2023 Fashion on the Ration Challenge

Gem-gem

Good afternoon everyone. 
@Laura_Elsewhere, thank you for the info, as flamingo said, very interesting as is everyone else little stories. I love hearing about them. 

@Pip, pleased to hear that you have pulled through the dreaded lurgy. That was a shames about your holiday (and pot). 

DH and I are soon to head west to the Shropshire Hills. We got married there ten years ago. I can't wait to leave the traffic behind for a few days. 

Auti

I have always had a sewing machine though not made many garments on any of them but more things for the house and altering things for children and house stuff from charity shops. Started off with a singer where you turned the handle which I managed to get for £3 from charity shop when electric machines became popular - I now have an ancient electric that was white but due to age has turned a yellow colour but still works well. 

Laura_Elsewhere

@Gem-gem have a lovely time! Our little honeymoon last year was in the South Shropshire Hills

Gran taught me to sew when I was tiny so I have always used one or other of the family Singers, but when I was 12 I got my own, still with me and used a lot.

maryb

I’ve had my beloved Bernina for 35 years but it was only last week that I mastered the art of using it for darning.  Two holes in a cotton/linen tea towel darned and I feel very smug

PollyWollyDoodle

That sounds good @maryb. I wouldn’t know where to start. 

Glad to hear you’re feeling better Pip. I feel your pain over the dish, though.  

I’ve got two - my grandmother’s (and then my mother’s) hand-crank Frister & Rossman which I’ve posted about before, and a Janome which does fancy stitches and buttonholes. I use about three of the 20+ stitches it offers!  

Interestingly two friends have quite separately said to me that they were put off sewing by having to do it at school.  For me it’s relaxation time.  

Wraithlady

Given that most of my friends are LARPers, goths, re-enactors or cosplayers, then the idea of being the only one in a group without a sewing machine or the knowledge to use one seems weird to me.

However, recently found that several of my friends want to sew but can't so I may have inadvertently offered to teach them (once I move into a house that's big enough to host 5 extra people) but the idea of not even wanting to know how is just incomprehensible.

My machine is a Huskystar I've had for over a decade (it's actually a Janome not a Husqvarna, I found out) and I have an embroidery machine and overlocker as well.

Fun Fact of the Day: Never buy a Singer overlocker, they have a design fault that's unfixable so when it goes wrong, Game Over. 

CapricornLass

I've managed to burn boiled eggs.....  And boiled potatoes.  Both times on a gas cooker, and I have always been used to electric.

I have one working sewing machine at present - a 1912 Singer that's been converted to run on electric that belonged to my mother (and possibly my grandmother and/or my great-grandmother.  My great-grandfather worked in the Singer factory in Glasgow, so it may have come through there.  The machine itself was made in the USA))  However, it is very, very heavy, and I have nowhere to leave it set up so that I can just use it.  I'm not a very confident sewer, though.  I hated sewing at school - the teacher's main job was to point out all my (many) mistakes and rip it all apart for me to do again.  I prefer hand sewing.

weenancyinAmerica

I have at least five machines here at home - one used by my father for years, a treadle machine used by my brother-in-law S to make curtains, etc. for their first house (celebrating 47 years of marriage this year), one used by my other brother-in-law (now  deceased) to make quilts - only male in the local quilter's guild, one roommate Di brought with her (a portable used by her old roommate only), and one bought by my roommate G who thought he was going to learn to sew (not yet used). I have taken sewing classes and quilting classes in the past - but nowhere to set up a machine and sew at the moment. I would love to as I have a collection of patterns and want to make some of the quilts I have been doing designs for. I went to a family reunion one time and went over to see what the men were so adamantly discussing - and found they were comparing quilt designs! Turns out most of the men on my father's side are into quilting. My father was the only one in my immediately family that actually completed what was started on the sewing machine. My mother would start something - but we still had the cut-out pieces when she died. We passed the material and the patterns on to the community center. I have the material to make several quilts, so need to get with it this winter or my pieces will still be around for someone else to complete.

PipneyJane

@Gem-gem have a lovely time

maryb said:

I’ve had my beloved Bernina for 35 years but it was only last week that I mastered the art of using it for darning.  Two holes in a cotton/linen tea towel darned and I feel very smug

Please explain how you did these darns, @maryb.  I’ve never heard of this technique.

@weenancyinAmerica I feel your pain.  If I win the lottery, one of my first acts would be to do a loft conversion, so that I could have a sewing room.  Not having anywhere to set up and leave things is a real deterrent.  I’m just happy that I can push the computer keyboard aside on my “desk” and set the machine up for a few minutes once in the blue moon.  The desk is really my great aunt’s dining table, crammed into the corner of our lounge….. Hmm….   I think I’ve just worked out where to set up my dressmaker’s dummy.  There’s almost enough room beside the sideboard.

Thank you for the inspiration.

- Pip

maryb

The machine came with a small hoop like an embroidery hoop and a darning foot.  You put the fabric to be darned in the hoop and put it over the stitch plate.  Then you lower the feed dog , lower the presser foot and start to sew, moving the fabric backwards and forward yourself because  the feed dogs are disengaged . Go up and down until you’ve covered the hole one way then turn the fabric 90 degrees and do the same thing and voila you have a darn.  When ironed it was pretty unobtrusive