2022 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

MrsCD

Lovely cake, Laura. 😍
 I decided to buy one this year as I've run out of time to make one. I spent 20 hours in hospital with my dad on Sunday night/Monday, then most of Tuesday after a night at home. He's really quite poorly and to top it all his landline has a fault on it so no careline! Hoping it will be fixed soon. They're digging the path up now.

Laura_Elsewhere

Oh heavens, @MrsCD - here, have more cake. Sausage roll>? Mince pie? Another cup of tea?

I wish I could do something more practical... you have my very very most heartfelt sympathy - it's four years ago today that we found out Mr E's run-over son "probably" would survive, after a fortnight on life support... it is a terrible time of year for exhausting worries... 

Do let us know if there is anything at all us lot can do. If you need to scream or swear or sob or pour out all the What-Ifs, or anything, then you can always PM me... I can't help practically, but I have a good absorbent shoulder here if needs be 

xxx

MrsCD

Thanks, Laura. We often say we keep Yorkshire tea in business!
There were a few envious looks when I took my giant flask out of the shopping bag in the hospital, but we were ok! 😉 I think I should make a Christmas song about building a city on Yorkshire Tea!!!
Dad is managing at home, but every few weeks he needs a blood transfusion, so when it's due, he is breathless and gets angina pains, so on Sunday evening we made the decision, with the help of an ambulance doctor on my mobile phone, to take him in rather than wait 3.5 hours for an ambulance which wouldn't have taken him to the hospital where he is usually treated. We were allowed home overnight Monday then we took him back for the third  'pint of blood' on Tuesday morning as they can't do more than two in a day. Hospital is 45 minutes drive each way so we're all shattered and I'm trying to think what I need to do... DH at dentist this morning, etc etc....making a list and checking it twice...where have I heard that before?
Sorry that this time of year has such awful memories for you and MrE. It feels worse at Christmas because we're all 'supposed' to be happy etc... And we know it's not always the case for everyone.

PipneyJane

May I echo what Laura said, @MrsCD.  Consider this village hall your “safe space” for moaning, sobbing and general need of refuge.  If there is anything I can do to help, please message me.

- Pip

MrsCD

Thanks, Pip. It does help to share with friends. I  will have as many cups of tea anyone wants to come and join me in! Sorry, my grammar is all to pot, but you know what I mean 😏  I made a pair of crochet wristwarmers/ fingerless gloves on Tuesday while sitting with Dad. The distraction technique!
I must wrap some presents...I've done the ones to give outside the immediate family, tomorrow after the coffee morning at church.  I've got the bags ready to pick up on the way out the door in the morning. 

Laura_Elsewhere

@MrsCD - I've put the tea-urn on and left it on 'low' for whenever you get the chance to pop in. The biscuit-tin has some mince pies in and... oh wait, where *is* the biscuit-tin? If that wretched dog has... oh, no, that's fine. On top of the piano on the main hall, of course, yes... 

I hope today feels easier and less complicated for you. 

PipneyJane

@MrsCD distraction techniques do help.  There is a t-shirt being sold somewhere on the intermawebbie which reads "I knit so I don't kill people". (I've seen it.  I don't have one.) They may even have a crochet version out.

I have a confession to make.  I think I am beyond SABLE.  Earlier this year, I bought 3 skeins of Whistlebare's Cuthbert Sock, from their stand at a show in February.  It's a beautiful French Navy Blue.  I've been wondering off-and-on whether I bought sufficient to make a jumper and I'm currently wearing this jumper, where I used every single inch of wool and barely had enough to do capped sleeves.  It was made with 900m of yarn, which is the same yardage that I have of the Cuthbert.  Concentrates the mind somewhat.  Today, they have a special offer, a 10% discount, so I decided to bite the bullet.  

Given that I've blown all my 2022 my coupons, I thought that I'd ask our resident spiv, to obtain the extra skein for me.  Being sensible, I thought I'd take along a skein to show him, so that he'd 100% buy the same colour.  Do you think I can find it? No.  I can find the other yarns I bought that day, but not this one.  I remember carefully bagging it up but not where I put it.  Cue several frantic hunting sessions. I haven't quite been through every box in the house, but there's yarn there that I'd forgotten existed.  I've even found a 99% complete jumper that just needs something done to the collar and finishing up.  I vaguely remember knitting it, have no idea why I stopped where I did or where the remaining yarn is.   How could I do that much knitting and simply forget?

Luckily for me, I had the sense to get a receipt emailed to me back in February, which quoted the colourway (Melrose Abbey).  Doubly lucky for me, the lovely owner of Whistlebare is happy to hold the skein for me until January*, when I can give her the two coupons it needs, so I don't have to pay Flash Harry's premium.  

But, that's it.  No more, until I've seriously knitted down the stash.  I hereby declare that I will not purchase any yarn in 2023.  I am going to go "cold sheep" for the entire year.  Please stop me if I go anywhere near a wool shop.  Thank you.

- Pip




* I missed their last mailing date before Christmas and the next postage date is 4th January.

Laura_Elsewhere

@PipneyJane, 

I do understand but oh this made me laugh out loud...

" I hereby declare that I will not purchase any yarn in 2023.  I am going to go "cold sheep" for the entire year.  Please stop me if I go anywhere near a wool shop.|"


Yeah right. 'course you will, no worries. It's not like you've ever said that before...  

I have far more yarn than I ever could need. Much of it in unusuably small quantities and even in colourways that don't even go together in a cheerful clash of colours... 

I need to get rid of what I shan't use,. and use what I shall. 

And there's the fabric... my catalogue is at least two years out of date but hardly any of it has been used in that time - it has ninety separate listings, and none of these are little bits (many are unusable single metres, not enough for anything in my large size and again, mostly they fight each other and don't even go in a deliberate-clash kind of way, let alone co-ordinating).... the total area in the Excel spreadsheet that Mr S created is 

169.784822 ㎡

Basically if I patchworked it, I'd have a sheet one hundred and seventy metres along each side of the square... 

MrsCD

That's a lovely jumper, Pip!😊  Is the extra yarn to make long sleeves? Sorry if I'm being dense! How long does it take for you to make it? I'm such a slow knitter but I feel so proud of myself when I finally finish something!
I too have reached SABLE status....

PipneyJane

MrsCD said:

That's a lovely jumper, Pip!😊  Is the extra yarn to make long sleeves? Sorry if I'm being dense! How long does it take for you to make it? I'm such a slow knitter but I feel so proud of myself when I finally finish something!
I too have reached SABLE status....

Thank you, @MrsCD.   That jumper took about 3 months but there was probably quite a bit of procrastination time in there. 

The extra yarn is so that I can guarantee that I will have sleeves long enough to be useful, i.e. elbow length or longer.  It also means that I can add an extra inch or so to the body of whatever 1940's pattern I make, so that I won't be flashing my midriff everywhere. 

 @Laura_Elsewhere, I feel your pain.  Glad I could make you laugh.

- Pip