2025 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

Laura_Elsewhere

@PipneyJane - re-enactment suppliers are the only ones I know. Sally Pointer does them but she only opens her order book a few times a year and the available booking-slots typically sell out within 5-10 minutes... wool stockings are £44 to £50, and silk stockings are £60. They are made on a hand-cranked Victorian stocking-knitting machine for the most part, with tops, heels and toes worked by hand. I have one pair of her silk stockings, knee-high, and several pairs of her wool stockings but all a bit too small for my sturdy calves at the size I am now. I keep meaning to settle myself to knit myself some but keep not getting round to it! 

At the more sheer level, M&S do merino tights for £10- I have a couple of pairs and keep intending to cut the tops off to turn them into stockings, but haven't done it yet. 

And Snag do wool tights in a range of colours - and mulesing-free, which is important - for £17.99, but I don't know what those are like. 

PipneyJane

Laura_Elsewhere said:

@PipneyJane - re-enactment suppliers are the only ones I know. Sally Pointer does them but she only opens her order book a few times a year and the available booking-slots typically sell out within 5-10 minutes... wool stockings are £44 to £50, and silk stockings are £60. They are made on a hand-cranked Victorian stocking-knitting machine for the most part, with tops, heels and toes worked by hand. I have one pair of her silk stockings, knee-high, and several pairs of her wool stockings but all a bit too small for my sturdy calves at the size I am now. I keep meaning to settle myself to knit myself some but keep not getting round to it! 

At the more sheer level, M&S do merino tights for £10- I have a couple of pairs and keep intending to cut the tops off to turn them into stockings, but haven't done it yet. 

And Snag do wool tights in a range of colours - and mulesing-free, which is important - for £17.99, but I don't know what those are like. 

@Laura_Elsewhere thanks for the info re M&S. I will check them out.  I’d much prefer wearing merino tights, to Mr Lidler’s nylon “thermals”.

- Pip

ETA:  they only had the small size left on the website, but that should fit me. 3 pairs bought.  I think that leaves me with one stockings coupon, which I’ll save for when/if I need to buy some in an emergency.  (I have loads of nylons.)

Sarahspangles

Sarahspangles said:

I have just acquired a velvet jacket, little worn, to wear in the evening. After laundering, I deduce it started life as a green jacket and has been over dyed black, but hasn’t quite made it to black, and may never do. Whereas over dyeing with blue would make it a definite blue black colour.

I dyed the jacket yesterday and it worked! I had a bit of a splurge on RIT All Purpose Dye and bought three colours and fixative. I guessed the amount I needed as half the suggested amount for a jacket, as I was only doing the ‘blue’ bit of blue-black.  I used equal parts Aquamarine as a ‘true’ blue, and Hyacinth which has a bit of magenta to cancel out the remaining green. It cost less than £8 - plus hot tap water and lots of stirring the cauldron.

The other colour I bought was Indigo. As I was all set up I used Indigo + Hyacinth to turn a light blue linen jacket royal blue, and to make the white stripes on a T-shirt a nice mid blue against the navy. I threw in a couple of faded T shirts from the gardening pile, and one’s fit to go back into circulation. There’s lots of dye left, but the colours are the ones I will need when jeans fade.

I seem to have spent a lot of time in rubber gloves this month. Some of the things I’ve got from Vinted are dry clean only, but they have hand washed fine. I have no coupons to declare, but I am reflecting that what we can buy secondhand in this ephemeral society has had much less wear than wartime options would have.

Diane1276

alicef said:

@laura_lau yes mattress stitch creates a seam on the back, at least the way I do it does! 

I think a few, (but only a few), of the KAL knitters did post about applying a fleece backing, (I can't remember seeing any pictures though).  In theory I like the idea of having a backing, but not having experience of doing this I'm concerned about having 2 layers not sufficiently attached throughout, (i.e. only attached at the border edge).  So maybe a project far far in the future!

You could attach your backing with a few stitches at the points where 4 squares join together (it's a quilting technique called tying). That would stop a backing being too loose.
Is your blanket knitted in pure wool? 

Diane1276

Diane1276 said:

alicef said:

@laura_lau yes mattress stitch creates a seam on the back, at least the way I do it does! 

