2023 Fashion on the Ration Challenge

Madbat60

Oooh 28 coupons for 14 pairs of knickers. I might have to learn to make them 😳

Cherryfudge

@Laura_Elsewhere, that's a massive achievement! What a team you are (even if the other half of the team is less than clued up about what to pack).

Your sock story is precious - whoever could doubt that socks have personalities after that? Once we get down to why we are holding on to things, we can make real decisions. (Says she who has a thousand decisions still to make).

PollyWollyDoodle

Well done Laura, and great story about the socks. 

CapricornLass

English Heritage advise wrapping clothing up in plastic bags, sealing them, and then freezing them for a couple of weeks, to kill off eggs and larvae.  I've always done it as a preventative to my cashmere jumpers and cardigans, before putting them away for the summer.

Laura_Elsewhere

Sadly, it's a bit of a myth - the domestic freezer will kill larvae and adults but to kill the eggs requires industrial freezing well below the kind of thing we have in our homes, and it's not the freezing (which the eggs can survive in many cases) but the repeat freeze-thaw cycles which will kill them.

I think I read every research paper in existence trying to find a simple way to deal with the damn things over the last thirty years. 

Professional whole-house fumigation is the only thing for my parents' house as they are under the floorboards and in the walls, breeding on 140 years of fluff and dust... so every trip back (tomorrow... just for an overnighter) means about three or four weeks later we find we suddenly have fluttering little beasties in our flat... we're just going to have to do frequent pesticide sprays for now.

What works is to have a lot less stuff than we have here....! Clothing you wear doesn't get mothed, and it's easy enough to shake out stored clothing when you only have some of it and not boxes and boxes and bags and bags... 

Feeling very dispirited today - I suspect partly because tomorrow we're off for a one-night visit to the Aged Ps, and I always find the state of everything very depressing there. 

wit40iwtwan

oops I did it again... I needed a bit of a pick me up and I do not usually treat myself but I am off for the weekend and one night the dress code is glam... so I have bought myself a lovely dress which I will wear again and again... so 7 coupons to add to the 5 from last month! eeekkkk I hope the dress (when it turns up) lives up to my expectations ha ha ha

retiredinfrance

It has been a long time since I shared with you my intention to try to keep my CS purchases within bounds by counting them as new and subject to coupons. Well, it fell by the wayside. I bought very little new last year but did very well with CS stocking up , because, we don’t know how long rationing will last. ( Did I just see that shops are having shortages  and it may be for some time!)
After my confession, I am starting again this year with three pairs of thick socks and I have written them down at the back of ny notebook. 

I wanted to share with you all a book I got recently from the CS - How We Lived Then by Norman Longmate- A history of everyday life in the Second World War. It is fascinating - he placed ads in very many periodicals and newspapers and asked for ordinary people’s experiences and wrote the book. Sorry to use the phrase “ordinary people “ as no-one is ordinary , but I couldn’t think of a better phrase. Anyway, in  it Norman refers to a novel by Nevil Shute- What Happened To The Corbetts- written just before the outbreak of the War and ominously prescient of what was to come. Guess what ….. I got a copy of it from the CS - it was there with a lot of his other novels- all a bit worn but the book man is a knowledgeable chap and knows that there are books other than the latest blockbuster that one might enjoy. I’m saving it up……
Keep safe, everyone and hugs for all in need and also anyone who would like one.

Cherryfudge

Those both look very interesting, @retiredinfrance, do let us know how you find them. I look up the Nevil Shute one and when first published it was handed out to ARP to show them what to expect.

I don't think I've yet got round to mentioning this (ignore me if I have) but I found another copy of Elizabeth Craig's 'Economical Cookery'. The copy I already had was pre-war, the later edition (1948, reprinted 1950) seems to have the same content but, as my observant husband pointed out, is lighter. The difference (23g) is due to lower quality paper - another form of rationing, I suppose.

PollyWollyDoodle

@retiredinfrance that sounds really interesting, I will look out for those. 

I have stopped looking at clothes in CS because I realised that last year I'd bought too many things, like you I think I was seduced by the idea of 'coupon free' clothing. I got some nice items but I have far more than I need. I'm trying to reduce the amount of possessions I have, and it wasn't helping!  So now I try only to shop for specific items that I have identified as something that would fit into my wardrobe. It's taken a change in mindset but now I enjoy the thrill of the chase, it's very satisfying when you find the right thing. 

Laura_Elsewhere

Well, my Inner Minimalist is now screaming at me just to get rid of almost everything… our flying visit to my old home was… well, lovely to see my parents but… it’s going to be easier to throw out stuff when we go on our decluttering mission in May- not only serious, serious moth but clearly now mice as well. Stuff I left carefully stored in protective boxes has been unpacked (possibly by the mice? Everyone else assures me they would not dream of moving my things…)- it’s beyond rescue, just the one or two things I touched almost fell apart. Areas several inches across turned to lace by dozens of moth larvae, visible as I gazed in horror, and holes eaten through multiple layers of folded cloth with the distinctive droppings and urine stains of mice.
We will have more moth problems here in a few weeks as we always do, I think it’s impossible not to bring moth-eggs back on shoes or from putting a bag down etc.

it will at least make it easier in practical terms to keep less- but I am deeply deeply upset that items have been destroyed, some of them things my grandparents gave me, others were just things I had bought and stored for when we have a bigger home… now going to landfill.