2024 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

Laura_Elsewhere

Cherryfudge said:

Looking really good Laura! You and the knitting.

Thanks, Cherry! It's a pic from last year, but I hope to look halfway-decent this year too  

Laura_Elsewhere

Sarahspangles said: I wanted some nice flat cotton laces in a pale blue for some canvas trainers with a William Morris print. The only ones I could find were on Amazon, £7.99 was steep enough to start with but I missed that £9.99 was being added for postage from France.... I could have bought a sachet of hand dye for less than £4.

I've done that before too! Some hair-clips came from the USA, taking six weeks to arrive...! 

I want to know more about these Morris shoes- I love colourful well-made plimsoles...

PipneyJane

That slipover looks lovely on you, @Laura_Elsewhere.  Please share a photo of the yarns that you’ve selected for the new colourway.

Sarahspangles said:

PipneyJane said:

You don't have to wait until the New Year to join the challenge.  If you can't remember/don't want to figure out what you've purchased since the start of the year, you're welcome to prorate your year's worth of coupons.  If you officially start on 1st May, you would have 44 coupons for the rest of the year.

I've had a good sort out now, and find there's space for everything in my wardrobe and chest of drawers.

Coupons to date this year:
Sports shoes, January sale: 5 
Swimsuit: 3
Balance: 58

I've also bought three pairs of shoelaces. Although these are coupon free, I messed up with one pair. I wanted some nice flat cotton laces in a pale blue for some canvas trainers with a William Morris print. The only ones I could find were on Amazon, £7.99 was steep enough to start with but I missed that £9.99 was being added for postage from France.... I could have bought a sachet of hand dye for less than £4.

To keep the universe in balance I've unravelled and washed nearly 200g of lovely 2ply Leicester yarn to rework into accessories before Winter.

Before I splurge any coupons I need to work out what the real gaps are, which is a lot easier now everything is hanging up!

@Sarahspangles it’s a pity about the postage, but I’m sure they’ll look great on your trainers. 

Is the yarn Blue Faced Leicester or Border Leicester?  I’ve knitted with both.  BFL is soft as silk, while Border Leicester is more corse but does soften when washed a few times.   I’ve made jumpers in both and the BFL wins every time for softness and warmth.

- Pip

Sarahspangles

Laura_Elsewhere said:

I want to know more about these Morris shoes- I love colourful well-made plimsoles...

They’re at least a couple of years old, they were from Next. This print, in blue. They came with fussy overlong white laces that frayed! https://www.mistersmith.co.uk/product/pink-rose-fabric/

I’ve got so much patterned stuff in my wardrobe….

Sarahspangles

PipneyJane said:

Is the yarn Blue Faced Leicester or Border Leicester?  I’ve knitted with both.  BFL is soft as silk, while Border Leicester is more corse but does soften when washed a few times.   I’ve made jumpers in both and the BFL wins every time for softness and warmth.

It’s lovely BFL, in berry colours, I made a swirling cable cowl with it and there was enough left over to add cuffs to some purchased gloves, by unravelling those a little and knitting into the loops with my smallest needles. But the cowl pattern wasn’t a good choice for the yarn, and I got bored of wearing it.

I don’t think I’ve ever used Border Leicester. When I started to knit I assumed that the local mills used wool from local sheep, but apparently not, which is a shame as I live in the ‘Heavy Woollens’.

PipneyJane

As you know, I’m a big fan of capsule wardrobes.  Not sure if I’ve shared this before, but here’s a link to an article/booklet re creating a capsule wardrobe in 2 hours.  I’ve downloaded it as a PDF, but not read it in full yet.

One lesson that I learned early on is that you don’t need to have just one Capsule Wardrobe.  The best wardrobes consist of multiple Capsules, ideally ones that garments can swap between.  

