2025 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

thriftmonster

Thank you for starting the new thread @PipneyJane. It's such fun, even in these difficult times and I look forward to dealing with our rations wisely in 2026

MrsCD

Thank you for the new thread, @PipneyJane. Count me in for another year, and I promise to try harder! I totally lost the plot this year. 
We had a lovely fairly quiet Christmas with our daughters. Here for Christmas day, older daughter's on Boxing day, and younger daughter's on New Year's day. We had some really good food, which I am very thankful for, as I know so many are struggling right now, and some very nice presents. Hubby got me the Sugar Plum blanket kit but I'm waiting until I finish the Twixtmas cowl before I start it. 
Thank you for managing the thread, Pip, it must take quite some time to set up. I am so glad I discovered this little oasis of Much Mending with all the amazing, knowledgeable peeps who pop into the village hall.  Thank you all for being so fantastic! 😊

kiwisavings

Many thanks to @PipneyJane for starting a new 2026 thread, I'm definitely keen to do the Fashion on the Ration challenge again and hope to stick to the 66 coupons this time around.

I understand the wool hankering Pip and still have to knit the wool I bought last year - perhaps a good Autumnal project once the heat has reduced from Kiwiland.

I have recently taken on a stocktake and customer service role at Spotlight (a huge craft and furnishings shop) and have found this forum extra helpful for reining in my fabric purchases. 

Wishing everyone a happy New Years 

PipneyJane

Thank you all for your kind words.

@kiwisavings a job in Spotlight!  Good luck.  I hope it goes well and that you love working there.  However, it must be torture!  I remember the Spotlight in Rotorua.  (I’d run out of knitting.). It was so hard to only walk away with 2 skeins of sock yarn…

- Pip

PipneyJane

I’ve realised that I made a mistake in this post:

PipneyJane said:

Good evening All

How were your Christmases?  I’ve just made a fresh pot of tea. Please have a cuppa and a mince pie.  

I have a spend to declare:  2 coupons on a pair of running leggings from L!dl.  £5.59 spent.  That brings my total spend to 53.5/66, leaving 12.5 coupons to go.  

I am trying to talk myself out of blowing it all on yarn. I’m suffering from knitter’s FOMO.  Over the last week, I’ve read Esther Rutter’s This Golden Fleece: A Journey Through Britain’s Knitting History.  Each chapter is dedicated to a particular garment or style of knitting, but there is a lot of information about the fleece and yarn from which it was originally made.  In the second last chapter, “Haps, Shawls and New Arrivals”, Esther talks about Boreray sheep, the UK’s rarest breed with less than 900 breeding ewes.  It’s also one of the more ancient, given that Boreray is an island off St Kilda and the St Kildans only visited it once a year to sheer their sheep.  When St Kilda was evacuated in 1930, the Boreray flock was left behind, isolated and untouched for over 40 years.  The only place you can buy their yarn is from Blacker Yarns, who blend it with Soay and Shetland and sell it in packs of 5x50g hanks of lace-weight.  

I want it because it is rare, hard to obtain, and who knows if they’ll do another batch next year? (100% FOMO.)  Logic says that if I buy it, I’ll need to buy two packs, 10 x 50g skeins, and knit it up doubled to get a 4-ply yarn.  I have the coupons.  If I raid my Clothing Fund, I can afford it, but do I really need more yarn?  No.  I’d need to knit 6-8 jumpers a year for several years to clear my stash..

Arrghhh!!!    I’ve been arguing with myself since Christmas Eve.  If I’d had a better signal at my SIL’s, I’d probably have bought it when the yarn lust hit. I want it; I can afford it - both cash and coupon cost - but when will I knit it?  I have more than enough yarn. Sensible me is arguing with my inner knitter, and around in circles I go again.

Humph!

- Pip

I could have exchanged Stockings Coupons for the leggings!  (I don’t think I’ve bought any stockings this year.).  When I realised, I ran down to the Draper’s and they’ve kindly let me swap over the coupons, which means my remaining coupon total for 2025 has returned to 14.5 coupons.

- Pip (I was setting up the 2026 Challenge when I realised.)




ETA:  We made yesterday’s Daily Newsletter!  Well, the 2026 Challenge did.  I reckon that deserves a celebratory piece of cake.  Please pass around the cake tin and take a slice, while I corral the dog.

Laura_Elsewhere

@PipneyJane I sent a shawl to a dear friend in the Antipodes too- to New Zealand, to a very dear friend going through exhausting treatment (which is working, hurrah!)... it wasn't knitted, though. I cut a piece of silk, and just fringed the edges, but the colours are exactly her most-loved colours... turquoise, deep pink, purple, vivid green... it is silk brocade which my Dad brought back in 1961 for his mother but then she never used it, and it's waited for a staggering sixty-four years (!!!) for the reason good enough to cut into a bolt of silk brocade! 

Dad's delighted, my friend's delighted and I'm delighted... 

dND

Hi Pip and everyone else.

I've been well and truly AWOL but slipping back in to declare 5 coupons on a pair of slippers I bought a few months ago.  They will be replaced as soon as they show signs of wear though.  I thought I was doing a sensible thing and buying non-slip soles but they are so dangerous as I find that the soles grab any slight rise in the carpet or grab any mats and stop your foot dead.  So they're actually are a bit of a trip hazard and I have to be extra careful with them.  You live and learn, don't you! 🤣

I am signing up for next year 😁 as it's good to not buy on a whim and I'm hoping that I can cope with social media etc. a bit better in 2026. Dxx

PipneyJane

Laura_Elsewhere said:

@PipneyJane I sent a shawl to a dear friend in the Antipodes too- to New Zealand, to a very dear friend going through exhausting treatment (which is working, hurrah!)... it wasn't knitted, though. I cut a piece of silk, and just fringed the edges, but the colours are exactly her most-loved colours... turquoise, deep pink, purple, vivid green... it is silk brocade which my Dad brought back in 1961 for his mother but then she never used it, and it's waited for a staggering sixty-four years (!!!) for the reason good enough to cut into a bolt of silk brocade! 

Dad's delighted, my friend's delighted and I'm delighted... 

What a lovely thing to do @Laura_Elsewhere.  I wish your friend well and hope her treatment remains successful.  The silk sounds beautiful.

dND said:

Hi Pip and everyone else.

I've been well and truly AWOL but slipping back in to declare 5 coupons on a pair of slippers I bought a few months ago.  They will be replaced as soon as they show signs of wear though.  I thought I was doing a sensible thing and buying non-slip soles but they are so dangerous as I find that the soles grab any slight rise in the carpet or grab any mats and stop your foot dead.  So they're actually are a bit of a trip hazard and I have to be extra careful with them.  You live and learn, don't you! 🤣

I am signing up for next year 😁 as it's good to not buy on a whim and I'm hoping that I can cope with social media etc. a bit better in 2026. Dxx

Welcome back @dND.  I don’t like the sound of your slippers at all.  Be careful with them.

- Pip