2023 Fashion on the Ration Challenge

Laura_Elsewhere

@Cherryfudge, thankyou (for compliment and enquiry!) - the gums got infected but I'm on Day 5 of a week of tablets and they are working, I think - heavens knows how I'd have managed without the Research Institute outside the village, with their brand-new discoveries of antibiotics...! 

I've spent this morning emptying my clothes-shelves - then everything I'm keeping has the 6-minute cold 'airing' go in the tumble-dryer to de-crumple it, and I'm re-folding them all and putting them back. I've got three tops to go to charity shops, and some t-shirts and tops that I don't want to let go of just yet but don't wear, so those are now in a box that I emptied earlier in the year, up on top of the shelves. So the shelves are no longer stuffed full of clothes crushed and crumpled, and it's easier to put things away, and easier to see what I have. 

Having fewer, nicer clothes...  my aim for quite a few years now...! 

I've also started a Word doc, with two sections, one for autumn/winter and one for spring/summer. I am listing the clothes I have for each, and working out what I have but never wear (so then: why not?), and what I really would wear but don't have (so then: why not?), and what I have the materials for but have either not finished, or not started (so then: why not?). 

It's not a capsule wardrobe as such, but I hope it will lead to having fewer, nicer clothes... 

I am *dreadful* at letting go of clothes that meant something to me in the past...!!!! 

Cherryfudge

Glad things are improving @Laura_Elsewhere.

I will try to reply properly after the forum has its spring clean or whatever they're doing to it. (*Cherry races the postman to the letter box).

Laura_Elsewhere

Oooh you just made it! (I was standing beside it when he cycled up....)

PipneyJane

The postman has completely changed his format!  Looks most odd.

@Laura_Elsewhere thank you for the suggestion but while I'm in a moving vehicle, I'll stick to something self-patterning, that I don't have to look at to knit.  Your gloves are beautiful, like a Tudor painting.  Pity you can't wear them.  Sorry to hear you've been poorly, but hope the antibugs do their trick.

- Pip

ETA:  The new forum worked!  I managed to post this.

weenancyinAmerica

Pip - you may want to stick with a crochet hook instead - or two sharpened pencils. I have had trouble taking knitting needles on airlines - particularly in US airports (and Canadian ones). When I traveled, I usually waited and went to the charity shops there and bought needles I could leave behind if I needed too. Also, be careful of small scissors. Mine were confiscated in Canada even though the point was rounded. I took plastic scissors for cutting paper (children's), but they don't work well on yarn. Most trips I would buy a pair of scissors at the "Pound Shop" equivalent and then leave with the B and B I was staying at.

PipneyJane

weenancyinAmerica said:

Pip - you may want to stick with a crochet hook instead - or two sharpened pencils. I have had trouble taking knitting needles on airlines - particularly in US airports (and Canadian ones). When I traveled, I usually waited and went to the charity shops there and bought needles I could leave behind if I needed too. Also, be careful of small scissors. Mine were confiscated in Canada even though the point was rounded. I took plastic scissors for cutting paper (children's), but they don't work well on yarn. Most trips I would buy a pair of scissors at the "Pound Shop" equivalent and then leave with the B and B I was staying at.

Noted @w@weenancyinAmerica but I've done it before to Miami, last time in 2015, and not had issues.  I do tend to put my scissors in my hold luggage, but I've never had a problem with wooden DPNs.

- Pip

Laura_Elsewhere

I'm smiling reading this discussion - I had never bothered to learn to crochet because I had never wanted to make any of the things I saw... but then just after moving to live with Mr E, he was posted to the Antipodes for almost 3 weeks and I was able to go too... with two very very long flights I needed something but didn't want to risk having any of my own knitting things confiscated - so I packed my knitting safely in my hold baggage, bought a couple of crochet hooks and some yarn, and printed out some instructions with line-drawings of how to do the stitches.... I just spent the journey experimenting and playing around, and then when I came back I made some washable face-pads for my nieces for Easter 2015, and within the year made my first Edlothia! 

I still wear this one, usually wrapped round my neck and shoulders like a big scarf, sometimes just round once with a scarf-ring holding it, or a big brooch. 


So.... if airline security had never got all confusing and unpredictable about knitting needles, I would never have discovered that you can make lace shawls, edgings and insertions using crochet! 

I still don't know the names of any stitches, mind you  

Cherryfudge

Laura_Elsewhere said:

@Cherryfudge, thankyou (for compliment and enquiry!) - the gums got infected but I'm on Day 5 of a week of tablets and they are working, I think - heavens knows how I'd have managed without the Research Institute outside the village, with their brand-new discoveries of antibiotics...! 

I've spent this morning emptying my clothes-shelves - then everything I'm keeping has the 6-minute cold 'airing' go in the tumble-dryer to de-crumple it, and I'm re-folding them all and putting them back. I've got three tops to go to charity shops, and some t-shirts and tops that I don't want to let go of just yet but don't wear, so those are now in a box that I emptied earlier in the year, up on top of the shelves. So the shelves are no longer stuffed full of clothes crushed and crumpled, and it's easier to put things away, and easier to see what I have. 

