2023 Fashion on the Ration Challenge

Cherryfudge

PipneyJane said:

The secrets are good light and a really good magnifying glass.  If you watch the ?second series of Secrets At The Museum at the V&A, you will see fabric conservators making this type of repair.

 My mum was taught to invisible mending in the 1930’s, when she was at college learning dressmaking, but I never saw her do it.

- Pip

Possibly because it was invisible?  

That was a really interesting series, thanks for the reminder.  

2Scratters

@Nelliegrace I have quite a collection of hankies. I am also renowned at work of offering out a handkerchief when colleagues are  in tears. I once purchased a box at a car boot sale - clearly from a house clearance of a relative, containing over 70 hankies . They have depleted over time and some have material breakdown so were disposed of along the way. I remember my grandma even picking up off the ground a fallen hanky and it to go into a boil wash and reused again. She used to say they cost money.
 When I get a cold its always my DH's drawer that gets robbed of the gents hankies - obviously they are bigger  I love a hanky.

Wow @Cherryfudge that is some repair skill!

2 Scratters xx

Liverpool_Anne

Hi all, really amazing invisible mending. I remember in my youth it was a service offered by one of the dry cleaners along with alterations though I never used the service so I can't say how good it was. I wish I could do it
Take care everyone

Laura_Elsewhere

CapricornLass said:

Evening, everyone, I've got a spend to declare - 10 points for 5 pairs of knickers.

Laura, I feel your pain regarding the weight gain.  However, while apples are good for you for many reasons, please remember that fruit contains a lot of sugar in the form of fructose.  DS2 is diabetic, and he has to be very careful of what fruit he eats, and how much, because of the sugar they contain.

 Sorry to be the bearer of bad news!

Don't worry, I knew that already!  

If I were trying to reduce all sugar, then fruit would be reduced, but at present while I work out the best approach to take, I am simply targeting the sugar-sugar, so to speak. A piece of fruit is accompanied by a load of fibre which helps the body cope better, compared to sweets which are just basically sugar, sometimes sugar and fat, and which the body really can't do much against, and especially given that in the last few years when I've kept a food diary it's been not at all unusual for me to have one hundred grammes of sugar in a day, quite a few days a week... so just by cutting that little lot right back hard, I can make a difference. Why I am not yet diabetic, nor even pre-diabetic, I do not know, but I need to tackle it before I do get there!

Laura_Elsewhere

Re the mending, here is the relevant page from my 1950 Odhams Encyclopedia... 

It's the paragraph headed 'Darned Patch', and the bottom illustration shows a darned patch on patterned fabric, which is closely-related but fractionally different. 

When you could only afford new clothes occasionally, and especially when new clothes were just not available, this technique must have saved quite a few best suits or dresses! 

I hope the images come out... 
 

PipneyJane

Laura, that picture is very clear.  

I am now stalking a copy of Odhams, across the internet....

- Pip

Laura_Elsewhere

@PipneyJane, I have half a dozen sewing books but for virtually everything I ever need to look up, that Odhams is the only one I use... 

Cherryfudge

Oh, it looks so straightforward the way it's described there! Apart from - what do you do if you get a thread wrong and go out of synch?

Reading that last paragraph about mending worn dresses really puts a lot of modern culture to shame. I have some bundles of worn cloth (some mine and some from Mum's house) which should probably just go in the recycling, though I keep expecting a perfect project to appear and use them up. I tend to think fabric that's worn thin in one place is generally going to be weak elsewhere and beyond saving, but people were clearly willing to put in a lot of work to extend the life of a worn garment.

Liverpool_Anne

Hi all, on the subject of fruit and sugar can I just say I have been type 2 diabetic for 14 years. I eat lots of fruit and my diabetes is stable, no changes in meds for at least 10 years and my cholesterol is fine and I have low blood pressure. It is very difficult to avoid sugar, it is in just about everything we eat in one form or another, it is where we get our energy from. You are right Laura the fibre in fruit is a mitigating factor which is why you should eat the fruit but not juice it and just drink the juice. The thing is to avoid unnecessary added sugar in things, read the labels of everything. I remember being surprised when I checked the sugar content of flavoured water, why just why add it? I now only drink sugar free flavoured water. I stopped having sugar in my tea years ago but I do sometimes have a sweetner in coffee but I am weaning myself off this as sometimes I forget to have them with me when visiting friend's and will not have sugar instead . Even doctors now say eat fruit because of the other benefits we get from fruit. Nutritional advice is constantly changing and I must admit I don't necessarily follow it, I seem to have found a diet that suits my diabetes and I am very slowly, very, very slowly losing weight. I don't avoid any food I like, apart from meat as I am veggie, but I have smaller portions than I used to of things like cake and biscuits and have them less often. I have a mainly sedentary life, like Laura I swim sometimes and walk far less than Laura and plod along during most days. I know I need to do more but I do find I do less in the winter than in the warmer months . If it's cold, wet and miserable I have no inclination to go out . A lot of my clothes are really too big for me but I am finding older clothes that I still like bought when I was slimmer now fit so I am happy with that
Good luck with your weight loss plans Laura, hugs
Take care everyone

Nelliegrace

We had a practical session at Smallholders’ this morning. Not lambing, giving sheep drenches, or trimming their hooves out in the cold this month, but a peaceful morning in the warm, turning a few whisps of dyed merino wool into felt flower brooches. 
It was such a ration book sort of event, making something to brighten up an old jacket. I used the mauve, white and green suffragette colours and a smidgen of orange and yellow, and made a sort of pansy brooch. 
I took a precious bar of triple milled scented soap for a raffle prize, and won a bar of dark chocolate and a recipe booklet.