I’m not sure if all of this isn’t influenced by necessity, having travelled half way around the world to “go walkabout”, I spent a very long time where my only clothes were those that had fitted into the two suitcases I brought with me.  As well as regular clothes - jeans, jumpers, t-shirts, shoes, PJ’s- those two suitcases also contained a down sleeping bag, a coat, my guidebooks, some novels, a portable typewriter, a needlepoint in its frame - still not finished - and an evening dress accompanied by a pair of stiletto heels!  I couldn’t afford to buy new clothes, even if I’d wanted some, because the price of a suit was more than a week’s wages when i was nursing.  (There must have been a suit in my case, for job hunting, but I have no recollection what it looked like.)

- Pip

Gem-gem

@Laura_Elsewhere, I love your tank top. Can I order one in my size please 😀. Also, good luck with the weight loss. I'm in a similar position to you. I have also upped my exercise but have yet to start the diet (shhhh!!! Don't tell anyone!)

Gem-gem

Thank you @PipneyJane, I have downloaded the 2 hour capsule wardrobe. Interesting that you can have more than one. 

PipneyJane

That’s my idea, @Gem_gem, not the author’s.  My thought is that we should all have at least 2 capsule wardrobes:  one that works most of the year round and one for those rare, really hot summer days.  If you get it right, then the latter is just an extension of the former, with clothing swapping between the two.  There’s nothing worse on a hot summer’s day than seeing a woman turn up at the office dressed in a sundress designed to be worn on the beaches of Benidorm.  It demeans the wearer and reflects badly on every other woman in that office*. 

Really, capsule wardrobes are all about the planning, knowing the cut and colours that look good on you and thinking about how they’ll co-ordinate, when you buy clothing.  Back in the 1990’s, Next used to do this really well.  I had a lovely navy blue suit from them, consisting of a double-breasted jacket, trousers, two skirts of different cuts and a shift dress.  It got worn to death.  I used the jacket to dress up a pair of chinos for “smart casual” events, and also over jeans.  The dress was smart enough for the office, got worn to parties, and dressed up with plastic “pearls”, even made it to the opera.

ETA: if you want a visual representation of someone who did capsule wardrobes well, re-watch episodes of the X Files where they travel, and study what Scully is wearing.  Their wardrobe department obviously had someone who understood the concept and had travelled for work.  (She was my role-model when I first started travelling for work.)

- Pip



* In a separate rant, in 2016 when I first started working for my current employer, we were a division of a large civil engineering firm, based in the UK head office.  I lost count of the number of women from other divisions who’d turn up in clothes that might be ok for the school run, but were definitely not professional looking.  There’s no wonder they weren’t taken seriously.  (No, I’m not talking about the younger women who’d come into the office from a day on a construction site.  They were always smartly dressed, even if they were wearing jeans and a company fleece.)

Laura_Elsewhere

I love the concept of capsule wardrobes but the examples I see are always, always, always based round urban workwear for women. 

I almost never wear trousers, I never ever wear short straight skirts, I loathe and detest tights, and I hate modern clothing design. I love colour. I love texture. I love lace-up colourful plimsoles and proper leather shoes. 
Every single capsule wardrobe I've ever seen is based round black or navy or taupe, with semi-formal trousers and a straight, short skirt, to wear with tights or pop-socks, and with court shoes or boots. 

There's absolutely nothing for people like me to be inspired by!!

I'm currently working with a striped duvet-cover, white with light and dark green, royal blue, turquoise and purple chalk-stripes at clashing angles, which I bought a decade ago and made into a very badly-thought-out skirt and dismantled. My plan is to make a gored below-knee skirt with pockets, and have a cap-sleeved slash-neck top that buttons inside the (loose) waistband, making it a dress; also a sweetheart-neckline halterneck top that buttons ditto, and a square-necked pinafore-top that ditto, giving me three different "dresses" using one skirt. 
I suppose that is my version of a capsule wardrobe. 

I think if I had to wear office clothes every day then I would effectively steal men's clothing, and have a skirt-waistcoat-jacket in linen for summer and tweed for colder months, plain cotton or linen blouses and take my love of colour out in a range of vivid handmade ties and inventive cufflinks...