2025 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

Cherryfudge

@Laura_Elsewhere, I know I've said it before but you really are a fount of knowledge - and useful knowledge too! I've never quite dared take on shoe making, though the construction fascinates me.

itsthelittlethings

Am on the train back from a weekend away in London. I stayed in the East End. It is very sobering seeing all the bombed out houses.  I bought some secondhand silver earrings from an Indian I think she was, lady in Camden. She asked for coupons and I explained that I haven’t been asked for coupons for jewellery at home which she seemed to accept. I refuse to feel guilty for buying the odd pair of earrings - it’s not like I’m going to be wanting a wedding ring!

PipneyJane

Cherryfudge said:

And while I'm here, I see L1dl has their haberdashery and sock yarn in the middle aisles again. I was delighted to get a sewing awl for £1.49 and braved one of the boxes of 32 polyester threads complete with bobbins, for £3.99. However, a few stitches into trying one out, it started to snarl so I don't think they were such a bargain.

Has anyone else tried them, and what did you think?

Sock yarrrrnnnnnn.,,,,,,,  < Runs to L!dl >…….

(L!dl’s sock yarn is very good value and, usually, good quality.)

@Cherryfudge I have multiple packs of L!dl sewing threads and find it very useful that they issue matching full bobbins, which fit my machine.  I haven’t had any problems with their thread BUT I’ve only used it a couple of times since purchase.  (I have only used my sewing machine two or three times this decade.)

- Pip

Laura_Elsewhere

My tuppence-worth, on thread- I had to stop using modern thread for about twenty years because it just snarled up my poor sewing machine, endless fluff, breaking but also tangling and knotting- I now carefully use Gutermann thread and that seems okay, but even quite respectable brands like Coats were awful… 
I picked up wooden and older plastic reels of good quality threads and now have a beautiful range of colours, but have to make myself use them! Maybe someday I’ll end up putting them together in a frame, really beautiful…

Cherryfudge

itsthelittlethings said:

Am on the train back from a weekend away in London. I stayed in the East End. It is very sobering seeing all the bombed out houses.  I bought some secondhand silver earrings from an Indian I think she was, lady in Camden. She asked for coupons and I explained that I haven’t been asked for coupons for jewellery at home which she seemed to accept. I refuse to feel guilty for buying the odd pair of earrings - it’s not like I’m going to be wanting a wedding ring!

Second hand shouldn't cost coupons whether for jewellery or anything else, so good for you standing up for yourself. Besides, nice jewellery lifts the spirits and adds to an outfit, so it's practically a duty. Says she who bought a second hand river pearl necklace yesterday and is swanning around like nobody's business, war or no war.

PollyWollyDoodle

Beautiful Laura. 

I’ve got a wooden thing for storing thread on, you could have a lovely display 

Cherryfudge

PipneyJane said:

(L!dl’s sock yarn is very good value and, usually, good quality.)

@Cherryfudge I have multiple packs of L!dl sewing threads and find it very useful that they issue matching full bobbins, which fit my machine.  I haven’t had any problems with their thread BUT I’ve only used it a couple of times since purchase.  (I have only used my sewing machine two or three times this decade.)

- Pip

Thanks Pip, that's a recommendation worth having. My poor neglected sewing machine might like the threads I bought... I did have problems with hand sewing using the L1dl thread but I was doing blanket stitch so perhaps I was twisting the thread and making the fibres stand out.

Laura_Elsewhere said:

My tuppence-worth, on thread- I had to stop using modern thread for about twenty years because it just snarled up my poor sewing machine, endless fluff, breaking but also tangling and knotting- I now carefully use Gutermann thread and that seems okay, but even quite respectable brands like Coats were awful… 
I picked up wooden and older plastic reels of good quality threads and now have a beautiful range of colours, but have to make myself use them! Maybe someday I’ll end up putting them together in a frame, really beautiful…

I love old thread @Laura_Elsewhere, and when I told my son's partner about the L1dl offer, she said firstly 'Wow! That's fantastic value', then that she likes to use Gutermann but her favourites are on wooden reels, inherited from her grandmother. You two would probably get on very nicely!

Laura_Elsewhere

Ooh, @PollyWollyDoodle, thanks for that- I hadn’t seen that kind of thing before- it would show the lovely labels as well as the thread… I love names of colours like Frog or Hummingbird or Lupin…

Laura_Elsewhere

Did I mention that my parents lost part of their roof in a bombing raid (storm…) in January? The insurance company tried twice to claim Dad was committing fraud (a, because he uses his middle name, always has done, so they say he is two people and therefore using an agent which is not allowed, and b, because he gave the number of bedrooms as the number of bedrooms, not knowing he should include any room which is not a sitting room, bathroom or kitchen…) but eventually have agreed to repair the house, on a policy which he has never claimed on but paid the policies since 1979…!!!

Anyway, finally my late-80s dad no longer has to go up into the attic every time it rains to empty buckets and washing-up bowls. January til September… that’s a lot of buckets (their bit of Scotland didn’t really get the drought memo…). 

It’s meant us going up a few times to clear my childhood bedroom and boxroom in the attic… I say childhood but I lived in that room til I was fortyfive so it’s meant a lot of memories dredged up, bad and good. 

I can’t think how people coped in the war. I suppose generally they wouldn’t have had the sheer quantity of Unsorted Stuff that I had, but still… 

we’re up for one last effort next week, and then the ceilings all come down- the roof itself has now been rebuilt as of a couple of weeks ago, so now they demolish the ceilings in all four rooms and the attic stairwell, and that means the 1882 plaster walls will shatter so all rooms are to be rebuilt up from the skirting-boards. Farewell, my 1980s Victorian-study Laura Ashley wallpaper, and hullo smooth new modern plasterboard and the first insulation ever (rooms previously having only plaster skim over laths, with beams and slates/lead sheets above, freezing in winter). 

A long ramble, sorry!

I think seeing it with half the ceilings down will look a lot like some wartime homes must have looked. We’re so lucky to be able to buy replacements for most things if needs be… 

Cherryfudge

That must all be emotionally and physically draining Laura. It's very good to know the house will be drier and warmer now, and you needn't worry about your dad going up in the attic, but unsorted stuff... ah yes, I have that too.