2024 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

PipneyJane

2Scratters said:

@Laura_Elsewhere re your not lovely tap water have you considered or tried a Brita filter or other similar systems to help rid some of the nastiness in your water. I am fortunate of being in Lancashire and we have very good quality tap water.

2 Scratters xx

Lucky you, @2Scratters.  Ours is hard enough to stand up without the cup, although it doesn’t taste too terrible (but that may just be my chemo-suffering tastebuds).  We had a clear, electric kettle for a while and I was horrified by the amount of scale that built up in just one week.

On a different note, you may have noticed that I haven’t posted up a completed picture of the teal coloured jumper.  Well, that’s because I discovered that the sleeve heads were considerably smaller than the armholes!  They are only the top of the sleeve - there is no underarm shaping.  I have to work out how many repeats are needed for the sleeveheads and then frog back to that point on each sleeve, pick up the stitches and then knit back up flat.

The jumper is in “time out” until I have the brainpower and concentration to do the necessary.

- Pip

Laura_Elsewhere

Thanks all- glad the recipe is working for others!  

@Liverpool_Anne -0 I'm not trying to cut out sugar just now- my intake has been... well, really worryingly high for many years, truly awful. So I am working now on several things which can cut my "added sugar" to about a quarter (no, seriously!). I'm not too worried about eating sugars in fruit or in wholemeal carbs as those have fibre as well- my main "secret weapon" is to increase my fibre at every possible turn! 

@Watty1, that is interesting- I know that's why glucose-fructose syrup is best avoided, because of how the body treats it. I had been thinking of trying the banana-oats thing with apple instead, as I try to keep my food-miles down- I shall see what I come up with, I think stewed apple for mixing it all up, with small chunks of apple added in... 

Laura_Elsewhere

PipneyJane said:

On a different note, you may have noticed that I haven’t posted up a completed picture of the teal coloured jumper.  Well, that’s because I discovered that the sleeve heads were considerably smaller than the armholes!  They are only the top of the sleeve - there is no underarm shaping.  I have to work out how many repeats are needed for the sleeveheads and then frog back to that point on each sleeve, pick up the stitches and then knit back up flat.

The jumper is in “time out” until I have the brainpower and concentration to do the necessary.

- Pip

Aargh!!!! How frustrating for you!

PipneyJane

Quick question for you all:

Have you moth-stopped yet?

By which, I mean: have you refreshed the lavender bags, sanded the cedar-wood discs, and put out the moth traps in preparation for The Great Moth Invasion 2024?  

‘Tis the season….We did ours this morning.  If you’ve never done moth-prevention before, it is worth it to preserve your precious clothing. We were invaded a few years ago, now, and my DH lost at least one cashmere sweater to moths.  I lost a suit.

- Pip

PollyWollyDoodle

I have just hoovered the rug that got 'mothed' last year, and another large clump of fibre came away ... it's very old but I was very fond of it, bought on a holiday in Turkey c 1990.  The problem was that it was rolled up following my house move and they do love a dark place. 

Thanks for the reminder Pip, the wardrobe definitely needs a refresh.  I only have a couple of cashmere jumpers, most of my stuff is cotton or manmade fibres, but I would be very upset if they got eaten.

Laura_Elsewhere

PipneyJane said:

Quick question for you all:

Have you moth-stopped yet?

By which, I mean: have you refreshed the lavender bags, sanded the cedar-wood discs, and put out the moth traps in preparation for The Great Moth Invasion 2024?  

‘Tis the season….We did ours this morning.  If you’ve never done moth-prevention before, it is worth it to preserve your precious clothing. We were invaded a few years ago, now, and my DH lost at least one cashmere sweater to moths.  I lost a suit.

