2024 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

Mrs_Salad_Dodger

Laura, that room has so much potential 😊 I can see that MrE needs a good talking to 😂

Gem-gem

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6494257/2024-decluttering-campaign-mrssd#latest  

Laura, MrE may wish to join Mrs SD forum, I have spent many years on it and it has done wonders for my house. When it was raining last l weekend I spent one of the days decluttering. My tiny office, it doesn't take long to accumulate.

alicef

have been away for a bit - demands of the WLA.

Have another 10 yarn related coupons to declare!   In a small offset, I have been drafted in to run a crafting 

workshop for the reading challenge over the summer - I'm thinking stash busting...(at least in a small way).

PipneyJane

@Laura_Elsewhere big hugs.

@alicef what is the yarn destined to make?  Also, do tell us more about the reading challenge.

I’m still prevaricating between buying 3 metres or buying 4 metres of the tweed to go with my jacket.  I don’t want to spend 12 coupons BUT when I look at the patterns for the skirt and trousers which I’m considering making, for 1.5m wide fabric, they require 3.3m and I’m toying with making a waistcoat too….

The voice in my head - my mum’s - says 3 metres should be more than enough, Mind you, she’s also telling me to get the patterns out of their envelopes, to check out how they propose being laid out for cutting.  (Mum trained as a dressmaker and pattern cutter.). I’ll do that once we get back from holiday, week after next.

- Pip 

Laura_Elsewhere

@PipneyJane - if in doubt, get the longer length. You can always sell a yard of good tweed, or you can make the waistcoat- or a gorgeous lap-top bag with leather corners! 

Thanks for the encouragement... sadly, Mr E wouldn't be interested in a decluttering thread- he's actually very good at letting go of things without a qualm IF they are not going to landfill. He has an absolute horror of things being thrown out when they are still useable, someone might want them... as do I, unfortunately...!

The best two things to have happened to our flat in the last year are @thriftwizard kindly helping me let go of textiles and some other bits (thankyou all over again!!) and Mr E finding a chap in N.Yorks who has his own early-Mac museum, and who is happily taking all the bits of obsolete Apple Mac stuff, everything from actual machines and keyboards to books and empty boxes...! 

The bed has vanished now, after half a day, and you can see one wall of the boxroom... 

I'm steadily tidying the sitting-room by dint of finishing off mending projects, amongst other things! And I've all tomorrow and most of Sunday- not sure if I will get to the black broderie anglaise, but I shall certainly have cleared the decks!

Nelliegrace

Rationbook Rebecca did a beautiful, stash-busting Fairisle pullover. One tip I learned was to work front and back, one pattern at a time. 

I hope this will work. Rebecca posts about once a month on you tube. I like her knitting projects.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f0NUNHBs1Sk

PipneyJane

Nelliegrace said:

Rationbook Rebecca did a beautiful, stash-busting Fairisle pullover. One tip I learned was to work front and back, one pattern at a time. 

@Nelliegrace, please who is Rationbook Rebecca?  Link, please, if you can.  (I’ve not heard of her.). Sounds like she’s our sort.

- Pip

Sarahspangles

I’m wondering if having too much stuff, is why it’s so fascinating to contemplate managing with less?

It’s currently Clutter Central here. When I met OH he was mid-divorce. His father had recently had a terminal diagnosis so OH was in the process of moving in with his mum and dad to help, and his stuff went in their garage.  It was too early for us to cohabit but I agreed he could store some overflow, boxed, in my garage, and he could visit it at the weekends.

Seven years later he/the stuff is still here, and his parents have passed away so the stuff from their garage has been reunited with him/it. Alongside some of their stuff he can’t part with. Meanwhile my two made their way through the Uni years, accumulating stuff, and although they have officially flown the nest they still live in shared houses, so their childhood and Uni stuff is here. Then my dad passed away in November and they have chosen some of his/my mother’s stuff, as have I, plus there’s some of my Dad’s stuff that’s in the process of being sorted for Societies he was involved in, but in the meantime is here. Oh, and both my grandmothers lived out their final years in a granny flat at my parents, so some of the stuff is stuff my parents couldn’t bear to part with and it’s acquired tenure, it’s been around so long.

I’m actually quite good at decluttering but it’s reached the point there is no ‘staging’ space to do it. What I need is that warehouse they use for ‘Sort your life out’ on the Beeb. I think OH would find it easier to select what to bring home, than to select what leaves home. It’s possible the first year of my retirement will be one long exhausting argument about letting go of stuff that has some illusory use or value.

So long as we (and the cat) weren’t home when it happened, a direct strike by a Doodlebug might be a welcome relief.

MrsCD

Laura, you have my sympathy...that's what our spare bedroom looks like. We brought boxes of things from my dad's, last year when we cleared his bungalow,  and it all got dumped in there. I did initially go through some and managed to part with quite a bit, but there is still too much stuff. My DH keeps reminding me about it and telling me 'only you can go through it', because he might throw something out I want to keep! Is it just me...if someone says that to you, do you 'file it away in the things I must get around to' in your head? I know it needs doing, I just ....... (fill in whatever bit of procrastination you choose)!
Anyway, I finished a cardi that I started last summer. I made it just because I wanted to see how a hexagon cardi worked out. It's not laid out very well but I made it longer to use more like a jacket than a cardi.

Cherryfudge

I'm another with a lot of inherited/saved stuff who hates to get rid of anything unless I know it's not going to waste.

@MrsCD, well done for finishing the cardigan! I had to look up hexagon cardigans, yours is a lovely example. I'm also one who likes/suits pink so I can imagine you will get a lot of use out of it.