2025 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

Baileys_Babe

I've finally made it back for 2025.

I have kept a record of my coupon spending in 2024, 19.5 coupons spent on purchasing new clothing and a further 47 coupons spent on 2nd hand clothing. I use the current year's coupons for new clothes/shoes... and any coupons I've rolled over from previous years for 2nd hand purchases. I started 2024 with 66 coupons for new clothes and 88 coupons for 22nd hand and ended the year with 46.5 (2024 coupons) + 33 (2nd hand) = 79.5 coupons for 2nd hand in 2025. Signature updated.

I recently bought a fine wall scarf approximately 70 cm x 180 cm, how many coupons should I use, I have no idea, suggestions welcome.

florianatwobob

5 coupons spent on a pair of wildly unnecessary but quite fabulous silver boots. 

Sarahspangles

florianatwobob said:

5 coupons spent on a pair of wildly unnecessary but quite fabulous silver boots.

Those are fabulous! If we were Girls of Slender Means in a London hostel rather than doing our bit in Much Mending, I’d ask to borrow them!

laura_lau

@florianatwobob I do love the faboulous silver boots!

Thank you to everyone who put insights regarding bedding and similar, that's very interesting! My mum still has some set of linen beddings that belonged to her grandmother and that are still in perfect condition. They are quite thick and slightly rough, so no sure how comfortable they would be to be used with duvets nowadays.

I think I will still use the coupons for the duvet cover I purchased, as I've already done the count. This was a slightly necessary purchase, as I only had one other for the new bed, but with it being the second set, I wasn't without it either, if it makes sense.

This neatly brings us to the old bedsheets' fate! I have approximately 5, due to the fact that they had to also be used for the guest bed, which is often used by my DS when he visits and he might stay for a few weeks. I still want to keep in use 3 of them, and for the other two I am torn if I should bring them both to my mum's house for when I am visiting, as the bedding situation there is decades old, or if I should be selfish and just use the excess ones as fabric for practicing my soon-to-be sewing skills?

On the crafting side, I have to report I finished crocheting the dolls from my 2024 Advent calendar from Toft, and they are very pretty, they were Hansel & Gretel themed, I can post a picture if anyone is interested (not sure if anyone is, as they are not garments), and I am steadily (although slowly) progressing with the sleeve of the poncho. In the meantime, for fun, I started a Sophie scarf using some yarn I had left from a vest I knitted last year, and I thought it would be fun to have the matching scarf, plus the leftover yarn should be just the right amount. As using stash was part of the goals I set at the beginning of the year, I'm actually considering doing my own personal challenge, by specifying the amount of yarn I use from mt stash. I will keep you updated!

MrsCD

Oooh, yes please, @laura_lau, I would love to see your Toft dolls! I'm sure they're gorgeous! 😀

Diane1276

PipneyJane said:

@Diane1276 those socks look lovely and cosy. Glad you could resurrect them. Do they have a short-row heel?

They do indeed! I prefer the fit of a short row heel, which is handy as I find traditional heel flap and gusset exceedingly tedious to knit.
(I also think Heal, Flapp & Gusset sounds like a firm of solicitors in a music-hall sketch 😜)

I have another purchase to report, a cosy waistcoat, so another 5 coupons used.

Baileys_Babe

@laura_lau I would love to see a picture of your creativity.

florianatwobob

@laura_lau yes please for Toft creativeness. I made a Toft gargoyle ages ago….hes one of my favourite makes

Laura_Elsewhere

Diane1276 said:

I also think Heal, Flapp & Gusset sounds like a firm of solicitors in a music-hall sketch 😜

 Oh brilliant! I prefer my socks to have solicitors’ heels, as I shall now think of them- Heal, Flapp & Gusset!

PipneyJane

kiwisavings said:

Hello all
Some really interesting posts on here and I hope it's not to late to join this challenge for the year.
I am looking at reducing my fabric stash by limiting the new clothes that I buy and was inspired by Clare Bradley on the Great British Sewing Bee to look at clothes rationing.
As per my username, I'm from New Zealand - we had clothes rationing here too during WW2 and so would love to  give this a go...  
- Sarah

Welcome Sarah. @kiwisavings  It’s not too late to join AND since we’re still in January, you are entitled to the full 66 ration coupons.  Please take a seat by the fire and have a cuppa.  I’ll just fetch the biscuit tin - there are ANZAC biscuits in it!

Which part of NZ are you from?  There was a lovely yarn shop in central Auckland when I visited in 2018.   I’m from the West Island (Australia).  We had rationing too.  As a child, I remember seeing my mum’s ration books. She was WAAAF during the War.   When she transferred to Melbourne and needed a warm dressing gown, she made one from a blanket - not rationed - and saved her clothing coupons.

- Pip