2023 Fashion on the Ration Challenge

MrsCD

Oh, goodness, Laura! Tell your mum if she wants to train for the UK gymnastics team she has to do it properly! Seriously though, I'm glad she's only bruised and not badly hurt. She must have strong bones.
Thanks everyone for the kind wishes. Dad is failing noticeably day by day, but he's determined to do some things for himself and won't let the carers anywhere near him, only the nurses that come every other day! If stubbornness and determination had anything to do with it he'd live to a hundred.😉 
We are having some quiet chats now and again, but mostly watching TV. He doesn't like the yakety yak carers! Apparently the other night, so DD says, every time the carer used a word that we wouldn't use, not a swear word, more slightly crude, I unconsciously answered with an alternative word, to the point where DD had to go and make a cup of tea!!! I really didn't know I was doing it. 😆

Cherryfudge

Another coupon-less spend: the dress I bought to wear to a summer wedding was too small (am thinking I need to sell some of the 'nice' dresses I won't wear again). Today I saw a summery 'posh' dress in the right size on Ebay and DH and I both think it would work well so I've bought it. As it's navy blue, I think I want a contrasting bolero, so more spends will happen.

PipneyJane

Oh Laura!  So sorry to hear about your mum.  I’m glad she’s OK and that you managed to persuade her to go to the hospital.

Cherryfudge said:

It may be that in the future, people will wish they'd asked us our stories. Maybe it's time we wrote them down, though I'm not sure anyone's going to believe me that I spent several years in 1942 talking about clothes...

Clothes and food and life in general.  I’m glad that you’re all happy to spend time with me in 1942.

Amazingly,, I don’t have a spend to declare.  Today, I actually managed to go into the lovely yarn shop in Rochester and not buy any wool!  I did buy two sets of 6 inch DPN’s and a pattern book, but I resisted the siren call of the grey worsted weight alpaca and the sock yarns.  (If anyone saw a woman knitting, while sitting in the grounds of the castle listening to Sur les Doc today, that was me.)

Talking of knitting, do you remember the jumper I was knitting?  The one that has spent more time in time-out than actually being worked on?  Well, I frogged it completely last weekend and started again.  At Easter, I contacted the designer and got some tech support (including measurements for when to do things).  I’d reached the point of joining the fronts together, when I realised that I’d knitted most of the damn thing on the wrong sized needles!  I was sitting there, wondering when I’d need to change down to the smaller needles, when I realised that the other set weren’t smaller.  Measured both sets and learned my mistake.  Back in January, I’d partially frogged it to fix a mistake, used the smaller needles to pick up the stitches and…….forgot to change back.

- Pip

MrsCD

Aarrgghh, poor Pip! That's so frustrating when you've put so much time and effort in. I do hope it works out right next time. 

Laura_Elsewhere

Thankyou all - Mum is doing fine and very clearly her normal self - except my goodness, the two lovely black eyes...! Really black-black, properly dark, and the whole eye area, to halfway down her cheeks and above her eyes - they call it "panda eyes" or "racoon eyes" and it does look like she's got face-painting done at a fete!!

@MrsCD - it's funny you should mention Mum trying out for the gymnastics team - I told her she should really hire a stunt-double and she immediately shot back that "oh, they wouldn't do it so well!"  
Lots of love to you and to your Dad, and I hope things go peacefully for you both - it must mean a lot to your Dad that you've arranged this, his staying in your home, and I hope you both settle in to finding comfortable time together as much as possible... 

I've just been mending my old linen skirt, the one that was sludge-green and is now a useful and nice Dylon-black - I wore it yesterday for a day out in London with Mr E and it was comfortable and practical and I think looked nice, with a deep pink shirt open-necked over a sunflower-yellow t-shirt. It had a few places where stitching was coming a bit loose, so I've just been neatening it all up. 

Laura_Elsewhere

We went to The Museum of Brands off Ladbroke Grove in London, and it had clothing rationing in a few different displays.
I hope these pics come up ok.

PipneyJane

The pictures are lovely @Laura_Elsewhere.  I hope you had a lovely day in London.  

MrsCD said:

Aarrgghh, poor Pip! That's so frustrating when you've put so much time and effort in. I do hope it works out right next time. 

Fingers crossed.   I reckon this jumper has spent more time in time out than actually being knitted.  It should only take a week or two longer to get back to where it was when I frogged it.

- Pip

Cherryfudge

Laura_Elsewhere said:

 I told her she should really hire a stunt-double and she immediately shot back that "oh, they wouldn't do it so well!"  

LOL, I think I like your Mum, Laura! 

The museum looks very interesting. I have a bag of empty cotton reels just like the ones in the picture: why ever don't they use wood nowadays instead of single-use plastic? If my grand daughter ever wants to learn French knitting, I'll hammer four panel pins into one of them and she can have a home made knitting dolly just as I had!

I read recently that toys weren't made in the forties due to the war effort. If that was the case, I expect the wooden cotton reels were often repurposed as anything from wheels to model animals! I have vague memories of a string threaded with them, but whether for a toddler or a cat, I don't know. I hasten to add the war was well and truly over when I was growing up!  

@PipneyJane, is it any comfort that I once finished a jumper that I'd started 7 years previously? You can always post pictures of your progress of something if it helps.

weenancyinAmerica

@Laura_Elsewhere - for the PowerPoint class I am taking, I am doing "My Ideal Trip to England and Wales". The Museum of Brands is one of the places I have listed that I want to visit. I have a couple of Robert Opie's books on his collections of advertising stuff. I love it. Thanks for posting the pictures.

Laura_Elsewhere

@weenancyinAmerica, well, in your Ideal Trip, may I suggest that you sensibly save some money on your visit to the Museum of Brands? When you come out of Ladbroke Grove tube station (and if it helps, it's pronounced "lad-brook"), there is a Sainsbury's next to it which does a good Meal Deal of sandwiches, snack and drink all for £3.00, and then when you go to the Museum of Brands, you can walk through the little cafe and out into the most beautiful peaceful courtyard garden imaginable. In a busy bit of London, you just hear birdsong and the buzz of quiet conversation, and the rustle of leaves, and there are multiple benches, and even a swinging seat, to sit on and eat the packed lunch you brought from home or the sandwiches you just bought in Sainsbury's... 

It was a very welcome gentle pause in a very busy day - and we did the same later on for another bought-picnic, this one from Waitrose and eaten in Russell Square surrounded by beautiful huge trees and with agapanthus just opening their sky-blue flowers...