2022 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

Cherryfudge

@PipneyJane, I'm looking forward to seeing your yarns - and you had to buy them, anything else would be a waste of coupons (even if you have to make do and mend a little longer with work clothes).

I'm another who lives in fear of finishing most projects but somehow it doesn't apply as much to knitting, possibly because I'm aware of it sitting there waiting for me and also because I decided that having to remake something might be frustrating but it's also a learning curve and the more learning curve, the more experienced a knitter I become... 

I'm hoping the same will apply to sewing, though of course it would be even better if I could transfer the knitting experience to the sewing and kind of jump to the second grade. Meanwhile I will take encouragement from you people who can already wrestle a sewing machine, and tell myself I'm on the same path, just not as far along it.

PS @diminua, I approve of the purple buttons! And that neat 'x' shape will make them much more secure than any shop stitching so you should have them to enjoy for years to come.

TwibbleDee

I'm just going to count my 3 pairs of long leggings and 4 pairs of bike shorts as leggings at 2 coupons each, so that's 14 out.

ChainikCrafts

Really do appreciate this challenge. Somehow having the coupons makes me want to save them up so I don’t run out later in the year. I’ve definitely felt tempted to buy things but then decided to save my coupons in case I wanted them later in the year. Though why that’s any different to having a budget, I’m not sure! Having a group of people doing the same really helps!

That said, I swim once or twice a week and my swimming cozzie is getting quite indecent, so there will be a purchase in my future! 

Cherryfudge

No coupons spent but I did oversew a sticking out end of an underwire with 4ply wool, so that particular garment lives a little longer! I did it to the other underwire a while ago and the repair has lasted really well.

PipneyJane

Good morning All

How have you survived the storm?  We’ve got a fence panel down and the rosemary bush has lost a branch, but that’s the worst of it for us.  Rather than waste it, I’ve put the rosemary branch on the table in the hall kitchen, please help yourself.  You may still be able to strike cuttings from it.

Well... I’ve been counting the cost of my trip to Unravel.  I’m talking coupons, not money because I still have to tally the latter up and get reimbursed for the “present” yarn.  I’ve spent 18 coupons.

This is the two jumpers’ worth of yarn that DH has volunteered himself and his mum to buy. Both are pure wool. The black is DK Sedge from Caithness Yarns.  Despite being pure black, that’s its natural colour.  I am wondering if I’ll need to buy another skein or two, since that’s only 1260m of wool and it is screaming at me that it wants to be an Aran sweater.  First, though, I need to find a pattern.  (There was an Aran jumper on display on a different stand that would be perfect, but they were’t selling the pattern.  All they could tell me was that it was from Ravelry.)




The blue is the Denim colour from Wensleydale Longwool.  Yes, this is the same colour that I already have in my stash < cough > bringing my total to thirteen 100g skeins < / cough >, so enough for a twinset.  I couldn’t help myself. I have loved that shade since I first set eyes on the Wensleydale Longwool Sheepshop stand at Ally-Pally well over a dozen years ago.  I am very happy to report that they now do it in a 4-ply, too.  (They never used to.).

And this is my haul of mainly sock yarn.



Three 100g skeins of Whistlebare’s Cuthbert Sock, which is made from mohair grown on their own farm; two 100g skeins of Birdsong’s sock yarn in the colourway Beaujolais (he was the ex-teacher I talked about earlier); four 50g skeins from Garthenor (undyed); and a 100g skein of mohair plus a 100g skein of 4-ply from Ainsworth Prin (they had a lovely sample sock knitted out of these two yarns, held double). All totally impulse buys.  

The above are all potential socks, but I am wondering about the Whistlebare.  At 300m a skein, three is enough to make a pair of socks for me and another for DH.  Four would be enough to make a jumper instead.  I have a couple of months to make up my mind before the Craft Fund is replenished.  (At £28/skein, it’s the most expensive yarn I have ever purchased.)

