2024 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

PipneyJane

Cherryfudge said:

In no particular order, @PipneyJane:

It's great you're feeling better! While I've not had chemo, I understand it can wipe you out but you sound as though you are coming back with a bounce.
Thanks for solving the photo problem.
Those are very neat sock repairs.
I vote we let you off the extra spending last year - perhaps it counts as medical expenses or something?
Don't overdo the catching up jobs.  
Excuse me turning my back while I butter these hot cross buns... they smell wonderful.

Thank you, @Cherryfudge.  Much appreciated.  (Seriously, I don’’t even know where my record is for last year’s Challenge, so we’ll say I blew the money on the black market and leave it at that.)

I fetched some bags of clothing out of the loft yesterday, mostly summer stuff that's been put away over winter, but also a couple of small bags that had been lost ages ago and which I now don't know what to do with. (I'm struggling with the grammar of that sentence. Should it be '...and with which I know not what to do'?)

My grammar is good - I’d vote for the latter sentence - but it still feels a bit clunky.  @Laura_Elsewhere your grammar is excellent.  What do you think? 

Among the many found things was a beaded satin skirt that I'd abandoned because a shaped edge has come undone and I would rather save it than cut it off, but I don't know how to do it. It's in the ironing pile now so I might post a picture later and hope the village comes up with something I can manage, even though it won't be done yet as I'm also trying to sort out a family feast for tomorrow.

Hmm…. Show it to us when you can.  This is definitely one for the largest photos.  In the meantime, enjoy the family feast tomorrow.

- Pip

MrsCD

Glad you've got some of your get up and go back, @PipneyJane! Don't overdo it though.😉 
Your sock repairs are great....now where did I put DH's to mend...!
I have some spends to declare...5 pairs of knickers...I've thrown out so many lately that I just had to buy some. The Sloggis I bought last year haven't lasted as well as previous ones, so I've given M&S another chance. Also 2 pairs of Craghoppers trousers. So...5  x 'Bridget Jones's' style = 20, (they're not bikini or thongs, so I think they should cost more) plus 2  x 6 = 12 , total 32/66 used!

Laura_Elsewhere

@PipneyJane - very nice patches! Do you ever 'run' the soles before they wear through, a la Sally Pointer's excellent video? I find I am running thin patches far more, because it's so much easier/quicker than darning or patching...

Many thanks for suggesting my grammar is good! I'm laughing because formal grammar lessons didn't happen until the last year of primary school (4th year juniors) at my English one which I left between 3rd and 4th year Juniors, so I missed it- only to arrive at my Scottish primary school and go into P7, everyone else having done their "a noun is a naming word" stuff the previous year in P6! So I never had any formal lessons in English grammar, ever... but I did do 7 years of Latin and that's bound to rub off a bit... 

"I fetched some bags of clothing out of the loft yesterday, mostly summer stuff that's been put away over winter, but also a couple of small bags that had been lost ages ago and which I now don't know what to do with. (I'm struggling with the grammar of that sentence. Should it be '...and with which I know not what to do'?)"

@Cherryfudge, I reckon that is one of those sentences which is clearly colloquial-spoken English- it sounds fine in general conversation - "a couple of small bags that had been lost ages ago and which I now don't know what to do with" - but when you write it down, it looks and feels wrong. 
I would re-cast the entire thing if you wanted it in correct written-English: "a couple of small bags, lost ages ago - I don't know what to do with them now" perhaps, or else "I don't know what to do now with these small bags which I lost ages ago."

Language... a fabulous thing, innit?!   

I am sitting here hand-sewing a couple of new sleep-masks, because when Mr E said in the last week of January that I should "take anything you might want for the next 7-10 days from that side of the room" he had not thought any of it through and so it is now nine weeks later and we are still living with a load of stuff stacked ceiling-high across almost half the sitting-room. It barely affects him, as it is my stuff barricaded in! Had he been a tiny bit more clear about the plans and especially the timescale ("I thought we'd leave it now for a few months..." no, we bloomin' well won't, sunny-jim!!), I would have gone through and fetched out ALL my sewing basics, instead of only taking the minor thing I was sewing at the time and leaving ALL my threads, ALL my buttons and elastic, ALL my pins and ALL my needles bar one that was in use.... 

