2023 Fashion on the Ration Challenge

PollyWollyDoodle

Gosh that sounds good.  I don’t know if I can lower the feed dogs on my machine. 

@Wraithlady please tell us more. My overlocker (known as Pearl 🤣) has not gone wrong so far but I’d like to be prepared.  She only gets occasional use because despite going on a two day course I’m still a bit unsure of how to use her.  However, she was a secondhand purchase some years ago, so she owes me nothing.

Cherryfudge

@PipneyJane, I'm sad on your behalf about your cooking pot.  I suppose after all these years you and it have had a good innings and it might be time to retire it and pass all it's taught you on to another pan.

I still miss the twin 4 pint pans I had from when we first got married - marmalade was so easy using those as they were a perfect match and did half the marmalade each so it all finished about the same time. Not everyone knew not to put them straight into cold water so the copper bases buckled and eventually I got other people to take them to the tip for me. I have others now because I keep my eyes open for second hand and get really good makes that way, which I suppose in another thirty years may be old favourites too!

Sewing machines: I have a modern Singer and it's a rebellious little sew-and-sew, except it thinks that's the last thing it should do. I can just about do straight lines and one day I will clear space and tackle something advanced, like a tote bag. In the meantime I sew quite well by hand so my machine skills advance at glacial speed.

PollyWollyDoodle

Isn't it interesting how attached we get to our saucepans!  I had a set of Prestige copper-bottomed pans that I'd had for thirty years.  A friend had got them as a wedding present, saved them until (in her own words) she'd learned how to cook, and then got a house with a dishwasher and these had wooden handles and couldn't go in it.  She sold them to me when I got divorced and was setting up on my own.  One of them had buckled (I didn't know about the cold water thing, @Cherryfudge) but they were as good as new, cleaned up really easily so I never needed to put them in the dishwasher, and I honestly thought they would see me out, probably with some new handles.  Then when I got a new kitchen last year I discovered they wouldn't work on the induction hob.  I was gutted.  I still miss them. 

Tote bags are how I got back into sewing a few years ago - a good way to start. 

keepcalmandcraft

My mum taught me to sew.  I’ve got 2 sewing machines, one Husqvarna 425 which I’ve had for 25 years and have used to make many clothes for me and my daughters and for lots of craft projects.  After working on a cruise ship last year altering the costumes using a Singer heavy duty machine, I was so impressed I bought one!  It’s been great to sew curtains and cushions with thick furnishing fabric.  

Laura_Elsewhere

I’ve always been impressed by our family Singers, 1900-1915, which tackle pure silk and lace wedding dress and heavy deckchair-canvas camp-bed with no complaints!

re pans: as a student aged about 20 I couldn’t afford le Creuset pans, but I did catch a six-inch skillet in the sales… now in my mid-fifties it is still in use, the Teflon long long gone and a lovely seasoned-iron surface being far better non-stick… its orange outside enamel is blackened in parts because I used it for years cooking over wood camp-fires, and don’t want to obliterate its history it’s earnt its price tag again and again- and eventually I saved up for a larger omelette-pan which fits as a lid onto a good sized saucepan, making two useful pans into a casserole pan… that’s also still going strong, in dark green enamel- and again, many many years back I scoured away the Teflon and replaced it with the seasoned metal… 
the pan now is chipped inside (thanks, mum…) but I still keep using it. Someday I might investigate getting it re-enamelled but it’s more cosmetic than practical, so…

flamingo747

That's not good about your pan Pipney. I can burn almost anything, but would be extremely careful with other people's pans

I have a Singer from 1974 I believe. I can use it, but not well and only for absolute basics. I've never made anything from a pattern. My apple-shape, plus size, short body ages it tough to use patterns, and I just don't have the cash.

Thinking of coupons, I wonder how many people who didn't have the money to get things would use their coupons on friends or families behalf so the other person with more money could have extra coupons

Cherryfudge

While looking for something else, I've found the Internet has various solutions for keeping Le Creuset pans going. There are Youtube videos for fixing chipped enamel, there are replacement handles, all sorts of things out there. I think the pans themselves might just go on forever.

I have a Le Creuset frying pan that I found in a charity shop for a tenner. The problem is it's all metal and super-conductive so DH is complaining that he burns himself trying to pick it up from the stove. The company sells 'handle gloves' and grips to put over the little handle opposite the main one (I don't know what its proper name is).

Mind you, I think if I get as far as getting my sewing machine out, some of those little handle grips would be a good starter project that could be made from felt or - better still - reclaimed fabric. That would be a way of using things that would otherwise just take up space, but no real loss if It went wrong. Also the necessary layering up would use more fabric.

Laura_Elsewhere

This little chap came through the War... 

He is 84 years old, and was Dad's from infancy just before the war. We hope I can clean and darn him up enough so that Dad can give him to my niece/ his granddadughter on Dad's birthday in a few weeks' time. She has fond memories of cuddling him when she was little if feeling poorly, so we would love her to have him. 

Careful sponging with a series of well-wrung clean damp flannels, turning to clean cloth every time I roll it across, and letting him slowly dry. I've re-shaped his face a bit. 
Probably another 2-3 cleanings, and then a lot of darning and some patching! The patches at present are Gran's post-war stockings, and the little trousers and waistcoat I made him when I was 11 or 12 back in the early 1980s. 

flamingo747

Awww how sweet

PollyWollyDoodle

He’s gorgeous!