My plan for today is primarily sewing.  We’ll be playing D&D remotely this afternoon, so I can stitch away while everyone is talking.  Beyond a row or two on the collar, the jumper that I’ve been knitting is finished.  (Need to try it on to check.)  I just have ends to weave in and underarm seams to sew.  There are two other jumpers that just need seams sewn, in order to be finished and I’ve found some buttons that I can use to finish off a cardigan, which has been lurking for 4+ years.

On the mending front, do you remember the cashmere jumper-dress that developed holes when I washed it?  I found a reel of dark grey ?nylon heel reinforcement yarn, and have run stitches around the holes to secure them and to close them up.  Two holes done; the third, I will tackle today.  This is as invisible a fix as I can make it.  

- Pip

Laura_Elsewhere

We escaped fairly well, up in Shropshire, but even this far north it was a fair doozy of a storm... friends around the country had various scary experiences - an acquaintance is lucky only (!) to have nasty lacerations after being hit with high-velocity roof debris when he just popped out of his front door to fetch something from his car in his garage: outside for maybe twelve steps each way but it was enough to be hit and as I say counting his blessings he isn't blinded or worse... very much like the arbitrary risk with bombs, I should think...

Snowing hard here this morning but not settling on the sodden warm ground... I am having a Very Lazy Day as a car alarm went off every hour at 42 minutes past, from 11:42 last night until 8:42 this morning, so we had constantly-interrupted sleep... again, it's what happens when there are all these raids on! 

@PipneyJane those are gorgeous - the shimmer and sheen on the sock yarns especially!

BUT... if you have three, which is not enough for a jumper, and can't yet buy a fourth, why not consider a sleeveless pullover? Extremely practical, and you get to do all the same fabulous textured knitting you love on your jumpers, only it's quicker and uses less wool, and you will find they are addictive for their usefulness... 

PollyWollyDoodle

That is lovely wool, Pipney-Jane and it’s good that you already have plans for it. I need to review my stash of yarn with a more critical eye, I have recently sorted it out and re-packaged it into two large crates, apart from baby yarn which is always useful, I seem to have a lot of leftover stuff which doesn’t really suggest itself to making anything other than granny square blankets.  It might be time for a further cull. 

One fence panel down in my garden, it actually belongs to my neighbour not me and I need to put a note through their door (curious arrangement, the neighbouring garden is actually two streets away and about 10 feet higher than mine so I can’t just knock on the door). It’s behind the shed so they may not even have noticed.  I hope everyone else survived without too much damage to property or self, it certainly was rather scary for a few hours yesterday. 

florianatwobob

Fortunately we escaped quite well in North Herts. One friend was fortunate not to have a fir tree land in her garden (it landed diagonally in the neighbours instead). Had it landed in hers she would’ve lost her studio. 

Yesterday was mostly dedicated to ‘bin watch’, fortunately they collected the recycling just before Eunice flexed her muscles properly. We had battened down the hatches and put anything likely to fly off in the shed. 

CapricornLass

We seemed to have come through unscathed, though we were out chasing bins, and the frame that covers the lower pond (anti heron device!) blew off, which is the first time we have known that to happen.  However, we have spent this morning at a friend's house as a tree from next door came down across his back garden and we were the only people he knew who might possibly have a chain saw.  Bless him, he only had an 8 inch pruning saw for a forty foot tree!  Chain saw sulked, but fortunately OH had taken his saws and axes, and he and DS2, made short work of clearing that bit of the tree covering the garden. 

MrsCD

We survived quite well up in the north east this time. We had a good covering of snow yesterday but it was very slushy and went fairly quickly. The fence out back between ours and next door is still having a strop and thrashing about since the first of the storms. The man can't come until March to put new posts in and reuse as many railings as he can so it's braced as best as we can for now.
The wind was the worst thing about the storms. It was so noisy and dangerous. We saw a few trees that had snapped and fallen over on our way to the opticians yesterday.
On the crafting front, I finished the Yuletide blanket this week and a pair of owl fingerless gloves today.
Your yarn is gorgeous, @PipneyJane and I'm sure whatever you make they will be beautiful.