Having fewer, nicer clothes...  my aim for quite a few years now...! 

I've also started a Word doc, with two sections, one for autumn/winter and one for spring/summer. I am listing the clothes I have for each, and working out what I have but never wear (so then: why not?), and what I really would wear but don't have (so then: why not?), and what I have the materials for but have either not finished, or not started (so then: why not?). 

It's not a capsule wardrobe as such, but I hope it will lead to having fewer, nicer clothes... 

I am *dreadful* at letting go of clothes that meant something to me in the past...!!!! 

So this is the New Revised Forum - so far, so good (i.e. I haven't got lost and have managed to quote and post). I do feel rather as though everything is to the left - I must have got used to it all being on the right.

It must be an interesting time in the Elsewhere household with such a mighty upheaval: things getting turned into other things, tumbled about and relocated. I hope you'll eventually share some answers to your questions because I'm fairly sure I'd benefit. I was up in the loft yesterday, and there are boxes and boxes and bags and bags of things there. I recently passed a few on to my daughter and was quite amused to see a dress from me on Instagram a few days later: apparently it was a real hit which is good as I couldn't have got in it any more. Then she visited with a jumper I'd liked but never wore, soon followed by retro jeans that looked perfect on her (and which had been waiting for me to shrink back into them for at least fifteen years). I hope to find her some more in the next few weeks, there's still a lot to choose from.

Is it easier if you can let go of things to someone you think will enjoy them - maybe your nieces?

Something I found useful (but I have to be in the right frame of mind) is simply to ask whether I'd buy an item now. Unfortunately that sometimes applies to whatever I've decided to put on that day. :

How are you finding the lists? I think I'd need three categories, not two - very cold, very hot and everything else. 

And I feel for you about not letting go of things... I have a few items that have all but fallen to bits but are still here, waiting for me to learn enough pattern and machine skills to copy them.

Laura_Elsewhere

@Cherryfudge, lots of useful things for me to think about there - thankyou!  

I definitely find it easier to give things to people I think will care about them - we sold over thirty kilos of books to two apps, but the older books are going to a secondhand bookshop I particularly like, and we are actually giving them the books, with no payment, because the priority has to be to let go of the books, which with those ones I really can only do if I believe they won't be pulped. Money is less important in this circumstance than the books' safety. 
(sadly, nieces aren't terribly interested in old stuff - ALTHOUGH last month younger niece was talking about how she loves dark green but has never felt bold enough to wear it (she lives in a generation of nude, beige, black, navy, and millennium-gold, poor thing)... so I ran to the room all my stuff is in and produced her late mother's 1970s school-uniform cloak! Yes, she actually had a school-uniform cloak for a state school in the 1970s, beautiful soft rich dark green wool, with a viscose-type lining, and a cosy collar you can turn up. It just fits slim little niece, and is thankfully in good condition and has escaped infestation (I have always moth-sprayed the back of the door particularly where those things hang). I have told her when I am up next, I shall overhaul it, mend a worn bit in the lining, steam-clean it and then she can wear it as a winter coat. It looked very lovely on her and of course they simply don't have those kinds of things of their mum's, sadly. Then I had a bright idea and fetched an olive-green cashmere swing-coat which I paid well over a hundred quid for, twenty or so years ago but my life now just doesn't need smart coats so it's stayed there... and she loves that and thinks it will be beautiful for wearing to work in winter, so I'm overhauling that too - hurrah!)

I think spring/summer and autumn/winter as clothing categories work well for me simply because of the amount of layering of natural fibres that I do  
In a mild early October, I might wear a needlecord skirt with bare legs, ankle-socks and lace-up leather shoes, with a short-sleeved blouse and a cardigan, and be fine... a few weeks on and a sudden cold snap and I might wear the same needlecord skirt but add a cotton petticoat, long over-the-knee socks, thicker boot-socks and boots, a long-sleeved shirt over a cashmere camisole, with a cashmere slipover and a cardigan, possibly with a wool-lace shawl... many of the layers are very thin and lightweight and don't feel like I'm bundled-up, but add huge amounts of warmth for minimal material. 

Cherryfudge

I think you may interest your nieces in 'retro' clothes yet, @Laura_Elsewhere! (I say 'retro' because that's what my daughter calls things she finds in my loft! I suppose an 1970s school cape might come into the same category, but I can't judge the rest of your wardrobe, partly because I've not seen it bit also because even if I had, I wouldn't have a clue if it was current or not). Just wait till someone compliments her on the dark green. It's not a colour we see much now but it can be lovely.

You have now given me the idea of offering my daughter a maroon mac I bought in about 1989 which hasn't been worn much.

I'm not so good at layering, which could be why I need extra categories. My wardrobe is mostly jeans and (add suitable top).