- Pip

Hah! As you know, I spent years and years living in Moth Central.... once they are literally breeding in the fabric of the house, then only professional full fumigation will do, and for a house that size it would have cost thousands, so... they were breeding in the hundred and fifty years' worth of fluff under the floorboards and between the wall and skirting boards and so on. Not to mention spreading via the pure-wool carpet underlay my parents had had installed when they replaced the old carpet, eaten into holes by moths. What's that? Did they spray any moth-killer after lifting the old, before fitting the new untreated pure-wool carpet on top of the new untreated pure-wool underlay? No, don't be silly... so, a lovely freeway for moths to travel from ground floor to attic, full breadth and depth of the building, both lots of stairs and all the landings/hallways, right up to every room-door. Lovely. 

For years we had moths in the flat, notably a few weeks after any visit to my old home. Now we are canny about leaving things in the car and densely spraying the inside of the car before bringing them in, etc... 

At one point, my parents picked me up from the station and I came into the house, closed the front door, hung up my coat and stared in disbelief as a clothes-moth flew straight up to my coat and settled onto it... it must have been hung up for six or seven seconds only... 

Watty1

Liverpool_Anne said:

@Watty1, thanks for that info. When I did a patient expert course for my diabetes I was told bananas were slow release carbs so that just goes to show the medics also get things wrong though I must admit to eating bananas because I like them and in my head they are the perfect snack. Also I need the potassium as one of my meds is known to strip potassium from the body and that goes to prove Laura's comment about side effects of certain meds . Every day is a learning experience
Take care everyone

A medic told my mother the best thing for her low blood sugar as a diabetic was a McD milk shake - suffice to say I was not happy and explained why that was not the case.  

Watty1

Where do I get good cedarwood balls from? Or lavender?

PipneyJane

@Laura_Elsewhere your moth stories are enough to give any sane clothing couponer nightmares!

Watty1 said:

Where do I get good cedarwood balls from? Or lavender?

I got my lavender scented repellent from Lakeland @Watty1.  They also do adhesive traps, which are great when the parent moths are “in heat”.

Lidl did some cedar disks last year or the year before but, sadly, you can’t rely on them obtaining supplies.

HTH

- Pip




ETA:  I confronted my yarn stash this afternoon.  DH wants me to knit a 5 Hour Baby Sweater for a ex-colleague who is expecting a girl.  I would have sworn that I had some lemon coloured, Aran-weight acrylic, so I took a deep breath and dived in.  Went through every box and bag.  OMG I have a lot of yarn!  Including several things that I had totally forgotten about.  Being “at war” this year, will probably do me some good.  It’ll certainly make a (tiny) dent in the stash.

No sign of the lemon - my memory is now telling me that I used it up on someone-else’s baby - but I did find 100g of white which, hopefully, will be enough.

Laura_Elsewhere

Cedarwood, lavender, etc., will need replaced every year (lavender) or sanded to release new wood-opils (cedar) - they may have some mild deterrent effect *if you don't have any clothes-moths* but they will not get rid of existing moths. 
Freezing does not kill moth eggs at all (industrial deep-freezers will, but domestic freezers are not cold enough); if you want to kill moth larvae then freezing once may not suffice, and freezing and thawing, 48 hrs each, for three or four cycles may be needed. 

The only thing I have found that reliably kills moths and inactivates the eggs (which are not really visible to the human eye) is chemical warfare. I spend a lot of time and effort trying to be eco-friendly but for serious moth infestations, frankly transfluthrin and pyromethrin are the only things ime. I use Rentokil Mothkiller spray. 

If you don't have moths, or only a very minor problem, then you can go chemical-free and simply do what our ancestors did, which is to have fewer things and keep disturbing them every few weeks. So at this time of year, wash your cashmere or silk-wool precious things, dry them very thoroughly and pack them away carefully- but then set an alarm on your email or similar to tell you every three weeks or so to get them out, hang them in a breeze for an hour or so, and pack them away again. 

I did use vacuum-packing until a trained butler (!) told me that they are very bad for any period longer than a week- so ideal for eg packing to mvoe house or go on a major holiday trip- but if you vacuum-pack textiles for longer it damages the fibres and can cause real damage.