2024 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

PollyWollyDoodle

Oh my goodness @florianatwobob that blog is a rabbit-hole I could easily get lost in!  I’ve only read a couple of entries (and then got sidetracked to a vintage knitting site) but I’m delighted to find myself agreeing strongly with the author’s views so far. 

Please send out a couple of terriers if I’m not back in the village hall by nightfall, I’m off to explore some more!  

florianatwobob

I know Polly, I stumbled across it on Pinterest (or should that be a well known virtual noticeboard?) and could easily spend a long time there! . As I’m off on manoeuvres next week I may spend some of the time investigating further. I feel I’ve only skimmed the surface! 

PipneyJane

Hmmm… In the middle of The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club, I’ve encountered one glaring flaw:  DLS obviously never encountered the body of a recently deceased person, before writing this book.  If she had, then she’d have known that the sphincters of both the bladder and the bowel relax upon dying, so there’d be puddles of urine and faeces wherever the General died, as well as the associated smell from the body.  Nobody would want to sit in “his” armchair by the fire, because it’d be soaked.

- Pip (no spoilers)


ETA thanks for that blog link @florianatwobob I will enjoy falling down that rabbit hole.

CoffeeSonata

Hello all! I'm a bit late to the party but I'd love to join in. 
I think I may go over as I am hoping to loose weight and not sure if I'll end up a size I have work-appropriate clothes stashed away in! We'll see. I also have a wool stash and jumpers on the go though, and some material with vague plans for a dress/pjs (but I have to try to remember how to sew first and battle the sewing machine that's stuck in reverse. Really.) 
  Also need some clothes as worn out things or just not fitting and looking right - also due to surgical complications still have restrictions on what is comfortable to wear. 
 Plus side going for me with the challenge though is 1) I am a minimalist when it comes to clothes and get attatched to a few things I love and wear to death 2) very little spare money for clothes 3) the wool stash! 

I just bought a lovely new slightly balloon sleeved white shirt - so am starting with 5/66 coupons. 

That's the first thing I've bought all year.  
I'm assuming pre-existing wool stash used to make clothes doesn't count? 

Cherryfudge

Welcome @CoffeeSonata (nice name)! You are right, things we already own don't count towards the challenge.

I'm no expert on sewing machines but I do believe a thorough cleaning (YouTube will have instructions) can free up all sorts of glitches. It helped mine. Didn't give me increased sewing skills, but did improve the machine.

CoffeeSonata

@Cherryfudge thanks for the warm welcome! 
I did laugh at the machine maintenence not helping the sewing skills! (Sorry.)
 My machine is a bit sorry for itself. It's as old as I am, possibly a little older. Is the electric machine I learnt on, and most repair shops don't deal with them anymore/know how apparently. 
 My pet house engineer pulled it apart and cleaned it all, serviced as much as possible. Repaired the stuck in reverse but it went again and seized up.  Pet engineer doesn't think it's fixable without new parts.  As far as we can tell a spring is broken (actually not springing anymore), and some sort of catch and lever isn't levering.  The spring is a very specialised one, and not something we can just replace. Also if it is, cost might be as much as a new machine. 

 It's sort of doable in reverse, but it's like writing with the wrong hand to me. I can do it, but it's off putting enough to make me avoid sewing and definitely attempting to make anything new.  Am a bit stuck what to do with it really. I am a little sentimental about the machine, and don't want to replace it. I can't store two. But it's huge. Very, very heavy and we have to keep taking it apart frequently to make it even go in reverse! I have literally been taking to hand sewing repairs which take me five times as long, than attempt the backwards/tempremental machine.  I do like hand sewing, but time is something I do not have a lot of! 
 I don't know if a full service/repair will make it work fluently again (and forwards).  Two repair shops here said they didn't have parts/didn't actually know how to fix it anymore. So I'm a bit lost with it really! 
 
 I'm very tempted to just make space work (huge issue, house is a disaster) and ask my parents if I can have the mechanical singer no-one uses that I hope is stil in the attic and survived my mum's decluttering fits. That's the one I'm most used to, and also learnt on. I don't really care that it's not electric.  Maybe I will have to bite the bullet at some point if I want to be back repairing and making basic things and get a basic but fully functioning modern one. Though I think most things I want the old singer would be just fine.  
 I suppose I could just practise and practise until reverse direction is natural!! Until the whole thing dies beyone repair. 

Cherryfudge

Ooh, an old Signer, @CoffeeSonata! There will be lots of fans here as a few people have old mechanical machines and they love them. I do hope it's still in your parents' attic and you can get hold of it. I also get what you mean about being attached to the one you have so I hope it's mendable. 

Laura_Elsewhere

@CoffeeSonata I love my mechanical old Singer! It’s tackled most things over the decades- well, either my treadle one or my great-grandmother’s tabletop one which I took away to college with me… I made a ballgown for a friend from her mum’s old brocade curtains and she wore it a few years later to a red carpet premiere in London when she had a swish job there!! And Mum used it to make my sister’s pure silk wedding dress which was a “full meringue” with a train and everything… and it also waded through heavy canvas to re-cover a 1914 wood-frame camp-bed…! 

The old Singers do everything except buttonholes and zigzag and there are attachments for those…! I have the buttonholer and it works splendidly…

Gem-gem

Welcome @CoffeeSonata, good luck with the weight loss. 

I have just finished reading a lovely book about occupation on Jersey during WW2. At one point the island was cut off from the mainland and supplies were not getting through. It must have been very hard, especially during the winter. Today, I was pulling up last year's rocket and chard plants. It made me think about how they wouldn't have worried about it getting a little spiky / tough and eaten it. It was by / called: Deborah Carr - An Island at War.
I have also pulled up the last of my leeks and prepared the ingredients to make a leek and potato soup. I will leave a pot in the village hall when it is finished.
I have Miss Marple short stories on my bookshelf waiting to be read. Both my aunt and I prefer Marple stories when reading AC novels. I haven't read any of the books by the authors m recently mentioned. 

At the weekend, I bought a pink shirt (5 coupons) it has been on my list of wants / needs for two years. I finally found the one that I liked. 

Spent 22/66

PollyWollyDoodle

Welcome, @CoffeeSonata. I’m afraid your electric machine sounds as if it may have reached the end, don’t think I could cope with sewing in reverse all the time!  However I’m another who loves their hand-crank (Frister and Rossman in my case) and wouldn’t part with it. 

I do have a modern electric machine but it’s temperamental. The mechanical one will cope with anything and in its 100+ years it’s made bridesmaids’ dresses, fancy dress outfits, baby clothes, soft furnishings, toys, and many, many clothes for a family of five children. I’d definitely get your Singer out of storage and start using it!