2024 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

diminua

Laura_Elsewhere said:

@diminua - if you can sew, or know someone who can, then you could try making the trousers a bit snugger round the waist- I have found it works best to do several smaller pleats, and stitching them down makes them lie flatter. 
Try two small pleats, facing outwards, on either side at the front (experiment with pinning to get the placement right), and one or two on each side at the back.
Once you've got your little pleats in the right places, stitch them down (by hand is fine), and stitch them down into the trousering below the waistband for a couple of inches to help it all settle smoothly. Press them on the inside of the trousers, and/or through a damp cloth. 
Don't worry about getting them tight enough, just get the trousers less big generally. Wearing a belt over trousers you've taken in will look better than wearing a belt over trousers much too big for you. 

Thanks Laura. I'll give it a go. My sewing skills are fairly basic, but that does sound pretty doable (and I will never get better if I don't try!). 

Laura_Elsewhere

I am not going anywhere today so shan't be Knitting In Public (although I shall always treasure the time I was standing on a crowded frantic busy rush-hour Platform One at Wolverhampton, and a frazzled exhausted woman dashed along and suddenly stopped, gazed and then told me she felt completely different now, how soothing it was to see me standing there just calm and serene and knitting, and that she thought it was a public service and every station should have one!!)...

... but I am very glad that I am now able to knit! My old spinal problem has been having one last effort- now that so much of me is now fitter and stronger once more (although very very overweight), my shoulders decided to stage an attention-seeking series of twinges which gradually reduced my range of movement, so for some months I have had to have Mr E help me dress and undress, have to be very careful what I wear when I go to swim and even so, occasionally have to ask for help, and have been unable to knit at all... finally, thanks to an excellent physio, I am now able to knit for 5-10 minutes if I am very careful to ensure my shoulder-blades are rotated back and lying flat before I start and do stretches afterwards! 

MrsCD

Ouch Laura, that sounds awful. Glad the physio is helping,  but it just takes so long. 

PipneyJane

Laura_Elsewhere said:

I am not going anywhere today so shan't be Knitting In Public (although I shall always treasure the time I was standing on a crowded frantic busy rush-hour Platform One at Wolverhampton, and a frazzled exhausted woman dashed along and suddenly stopped, gazed and then told me she felt completely different now, how soothing it was to see me standing there just calm and serene and knitting, and that she thought it was a public service and every station should have one!!)...

... but I am very glad that I am now able to knit! My old spinal problem has been having one last effort- now that so much of me is now fitter and stronger once more (although very very overweight), my shoulders decided to stage an attention-seeking series of twinges which gradually reduced my range of movement, so for some months I have had to have Mr E help me dress and undress, have to be very careful what I wear when I go to swim and even so, occasionally have to ask for help, and have been unable to knit at all... finally, thanks to an excellent physio, I am now able to knit for 5-10 minutes if I am very careful to ensure my shoulder-blades are rotated back and lying flat before I start and do stretches afterwards! 

@Laura_Elsewhere, I feel your pain re your shoulders.  (I’ve recently knitted myself into a knot on my left shoulder.  It gives me tinnitus, too). I’m so glad you can now knit!

Love your story.  My Knit in Public story is that in ?2017, I got tickets to the Women’s World Cup Cricket Final at Lords.  (They were only £20!). We had front row seats.  It was the end of July, gloriously sunny, England vs Australia, and I knitted on my sock throughout.  Two weeks later, we went to our first football match of the season and the chap who sat next to DH said he saw me knitting on television!  He asked me what I’d been knitting, so I showed him the socks I was wearing. 

- Pip

Cherryfudge

That sounds so painful... thank goodness for physio help. I suppose it's easy to underestimate the strain we put our bodies under with even small things, perhaps especially with small things, and it has a different impact on different people. It's lovely to hear you are getting better and back to knitting!

CapricornLass

Glad to hear that the physio is helping though it must be annoying to be knitting for only 10 minutes at a time!

Laura_Elsewhere

Thanks, everyone! It has been several months since I could knit at all, so even just the ten minutes feels great! 

My spine collapsed in my mid-30s, turning out to be a major problem probably starting in very early childhood- now in my mid-50s, this is the last bits of lifelong "everything in the wrong place" stuff... once I get the muscles strengthened *in balance* so it's not all being pulle dout of alignment, then I should have better posture than I have ever had, and finally no major pain, which will feel rather welcome...! 

thriftwizard

Gentle {{{hugs}}}, Laura, spinal problems are no fun at all. Hope it's all behind you (sorry!) soon. 

Sidetracked again here - the arrival of a rather large & ancient rug loom has meant a fair degree of re-organisation! It will enable me to use up large quantities of old bedding & curtains, much more quickly than the twining loom, once I've mastered warping it up. The first curtain - a stunning 1960s red, pink & orange striped affair, twin to the one that gets flung over the cockatiel's cage at night - has already been washed & dismantled, ready for cutting into strips. Good job I've got until December for the little quilt!

And oh dear, @Cherryfudge, that recommendation really isn't going to help me thin out my vast book collection! But I will enjoy it hugely...

Cherryfudge

thriftwizard said:

And oh dear, @Cherryfudge, that recommendation really isn't going to help me thin out my vast book collection! But I will enjoy it hugely...

What's this about thinning out a vast book collection? Are you backpacking across Europe? Can you no longer get through the door? If neither, keep and nurture those books! You might read them some day and they save you having to redecorate.  

The loom sounds very exciting - please send photos as the work progresses!

Laura_Elsewhere

Cherryfudge said:

What's this about thinning out a vast book collection? Are you backpacking across Europe? Can you no longer get through the door? If neither, keep and nurture those books! You might read them some day and they save you having to redecorate.  

In my case: I can no longer get through *any* doorway in the flat and much of the furniture is buried under books...