2024 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

Cherryfudge

I'm racking my brains over which thread has the Nancy Birtwistle fans, and I think it may be here? She has a book on Kindle Daily Deals for 99p today.

@weenancyinAmerica, I love that your mother bought an armchair while waiting for a lift home. I expect your father was a little trepidatious the next time she rang him for help with transport!

PipneyJane

Cherryfudge said:

I'm racking my brains over which thread has the Nancy Birtwistle fans, and I think it may be here? She has a book on Kindle Daily Deals for 99p today.

@weenancyinAmerica, I love that your mother bought an armchair while waiting for a lift home.  I expect your father was a little trepidatious the next time she rang him for help with transport!

Thanks for the tip-off, @Cherryfudge.  I’ve just purchased the book.  I, too, love @weenancyinAmerica ’s story.

After much umming-and-ahhing, I’ve emailed EWM and asked them about the fabric.  All they can do is say “no”.  If they say “yes”, the more difficult thing will be finding the right pattern(s).  I know what I’d like to make, skirt/trouser-wise, but I’m no draftswoman.

In other news, I’ve finished Thrones, Dominations.  Oh, my!  In some respects, it was easy to spot the bits written by Dorothy L Sayers.  I got the distinct impression that Jill Paton Walsh read, and re-read, a couple of paragraphs where Harriet was musing about her marriage, then decided to replicate that style for 3 pages, in multiple places.  Parts of it were too laboured for words.   It was almost possible to pick the bits written by DLS, simply because they were the easy read.

Also, I agree with you @Laura_Elsewhere that JPW doesn’t have good knowledge of the 1930’s nor of the type of people about whom she was writing.  Mr Bunter would never call the Wimseys “the Quality”, neither would his soon-to-be wife.  Bunter would call them “the Family”.  Miss Fanshaw would either do that or not use the phrase at all, being a member of the middle classes.  (Also, why would Meredith leave her standing in the hall, and not immediately take her to the servants quarters?  And why would he not know that his brother was away from home?).  The things that do ring true to me are Miss Fanshaw’s conversations with Harriet regarding portrait painting vs photography, and Harriet’s solution to Bunter’s resignation, although I do wonder if DLS would have had the latter suggestion come from Bunter.

If you don’t already own a copy, don’t bother buying it.

- Pip

Sarahspangles

PipneyJane said:

In other news, I’ve finished Thrones, Dominations.  Oh, my!  In some respects, it was easy to spot the bits written by Dorothy L Sayers.  I got the distinct impression that Jill Paton Walsh read, and re-read, a couple of paragraphs where Harriet was musing about her marriage, then decided to replicate that style for 3 pages, in multiple places.  Parts of it were too laboured for words.   It was almost possible to pick the bits written by DLS, simply because they were the easy read.

Also, I agree with you @Laura_Elsewhere that JPW doesn’t have good knowledge of the 1930’s nor of the type of people about whom she was writing.  Mr Bunter would never call the Wimseys “the Quality”, neither would his soon-to-be wife.  Bunter would call them “the Family”.  Miss Fanshaw would either do that or not use the phrase at all, being a member of the middle classes.  (Also, why would Meredith leave her standing in the hall, and not immediately take her to the servants quarters?  And why would he not know that his brother was away from home?).  The things that do ring true to me are Miss Fanshaw’s conversations with Harriet regarding portrait painting vs photography, and Harriet’s solution to Bunter’s resignation, although I do wonder if DLS would have had the latter suggestion come from Bunter.

If you don’t already own a copy, don’t bother buying it.

- Pip

Seconded! It’s one of the few audiobooks I’ve returned. If DLS had wanted to tidy up the loose ends she would have completed the book. Instead, she paid her readers the compliment of assuming they could work out the happy ever after.

Sarahspangles

Serious inroads into my coupons…..Jacket or short coat: 11, leaving a balance of 23.

It’s a denim jacket, but green rather than indigo. I checked the length nape to hem, and it’s only 1” from being a long coat (because I’m tall). The weather will no doubt now improve.

It gets worse! I’ve been resting up with Covid and have somehow bought quite a lot of yarn. But I’m not going to count it until I use it. In my defence, I have next to no stash because I donated most of it in the pandemic.

