2024 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

PollyWollyDoodle

The trouble is that the act of pinning can distort the fabric. 
I grew up using pins (I often cut out my patterns on the living room carpet, it wasn’t unusual to find I’d pinned the fabric to the carpet!) but I’ve recently moved to using pattern weights.  

If it’s something slippery then I agree pins might be needed, but I actually find the weights easier to use and move around.  Mine are mostly things like tins of sardines, pebbles etc - I don’t have any of these fancy little sandbag type weights.  I’ve also recently got some of those clips that you often see on sewing videos, they were a Christmas present, and I haven’t actually tried them out yet. They are more for holding stuff together while you sew it, though. I still use pins for that. 

Laura_Elsewhere

I'm a pins girl, every time! I had become very frustrated with pins in the last 20-odd years as they always seemed to have sharp snags on the tips that caught at the material, or were so blunt and thick they left great gaping holes in the material... eventually, I thought soddit, and tracked down some boxes of vintage pins in gloryhole-junkshops and eBay and now I have four or five different kinds of pins and I really do have special fine, extra-long ones for fine slippery fabrics, and short strong ones for thick wool, and so on and so forth! I even have white brass pins which I use for pinning out lace shawls to block them as the shawl is wet to start with and it means no risk of rust! 
A friend gave me a cardboard chest of drawers about a foot wide, 9-10" tall and 4" or so deep, four wide shallow drawers- it had Terry's chocolates in it in about 1960-odd, and I actually had one years ago that came from my Nana's house, that I kept using for years and years... anyway, this one has all my pins and needles kept all in one place. I have a dozen or so ordinary pins in my pin-cushions for general purpose, and a small packet of four dozen "Newey Adamantine Plated Pins" for general sewing  

Laura_Elsewhere

My Older Niece is living through a bit of wartime experience- she is now safely working on Vancouver Island, but for her first year in Canada, she lived and worked in a small town, Jasper, Alberta, which was almost solely a ski resort in winter and popular with campers in the surrounding national park in summer... she only moved a few months ago. 
Last year when we worried about wildfires, she airily assured us that because Jasper brings in so much money to the district, they make sure it's never at risk of burning, and sure enough the wildfires were kept at bay. 
This year, that approach has failed for the first time ever. Everyone has now been evacuated, literally everyone, and all her friends are not only homeless but jobless as well, as the entire town looks as if it will burn. ON's old work has burnt down, the coffee-shop she loved has burnt down, literally street by street the entire town is going. 

She is very badly shocked- as are we but hugely thankful she wasn't there!! - but the photos she has sent from her friends' doorbell-cameras before they were burnt are very frightening- it's very like the photos from the Blitz, the way completely normal bits of everyday life like a mailbox are clear and untouched in the foreground with a raging orange mass immediately behind and only the structural lines of buildings visible in the flames... 

I don't know what they will do in Jasper- I know in the US, one or two towns have been obliterated in this way, but jings, it's horrible seeing it when it's somewhere we've all grown just that bit familiar with...

PipneyJane

Laura_Elsewhere said:

My Older Niece is living through a bit of wartime experience- she is now safely working on Vancouver Island, but for her first year in Canada, she lived and worked in a small town, Jasper, Alberta, which was almost solely a ski resort in winter and popular with campers in the surrounding national park in summer... she only moved a few months ago. 
Last year when we worried about wildfires, she airily assured us that because Jasper brings in so much money to the district, they make sure it's never at risk of burning, and sure enough the wildfires were kept at bay. 
This year, that approach has failed for the first time ever. Everyone has now been evacuated, literally everyone, and all her friends are not only homeless but jobless as well, as the entire town looks as if it will burn. ON's old work has burnt down, the coffee-shop she loved has burnt down, literally street by street the entire town is going. 

She is very badly shocked- as are we but hugely thankful she wasn't there!! - but the photos she has sent from her friends' doorbell-cameras before they were burnt are very frightening- it's very like the photos from the Blitz, the way completely normal bits of everyday life like a mailbox are clear and untouched in the foreground with a raging orange mass immediately behind and only the structural lines of buildings visible in the flames... 

I don't know what they will do in Jasper- I know in the US, one or two towns have been obliterated in this way, but jings, it's horrible seeing it when it's somewhere we've all grown just that bit familiar with...

OMG @Laura_Elsewhere!  I’m glad that OlderNiece and her friends are safe and saddened that they have to go through this.  Big hugs.

Having grown up with bushfires, Rule One is never to be complacent.  The winds that accompany them are intense and a fire can spread very fast.  The 1983 Victorian bushfires were in the Dandenong Mountains, 25-ish miles from home.   Whole towns obliterated (Emerald, Churchill); others badly damaged (Healesville, Ferntree Gully).  We had embers landing in our garden 25 miles away! 

I’ve also had the horror of seeing a school friend’s unusual surname listed on a memorial to fallen firemen, in the background of a piece-to-camera on the BBC, during another Australian bushfire season.  Fortunately, they responded to my email, and the person listed wasn’t him.  

- Pip

PS:  FWIW, Rule Two is have your go bag/car packed and ensure it includes the irreplaceable, e.g. the wedding album.  (The 2001-2 fires got close to one of my friend’s homes.  She packed her car with stuff for her baby son, her wedding album and family photos.).  Rule 3  is about preventative gardening - short grass and no trees near the house -  and Rule 4 is about stopping the fire taking hold.

weenancyinAmerica

@Laura_Elsewhere - thank you for the information about the fire in Jasper. I have cousins up there. I have been to four family reunions up in that area. Will be adding my prayers and hugs for everyone up there.

CapricornLass

Sorry to hear about Jasper, although its good news that ON and her friends are safe.   I hope that the residents have the courage and determination to  let Jasper rise again from the ashes.

Gem-gem

Yes, sorry to hear about Jasper. My DH and I spent four lovely days there around 2018. We took the Rocky Mountaineer Train from Vancouver to Jasper. Then boarded the Via Rail Train to Winnipeg, where we flew up to Churchill to see the polar bears and Beluga whales. We then flew to Toronto where we went to visit an elderly aunt.
 

I took this landscape picture just outside Jasper. We went on an early evening trip to see a various wildlife.

PipneyJane

This is the latest news re Jasper:  https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jul/25/jasper-alberta-canada-wildfire?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Wish we were closer, so that we could offer immediate help.

- Pip

Laura_Elsewhere

I suppose during the war people were constantly saying they’d read of bombing devastating places they love- and without breaking the No Politics rule, obviously in many parts of the world still…
…but we are very fortunate here in Much Mending on the Borrow- no bombs to speak of in this district!

Nelliegrace

So much sad news, but homes can be rebuilt, and trees replanted.

And in my daily 1940 newspaper on Wednesday this was the headline. 
A pot of tea is an essential part of coping. 
We have challenged ourselves to see how many cups of tea we can get out of the pot, topping it up with boiling water as we go on. 
I suppose we shall get used to some herb teas. The mints have done well this year, and so have the nettles with all of the rain here.

Our WI group is having a Teddy Bear’s Picnic, with tea and sandwiches, for the August meeting. It will be in the little park by the Church Hall if the sun shines, and indoors if it rains. It seems such a cheerful idea, our Holiday at Home.