2024 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

Sarahspangles

I learned to knit using cable cast on but prefer long tail cast on nowadays.

I recently bought Patty Lyons’ ‘Knitting Bag of Tricks’ for my Kindle, her suggestion for a tendency towards over-tight cast on is simply to use your forefinger on the right needle to space the stitches as you cast them on. That way the distance between stitches is correct, and the stitches themselves aren’t loose when you come to knit them.

Nelliegrace

I am feeling very pleased with myself. I found a box of two unused linen huckaback towels in my favourite second hand store. The seller accepted my offer of £11. They will be easier to dry in winter than big, thick terry bath towels, now we all have to save even more on fuel.
I bought some pre-war handkerchiefs too. They will need a good soak and a wash, the boxes are in bits, one might think from the state of them that they were salvaged. No coupons spent. 

Cherryfudge

An unplanned no-coupon spend today: a Laura Ashley corduroy jacket from the car boot sale. It's in generally fair condition, thought there's a loose hook and eye fastening which is no problem to fix. Also very comfortable and a good colour for me. The difficulty, which I didn't see till I saw it in the mirror, is that it's been worn with hands thrust into pockets so the front is dragged down as if it were a halter neck. Do you think I can rescue it? I can wear a scarf over, to hide the worst, but would a wash followed by drying on a shaped coat hanger help? Or is there anything else I could try?

(It takes me right back to a cord jacket I had in the 80s!)

PipneyJane

Cherryfudge said:

An unplanned no-coupon spend today: a Laura Ashley corduroy jacket from the car boot sale. It's in generally fair condition, thought there's a loose hook and eye fastening which is no problem to fix. Also very comfortable and a good colour for me. The difficulty, which I didn't see till I saw it in the mirror, is that it's been worn with hands thrust into pockets so the front is dragged down as if it were a halter neck. Do you think I can rescue it? I can wear a scarf over, to hide the worst, but would a wash followed by drying on a shaped coat hanger help? Or is there anything else I could try?

(It takes me right back to a cord jacket I had in the 80s!)

It’s possibly rescuable, @Cherryfudge.  The weave has been distorted.  I’d wash it, put it on the shaped coat hanger - to reform the shoulders - do it up and then dry it flat on a table/floor over layers of towels, reshaping it so that the fronts hang evenly with the back, etc.  (Reshaping it as you would if it were a jumper that you were blocking.). 

Fingers crossed.

- Pip

Laura_Elsewhere

seconding Pip’s wise words- dry flat after pulling and squishing it into shape. 

Sarahspangles

Cherryfudge said:

Would a wash followed by drying on a shaped coat hanger help? Or is there anything else I could try?

Hopefully it’s fixed by a wash and reshaping. If it’s developed a tendency to droop, I suppose you could sew petersham ribbon from shoulder to hem on the inside front edge, to give it a bit of backbone? You sometimes see this on cotton cardigans, or men’s coats where the front edge return meets the lining.

Cherryfudge

Thank you @PipneyJane, @Laura_Elsewhere and @Sarahspangles for the advice. If it's good drying weather tomorrow, I'll try the wash and reshape, and reinforcement with ribbon is something I could try once I see how it hangs when that's complete. I also need to think about my autumn/winter clothes and see what would go well with it. Years ago I had wide-legged trousers that tucked into boots and would probably have worked well, but I'm not sure my modern cream-coloured trousers would be right. Time to get out skirts and try some on.

PollyWollyDoodle

Good luck with this week’s chemo, @PipneyJane and hope you get released in time for the cricket on Saturday. 

Cherryfudge

Thinking of you @PipneyJane x

Laura_Elsewhere

I hope it's going well, @PipneyJane - both the treatment and the knitting! 


No buying of clothes- but I've been busy  

We're finally making progress here- on Friday we're driving Mr E's obsolete computer things to meet with a collector of that type of computer stuff, so it's going to a good home where it will be very much appreciated. We're also dropping off a box of my books to our local second-hand bookshop. Some other books are being posted to new homes too. 
A long way to go but it's progress... 

And in the morning on Friday, I'm meeting my usual swimming-pals with rakes and brooms and we're going to give our changing area at the quarry a good scrubbing so it's a LOT less muddy this winter- two years ago the Council kindly put down several loads of stone chippings, but then last year after the autumn leaves made it all a bit mushy, someone asked the tree-felling people to put down tree-chippings and they've all gone to mush and it's been ghastly in wet weather, really awful! So we plan to rake it back to the stony layer, and try to keep it like that... 

And I've taken the worn-through old rubber soles off my WW2-replica shoes, little tan leather lace-up brogues with a low flat heel- now they have new rubber half-soles glued on well with Klebfest, and Blakeys non-metal segs nailed onto the heels, and I've taken out the cord laces and waxed them well (they last years longer). Tomorrow once all the glue has set, I shall polish them to a gleam  
Dry, comfortable feet this winter!