I think a few, (but only a few), of the KAL knitters did post about applying a fleece backing, (I can't remember seeing any pictures though).  In theory I like the idea of having a backing, but not having experience of doing this I'm concerned about having 2 layers not sufficiently attached throughout, (i.e. only attached at the border edge).  So maybe a project far far in the future!

You could attach your backing with a few stitches at the points where 4 squares join together (it's a quilting technique called tying). That would stop a backing being too loose.
Is your blanket knitted in pure wool? 

Oops, sorry alicef I've just realised MrsCD already said this!

Diane1276

Hello everyone! Hope you've all had a lovely weekend.

I was reading a blog the other day that had a post about sewing your own knickers, from a zero waste pattern!  The blog has a regular "free pattern Friday" that I thought the seamstresses here might enjoy!

https://sozowhatdoyouknow.blogspot.com/search/label/Free Pattern Friday?m=1

There were a couple of variations on the zero-waste undies, but this one is from a pattern designer I particularly like, so I think I'll try those ones first. 
https://lizhaywood.com.au/revisiting-the-zero-waste-underpants/

I also had a couple of questions for you all. I'm just starting to "dig for victory" in my little garden, but what I know about gardening could be written on a postcard - does anyone have any recommendations of good books for a complete beginner?

alicef

@Diane1276 - thank you for your suggestion as it reinforces the approach to attaching a backing so it is most helpful; the knitted blanket is 100% wool.

@Laura_Elsewhere the National Mark booklet is quite fascinating.  Under flour, it mentions 'National Mark (Yeoman) Straights for breadmaking and under the National Mark Honey it states that the honey
'is made only from nectar produced by bees and has no added substance'.

I wonder how long the National Mark was in existence. 

Sarahspangles

Diane1276 said:

Hello everyone! Hope you've all had a lovely weekend.

I was reading a blog the other day that had a post about sewing your own knickers, from a zero waste pattern!  The blog has a regular "free pattern Friday" that I thought the seamstresses here might enjoy!

https://sozowhatdoyouknow.blogspot.com/search/label/Free Pattern Friday?m=1

There were a couple of variations on the zero-waste undies, but this one is from a pattern designer I particularly like, so I think I'll try those ones first. 
https://lizhaywood.com.au/revisiting-the-zero-waste-underpants/

I also had a couple of questions for you all. I'm just starting to "dig for victory" in my little garden, but what I know about gardening could be written on a postcard - does anyone have any recommendations of good books for a complete beginner?

I gifted someone Christine Walkden’s No Nonsense Vegetable Gardening. It’s the next best thing to having a friendly neighbour on an allotment!

My daughter was at her allotment today planting rhubarb and strawberries. She reports the moth has got at her her allotment hats.

Laura_Elsewhere

@Diane1276 - I also hope to do a bit better with Digging for Victory this year, so feel free to pop in and ask anything! I have Dug for Victory much of my life, off and on, but have got very lazy since moving here, partly because my little garden is actually clawed out of the woodland-edge beside the communal carpark and so I have to carry tools and self down all the stairs from our top-floor flat, and back up, plus the school run invade twice a day (quite aggressively at times), and one way and another I kind of don't bother enough to get any decent crops!
So you could encourage me and I'll encourage you! 

Books- I would look for a second-hand copy of Geoff Hamilton's Kitchen Garden book. It was written in the 1990s and he really aimed at people who don't already know what to do- he was a really passionate beliuever that gardening, and the *enjoyment* of gardening, should be open to everyone, whatever your background or circumstances, even if you have very limited space and money and so on... 

I also find a couple of blogs useful - especially the John Harrison one, a really useful website, I think! 

John Harrison https://www.allotment-garden.org/

Charles Dowding https://www.charlesdowding.co.uk/resources/beginners-guide

Diane1276

Sarahspangles said:

I gifted someone Christine Walkden’s No Nonsense Vegetable Gardening. It’s the next best thing to having a friendly neighbour on an allotment!

My daughter was at her allotment today planting rhubarb and strawberries. She reports the moth has got at her her allotment hats.

Thank you! 
Those blasted moths! Hopefully a creative repair will keep the hats going!