least I know now.

Knitted steel, joedenise!   

There are two types, gansey-style jumpers, which are lovely but are just a normal jumper in the style of a gansey, ie all one colour, the pattern coming from using purl or knit stitches to create texture, often knitted in several flat pieces on two needles and sewn together.... and traditional ganseys, which are knitted using 5-ply worsted-spun wool which fights every stitch, knitted on 2.25mm needles which are far far smaller than you'd usually use with wool that thick, making the entire thing a wrist-wrestling match and a real labour of love, but what you end up with will stand the weather out in the North Sea in midwinter, being almost windproof and almost waterproof and incredibly warm and very very very hard-wearing... they're knitted without seams, in one piece, so that if the sleeves become too worn to darn, you unravel them up to the shoulder and just re-knit them anew....! People used to inherit a working gansey from their grandad like folk I know in Scotland inherited their drinking-kilt... you'd be given your own for best, but have a family one, decades old, for general wear

joedenise

Thanks for that @Laura_Elsewhere; that sounds an absolute nightmare to knit - a true labour of love.  I can't even knit properly; the biggest problem is I get bored with it very quickly!  I'd far rather sew (when I can find my mojo again!).

The only crafting I'm doing at the moment is Diamond Dotz which isn't in the least bit useful as all I end up with is numerous pictures which need framing and hanging somewhere!

I really wish I could get my mojo back for sewing.

Laura_Elsewhere

@joedenise, someday I'd love to knit a trad gansey but I've just never had the courage to start such a massive project...! 

I'm trying to gear up to do more sewing. I have lots of things waiting to be made or finished... 

Shropshirelass

I'm fascinated by traditional knitting, but convinced I'll never cope with multi yarns as in Fair Isle patterns, which my Mum and Grandma could do.  I have a book called 'Traditional Knitting in the British Isles' which has satisfied my yen, by showing beautiful gansey patterns (my Dad, born in Lancashire, actually used this word). I can't cope with heavy knitting at present due to arthritis hands, but I have recently finished a scarf where I practised patterns from the book. Very pleasing, and now I can use it as a sampler. It was not difficult to follow the patterns, you can see from the photos of completed garments how the pattern works and how 'solid' the completed garment will be. 
It fascinating how people who had limited basic colours and yarns could create individual patterns like this. Reminds me of  beautiful patchwork made out of scrap fabric.