So today we have moved the table so it now blocks some of his things on the other side of the room, and tomorrow we shall have to move his new desk, ditto, and let's see if the inconvenience to his things means progress happens a leeetle faster...! 

I am still very tired from the working away trips, and the emotional upheaval of unplanned retirement from a course I've been involved in for 27 years, and the tiring nature of staying with my parents for a week (not to mention the mild food poisoning that always results), and four really good concerts in three weeks involving 3am bedtimes after Mr E drove us home through the night, once from Scotland, once from East Anglia... 
I don't have an chemo to excuse my lack of walking, but Mr E and I have agreed that clearly it's going to take more than just this one week for me to return to my usual levels! 

Watty1

Glad to read you are feeling brighter @PipneyJane

I am astonished to say I am still on just the one essential pair of trousers for the cold and wet for outside, dog walking, yard jobs so I am on 8/66 spent.    I do not have anything I want to 'waste' coupons on although a very nice pair of cowboy boots is calling my name but I am resisting that call because I am short and I am sure they will be too long and look silly when i get them so a senseless waste of resources buying / trying /sending back

I am wearing what I have and currently wearing a zip up fleece that is stained and threadbare in places so I will not put this one in the wash.   My boyfriend has purchased a brand new with tags of bay of E so technically second-hand.  The only other new to me item of clothing was a printed shirt second-hand.   I'm loving the freedom to just buy second-hand an to let go of my old ways.  This might be a challenge but it is a good one.

PipneyJane

Laura_Elsewhere said:

@PipneyJane - very nice patches! Do you ever 'run' the soles before they wear through, a la Sally Pointer's excellent video? I find I am running thin patches far more, because it's so much easier/quicker than darning or patching...

No I’ve never done that, @Laura_Elsewhere, although I did run tacking stitches from the new patches to the original soles.  The thing with DH’s feet is that he has a hard, almost horny layer of skin on the balls of his feet and on his big toe.  Occasionally, he’ll trim the edges with scissors, which can leave a sharp edge that can cut like a knife.  He’s holed 3 pairs of socks this year - you can see where his big toe cut through the yarn, in the next pair in the queue to be fixed.  Those are made from Regia 4-faedig and were made at about the same time as the pair I patched earlier.  The soles are in a much better state.

I think the quality of the yarn has something to do with it.  I’m not impressed by the Rico Surperba used to make the first pair I fixed.  It’s soft, but I don’t think it holds up well, unlike Regia or Opal.   The third pair of socks he killed were made in Collinette Jitterbug in 2011 and have, literally, been worn to death.***

I am sitting here hand-sewing a couple of new sleep-masks, because when Mr E said in the last week of January that I should "take anything you might want for the next 7-10 days from that side of the room" he had not thought any of it through and so it is now nine weeks later and we are still living with a load of stuff stacked ceiling-high across almost half the sitting-room. It barely affects him, as it is my stuff barricaded in! Had he been a tiny bit more clear about the plans and especially the timescale ("I thought we'd leave it now for a few months..." no, we bloomin' well won't, sunny-jim!!), I would have gone through and fetched out ALL my sewing basics, instead of only taking the minor thing I was sewing at the time and leaving ALL my threads, ALL my buttons and elastic, ALL my pins and ALL my needles bar one that was in use.... 

So today we have moved the table so it now blocks some of his things on the other side of the room, and tomorrow we shall have to move his new desk, ditto, and let's see if the inconvenience to his things means progress happens a leeetle faster...! 

How annoying!  And frustrating when you want to make something. 

I am still very tired from the working away trips, and the emotional upheaval of unplanned retirement from a course I've been involved in for 27 years, and the tiring nature of staying with my parents for a week (not to mention the mild food poisoning that always results), and four really good concerts in three weeks involving 3am bedtimes after Mr E drove us home through the night, once from Scotland, once from East Anglia... 
I don't have an chemo to excuse my lack of walking, but Mr E and I have agreed that clearly it's going to take more than just this one week for me to return to my usual levels!