I wonder how much time women really had for making and mending during the war? 

Laura_Elsewhere

Sarahspangles said:

I wonder how much time women really had for making and mending during the war? 

A good question... I know one of the things remarked upon by people in journals, diaries and magazine articles is that women suddenly were knitting everywhere- shop-girls knitted at the till between customers, workers knitted on the bus or tram to or from work, people knitted as they stood at the bus-stop, switch-girls knitted as they put through phonecalls... 
So that's one way women found more time. 

How much more time? I once tried a policy of knitting for just 2-3 minutes between other tasks all through the day, and managed about half an ankle-sock in one day, without any sense of having "spent time" on knitting!

PipneyJane

Sarahspangles said:

Serious inroads into my coupons…..Jacket or short coat: 11, leaving a balance of 23.

It’s a denim jacket, but green rather than indigo. I checked the length nape to hem, and it’s only 1” from being a long coat (because I’m tall). The weather will no doubt now improve.

It gets worse! I’ve been resting up with Covid and have somehow bought quite a lot of yarn. But I’m not going to count it until I use it. In my defence, I have next to no stash because I donated most of it in the pandemic.

I wonder how much time women really had for making and mending during the war? 

Good question, @Sarahspangles .  As @Laura_Elsewhere said, women were suddenly seen knitting everywhere.  With the fuel shortages and rationing, warm clothing was a necessity.  It was also something to calm the nerves, if one was anxiously waiting for the next air raid siren to sound.  Of course, it was also something to do, if stuck in an air raid shelter for hours.

If you don’t need to look at your hands while knitting, it is very easy to sneak in a few more rows.  I’ve knitted on tram stops, in stations while waiting for my train, at football and rugby matches, at Prom concerts (we sit in the gods, where the performers can’t see me), as a passenger on planes/trains/trams and in automobiles, as well as while sitting on the couch at home.  The trick is to always have something with you that you can work on.

- Pip

ETA:  hands up, who knitted between lectures.  < raises hand >

Nelliegrace

Knitting in shopping queues? It took a long time for the grocers to cut out all of the little coupons.
In one of the Anna Buchan books, (pseudonym O Douglas,) The House that is Our Home, 1940, one elderly lady is knitting three 2ply wool vests to fill her endless hours in the lounge of the hotel, without her large house to run. I love the little details from the period. 
D.E.Stephenson’s Mrs Tim books have her organising the knitted comforts for the Regiment, sending a parcel of gloves and mittens by special request. 
I have taken my knitting to WI. 

Cherryfudge

Thank you for those, @weenancyinAmerica, I haven't read any of them so I looked them up and they are cheap on Kindle!

Does anyone else look through old photos in case there's a relative there?  

I've taken crochet to a work training day, and my friend took her knitting. She was famous for all the little craft items she made to raise funds for charity, and I have a couple of beautiful sunflowers from her as a fund raiser for Ukraine.

Sarahspangles

iNelliegrace said:

Knitting in shopping queues? It took a long time for the grocers to cut out all of the little coupons.
In one of the Anna Buchan books, (pseudonym O Douglas,) The House that is Our Home, 1940, one elderly lady is knitting three 2ply wool vests to fill her endless hours in the lounge of the hotel, without her large house to run. I love the little details from the period. 

2-ply wool vests must have been tedious to knit! Though lace would be nice to work, subject to the knitting spot being well lit.

I looked at my little stash at the weekend, and the finest yarn is some Black Jacob. I’d need to wrap it to check if it’s a lace weight. And then decide what would be nice to make with 100g of a very, very dark brown yarn!

Almost everything else is DK or Aran weight, mostly blue-faced Leicester in a natural colour. It is/was items like hats, cowls and leg warmers which were nice, but mostly too warm so the children didn’t get much wear from them. I think converting the yarn to 4 ply would be a relaxing project some time

I’ve always driven a car or keyboard at work, so knitting has been at home. But I don’t see why I couldn’t be knitting in social settings - all those times people are on their phones.

Sarahspangles

I thought you might like this, it’s from Mary Thomas’ Knitting Book, 1938.