2024 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

Gem-gem

@Laura_Elsewhere, how interesting about the tales of your family friend at Cambridge. I have just read a book by Sheila Hancock called Miss Cater's War. 

It is 1948 and the young Marguerite Carter has lost her parents and survived a terrifying war, working behind enemy lines. She returns to England to be one of the first women to receive a degree from the University of Cambridge...
A small part is about her life at Cambridge, the main part tells the story about her life after Cambridge and flashes back to her time during WW2.

PipneyJane

dND said:

@PipneyJane I've used this company before and they've been good.  Sign up for their newsletter as they frequently have half-price sales on the patterns.  It's usually by brand so you might have to wait until it cycles through to the brand you want.

https://www.sewdirect.com/shop/?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwn7mwBhCiARIsAGoxjaKv1jrm5eWeBvCT5KLSsNbpAqevgu2cSuDUvpqrRdAEVoVMeAwstiQaAiqPEALw_wcB&collection=vintage-patterns

@dND Thank you!!! That’s the UK site for the American one I was browsing earlier - I had wondered if there was one.  They do have the patterns I was lusting after.  Sadly, while I’ve looked everywhere, I can’t find where to sign up for the newsletter. 

Now, I’m wondering whether I really need to buy the Vintage Vogue pattern, since I’d only use it for the skirt and it’s £20.  I have no idea where my sewing patterns are in this house, but I must have one that I could use/re-use for the skirt.  The alternative is to see whether one of the other brands has a suitable - and cheaper - skirt pattern.  Hmmm…..

@Laura_Elsewhere Thanks for the ideas.  My one question is:  what is a waist stay?  How do they work? I don’t think I’ve ever seen one.  I have some royal blue pure silk that I was planning on using as the lining fabric.  Like the suiting - which is really quite heavy, so may be coating - I picked it up for pennies at a “fabric swap” at the local community centre two-ish years ago.  

- Pip

dND

@PipneyJane Thinking about it, I've not had an email for quite a while so I guess they've stopped them in favour of you following them on Social Media or paying £32 a year to be a VIP member!! 😱😱

Cherryfudge

I don't think I've posted for a while, sorry - the thread goes fast and so does my time! However, those beautiful suits are just lovely and I hope Pip trailed a string from somewhere outside the rabbit hole to wherever she's got to now, or we may have to dig her out!

My tuppence worth is that the Oxfam online store has quite a variety of patterns including older ones and may be worth a browse from time to time.

PipneyJane

Today I will mostly be wearing…..

Clothes that I should have started wearing years ago.  A pair of jeans that I bought from MrT’s in ?2015, which were too tight then but I didn’t take them back*.  My polo shirt is from the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games, and my cardigan is Audrey in Unst which I finished knitting in May 2019 but only sewed on the buttons this week.



On the pattern front, I worked out that the cheapest way to buy both patterns was to buy the modern suit, join the club, and then use the free voucher to buy the second pattern, then cancel membership.  (I can’t find my sewing patterns, so suspect they’re in the loft.)  

- Pip



* I would have sworn they were labelled size 14, but today saw that the size on the care label is 12.  I completely wore out a size 14 pair of these, which were definitely bought in Dunfermline in August 2015.  These were bought after I got back to London, because I kicked myself for several weeks/months that I didn’t get 2 pairs when the originals were purchased.

Cherryfudge

Love the picture @PipneyJane! That's a great smile and if ever you tire of that cardi, remember how much it would suit me. (Well, I might need to shrink a little bit, but it would be worth it for that colour and style).

Today I'm going to return a top I bought in a charity shop the other day. In theory it was ideal but the cuffs are too narrow and it just doesn't sit well on me. I'm not even car booting today - the rain and mud has saved me an unknown amount in the first month of the car booting season due to closures.

I'm having a further look at the skirt I mentioned last week: it's pretty but the fabric is a cheap satiny stuff and there's a scalloped decoration that's somehow lost its hem and I can see I've tried to mend it but only managed a little bit as it wasn't looking right. I'll try to send a photo but at the moment I've reached an impasse.

Cherryfudge

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...

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've been meaning to thank you for this input, Laura! It was definitely one of those sentences that required a complete re-write. I've made only the tiniest amount of progress on the clothes from the loft, by the way, but perhaps this warmer weather is a good excuse to try some on again.

How are your energy levels this week? Last week you were recovering from a gamut of tiring things.

Cherryfudge

The skirt (thanks to @PipneyJane for instructions on resizing. I don't know why they turned on their side when I did that, so I hope you don't all get a crick in the neck). You can see the points between the scallops have been glued down with wunderweb or similar, but it wasn't working out and the fabric frays really badly once it starts to go.

I'm wondering whether just to remove that damaged overskirt: cutting it back would complicate things as there are those little beaded areas on each point.

PipneyJane

@Cherryfudge, my vote is to just remove the damaged overskirt.  To my eyes, it doesn’t add anything but “fuss” to the skirt.  I had to zoom in to view the beading.  Visually, it doesn’t add anything, the fabric is too busy.

HTH

- Pip

Cherryfudge

PipneyJane said:

@Cherryfudge, my vote is to just remove the damaged overskirt.  To my eyes, it doesn’t add anything but “fuss” to the skirt.  I had to zoom in to view the beading.  Visually, it doesn’t add anything, the fabric is too busy.

HTH

- Pip

Thanks Pip My next thought is - what to do with the scrap of fabric if and when I take it off? As I would ideally have to open side seams to detach it, I could make pockets. (Oooh! Pockets!)

And also... spare beads! But I think the beading lower in the skirt needs repair.

I think I'll detach the jingly thing at the waist, it doesn't add anything but nuisance.