2024 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

PipneyJane

Big hugs, @MrsCD hope you feel better soon!

- Pip

maryb

Covid is going round, isn't it.  Sympathy for the sufferers is unrationed!

I've never known anyone else hold their yarn the way I do, which is probably because I'm totally self taught.  I loop it over my middle finger and under my index finger and just use my little finger bent down to hold it against the side of my palm rather than wrapping it round my little finger which most people seem to do.  And I hold my needle like a pen.That gives me quite a loose though even tension and I just go down one or even two needle sizes.  I think my knitting style is what Americans call English throwing, though I've also seen it described as Irish Cottage.  I had no idea there were so many ways to knit

Mrs_Mavis

I've not done stranded knitting for awhile but what I do remember is that for a while switching between colours felt awkward then my fingers figured out their own odd way of doing it when I stopped trying to think how to do it. Basically, your hands are smart and will hopefully work it out if you leave them to it.

I've totted up how many ration coupons were used by a rare splurge of buying new in July, leaves me with 9 for the rest of the year, but as I get most stuff second hand I feel up to the challenge. Feel free to remind me of my newbie overconfidence three months down the line!

Whilst second hand cloths are coupon free they're my main temptation, so to better appreciate and use what I have I'll treat it as if replacing an item would in theory involve buying new. I don’t know if that makes sense written down but basically I'm trying to get myself into a less wasteful way of thinking.

Nelliegrace

In spite of our plan not to but any new clothes this year, we have had a bit of a splurge in the half price sale at Sainsbury’s. DH needed larger shorts, and I bought a smaller pair. So that is 6 coupons spent on 300g of reduced price knitting cotton, and 5 on a pair of lilac cotton (men’s) shorts. I used my loyalty points, so I paid £3.75 instead of £12.50 full price. 

I must save the rest of my coupons for Christmas presents for my growing grandsons, and keep looking for what is available at the best prices, a jumper, or pyjamas, and socks. DD has the school uniform sorted for September, mainly from hand me downs. We used to use the school’s second hand shop for DD’s uniform. I restitched the underarm seam on a school blazer on my last visit. We pay for the boys school shoes. 

Laura_Elsewhere

@Nelliegrace - if the boys' uniforms are mostly sensibly second-hand, then their own coupons should be available for you to use, so you pay for their Xmas presents but don't need to use your own coupons. After all, the govt planned for everyone to have sufficient coupons to equip themselves for the year- hence why they had different coupon quantities for pregnant women, and for the arrival of a baby, and then different amounts for children, adults, etc. 

@Mrs_Mavis - yes, I have the same thing, that my hands do the knitting for me, so to speak! I am very fortunate... 

@Sarahspangles - I've tried to think how I hold yarn and have concluded that I actually barely tension it at all, which possibly doesn't help you, other than to add to the unanimous evidence of There Is No One Correct Way! 

I knit with an anchored needle, ie the back-end of the right-hand DPN needle is always secured in some way, sometimes a proper knitting-belt but mostly just jabbed into my clothes or belt, and I therefore don't hold the RH needle at all, just steadying it with a thumb or finger on the top or side as I make the stitch with the LH needle. The yarn I let drop much of the time between using, and just scoop it up with the side of my forefinger and put it round the needle (it's not as quick and brief as 'flicking') and then let everything go again... the needles are at right angles to each other, and if needs be I can just let go of everything mid-stitch and it will all stay intact. 
I can do over 60 stitches a minute on plain even one-colour knitting, so it's not like it slows me down. And it makes it virtually impossible to drop a stitch   I have to adapt patterns to knit in the round because I don't actually know how to sew knitting together, but it's worth it because it's so much quicker and easier to knit in the round, for me  
Another self-taught, from my Gran's late-1920s Weldon's booklet on sock and stocking knitting, so my very first-ever knitting was a pair of gent's knee-high shaped stockings with turnover. Slow, steady, followed the instructions and they worked fine- only I forgot to think about sizing and ended up having to give them to a pal as they were too big for my feet!  

Sarahspangles

Thanks for all the views on yarn hold! It’s come back to me why I had got used to wrapping round my middle finger - I broke my little finger a few years ago and used to ‘favour it’. But within a couple of hours knitting today, the little finger wrap has become automatic for both hands, so I think thats a keeper.

I got ‘A History of Hand Knitting” from the library today as I feel this is a rabbit hole worth exploring! Fittingly it came ‘from the stack’ which the librarian says is completely underground in our shiny new library.

thriftwizard

Aaaargh! Not Going There with yarn holds, as I'm a crocheter & left-handed spinner - not that I'm left-handed, just that's the way I spin, holding my fibre in the left hand - and somehow my tension works fine for crochet (where the yarn enters your work from the opposite direction to knitting) despite hardly wrapping it round any of my fingers at all! That used to drive my poor sister-in-law insane - an Oxford don & absolute crochet diva, who taught me to crochet when I was about 10, & always looks amazing in hand-crocheted cardis, shawls, waistcoats etc. - but it works for me. Both of my daughters, and one daughter-in-law, are keen knitters, as was my mother (who has given up now, at 98) but knitting is the Dark Art to me...

Off now to add a new pair of sandals to my coupon tally; both pairs I could drive in fell apart recently, although they were only 3~4 years old IIRC. I did buy a pair of Ecco sandals in a charity shop, but they are too tight across the toes after an hour or so. (I may insert a little band of elastic to make them more wearable as they are otherwise quite comfortable.) So I did have to buy some new ones from my "usual" suppliers, albeit reluctantly. But I wore them, brand new, to drive this afternoon, then spent several hours standing in a container unit sorting thread that had been given to a local charity, then drove back before I even remembered I was wearing them - worth every coupon!

diminua

One thin brown jumper (could be a base layer or a top over a substantial cami) and 2 pairs of pop socks bought - and I've already used up my 'forces' nylons allowance so I think that's another 7 coupons gone in total (stockings being 2 coupons per pair, but these coming below the knee). 12 coupons left.  

Some coupon free buys too - two blouses bought in a trawl of charity shops up Streatham High St. One originally from Marks with pink and grey stripes and mid length sleeves and the other Phase Eight with brown and red dots and short sleeves - I always end up pushing sleeves up anyway. 

Speaking of which it's rare for me to sew but I did recently put a couple of buttons on a jumper that had long flared trailing sleeves that were driving me mad. Nothing so sophisticated as button holes - I literally just folded the sleeve over twice to the right length, put a few stitches through the layers to tack it in place, then fixed the button on top - stitching again through the three layers so it's nice and secure. It's not my favourite jumper anyway, but it goes beneath my aran cardigan quite nicely and it's a sort of light to mid-weight that was useful in that not cold but definitely not warm weather we had earlier in the summer, so I'm hanging onto it for at least one more winter.  

Mrs_Mavis

@thriftwizard sandles and shoes you forget you're wearing are the gold standard of footwear, well done for finding them. I bought a pair of Sketchers in Spring that are like that and anxiously checked that they're a long running model so I'll be able to replace them with identical ones when they wear out.

@diminua That's my kind of alteration! Ie. Preferably no cutting, minimal sewing and if in doubt add buttons.

diminua

Those were black market nylons, clearly, as I bought a trench coat today - bright green, calf length on me (thigh length on the model online, which seems to defeat the whole point of a long coat, frankly, because your legs would get wet) - and am now 2 coupons over. Oops. More than I'd usually spend on a coat too, but I have been looking for a long raincoat and most are stupidly big on me and the colours are either twee or so, so boring. And various other excuses