So sorry to hear that the course you deliver has been cancelled.  That must have been quite a shock.

Watty1 said:

Glad to read you are feeling brighter @PipneyJane

I am astonished to say I am still on just the one essential pair of trousers for the cold and wet for outside, dog walking, yard jobs so I am on 8/66 spent.    I do not have anything I want to 'waste' coupons on although a very nice pair of cowboy boots is calling my name but I am resisting that call because I am short and I am sure they will be too long and look silly when i get them so a senseless waste of resources buying / trying /sending back

I am wearing what I have and currently wearing a zip up fleece that is stained and threadbare in places so I will not put this one in the wash.   My boyfriend has purchased a brand new with tags of bay of E so technically second-hand.  The only other new to me item of clothing was a printed shirt second-hand.   I'm loving the freedom to just buy second-hand an to let go of my old ways.  This might be a challenge but it is a good one.

@Watty1  Is there any way you could try on the boots before you buy them?  Perhaps getting them sent to a branch of the store or visiting their outlet?  I understand not wanting to waste resources, but I remember you mentioning them in a previous post, so you definitely want them.  If they turn out to be perfect for you, where will you wear them?

Yesterday’s revelation is that I probably won’t need to buy any more pairs of jeans or trousers for over a decade, particularly now that I’ve lost weight, so that the size 12’s I saved from my thinner days now fit me again.  However, that is dependent on whether or not I need to look “smart casual” and how shabby things get.  I think the reason I bought so many pairs of of M&S stretch jeans in November is because a) the front pockets fit my phone - vitally important - and b) I know that stretch jeans will go in the knees after 3 or 4 years of wear.  

There are a couple of pairs of jeans that will probably get washed and then donated to a charity shop. The reality is that they don’t get worn precisely because the front pockets don’t fit my phone.   (At least one pair were hand-me-downs from my sister, who left them with me last time she was visiting from Oz.)

- Pip



*** ETA - Just took another look at the Collinette socks.  They are a little felted inside BUT again the real damage has been done by the sharp edges of the balls of DH’s feet.  The fibres are cut and the bigger holes exist because that section later fell off, cut in other places.  (DH wears his socks like slippers in the winter, padding around the house in them on cold nights.)

potplant

Oh, at last! As a long time lurker and learner, there is finally something I can contribute which could be useful!  I extend all my jeans pockets because phones never fit -Y0uTube is full of variations on how, but not difficult to invent for yourself, and makes all the difference!

PipneyJane

Thanks for the suggestion @potplant and welcome!  Please take a seat and join us around the (virtual) wood fire stove.  Cup of tea? Do tell us about yourself!  Are you a dressmaker?  Knitter?  Crocheter?  Or just a lover of clothes?  (All acceptable answers.)

- Pip (where is that cake tin?)

potplant

Thank you!  I've been evesdropping at the door of the Village Hall too long, I think.   I'm a clothes maker/adapter/mender, ever since my teens (long ago),  but a hopeless knitter and a nonstarter at crochet.  Not buying clothes much at all in the last  year or so, as I find I have lots of things I bought before I stopped working, thinking ooh, this is lovely, I just need to dye it or alter X about it or remodel Y or take it apart and use the fabric for Z. Some of which things I have done, but lots more are still  to do.  (And then there is also rather a lot of fabric...)
However, today  no sewing apart from darning a sock, I am planting seeds while the sun shines! 

Wraithlady

I am at present trying to figure out how to turn a pair of lounging trousers into a top - the material is a lovely soft cotton, but the trousers made me look like a trainee clown.

Cherryfudge

Wraithlady said:

I am at present trying to figure out how to turn a pair of lounging trousers into a top - the material is a lovely soft cotton, but the trousers made me look like a trainee clown.

Intriguing - usually someone, somewhere has tried things so I googled. I've no idea how good this solution is, as I'm not this good at sewing, but it seems viable and I like the end result. There are others out there that I didn't investigate.