2025 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

CapricornLass

Confession time - I have a top sheet between me and the duvet.  Saves having to change the duvet cover every week.  It gets done every couple of weeks instead.

PollyWollyDoodle

Oh my parents had a ‘flying saucer’ bedwarmer.  This was before electric blankets.  It was a big round thing that plugged in and gently warmed a very small area, I should think!  As we had no heating upstairs and only coal fired downstairs it was very necessary.  We children went to bed with hot water bottles, but I can remember how cold the sheets were 🥶 

florianatwobob

That’s the one Polly! It used to have a lightbulb in it to provide the heat. Our house was electric downstairs but no heating upstairs so the flying saucer was necessary to take the chill off! The heated bit was really toasty but my Mum used to ‘iron’ the rest of the bed with it. I can still remember the hot cotton sheet smell. 

SpikyHedgehog

Could I join please? 

I've been reading the thread since January,  but wanted to get to the end before joining...  and realised that was perfectionism striking, rather than reality!

If you count me as starting in January with 66 coupons,  I've used 8.  I bought 2 thermal vests and a new pair of thermal leggings from Mrs Sainsbury.  Leggings as a replacement for a pair that only lasted 14 years.

Vests...  I have Elder Son's school vests from when he was at high school, and the vests he wore under his motorbike gear when he started riding.   He's now 29, so they've done well.   But.  Men's vests are cut to wear under men's clothes and can show under women's clothes. 

This is fine under polo shirts at preschool, or under whatever I'm walking the dog in.   But I now have 2 jobs,  and try to look smarter for job 2, so decided more women's vests were needed.   
I've also been inspired to darn the 4 pairs of socks languishing in the darning basket, and got a pair of replacement shoelaces having noticed that the laces on my day to day shoes were wearing thin.   It was in fact a pack of 2 pairs,  so I've got some to keep for when the others go.   Hopefully they won't be needed for a while! 

I started making my own socks a few years ago,  because I didn't want to darn commercial thin socks,  but also didn't want to keeping buying new ones.  I've got another pair of winter socks on the needles, but will need to make more summer ones. 

Nelliegrace

It felt colder than the 2°C forecast for today. I had to put one more layer on when I got home, a thin summer weight jumper in the middle of the five other layers. I hope your new thermal layer helps, @SpikyHedgehog.

We had a good talk at our Women’s Institute this morning, after a cup of tea and a rousing singing of Jerusalem to help us get warm. The Speaker was a very senior fireman. He told us about the history of fire and firemen, about the Great Fire of London, and that thatched buildings were banned there. He told us a little about the training, and talked about the firemen in the Blitz. In the row of bodies, the Auxiliary Fire Servicemen were wearing rubber wellingtons and the old, experienced firemen were identified by their leather boots, an odd detail from an eyewitness, I don’t think I shall forget. 

I shopped for a few groceries on the way home. It was very cold in Mr Aldis, the staff were wrapped up in hats, coats and gloves because the doors had been damaged and were open to the elements. I admired their spirit, the security guard looked as pale as a snowman, but it was business as usual. 

PipneyJane

Welcome @SpikyHedgehog. Yes, of course, you can start the Challenge as if from 1st January. Please take a seat by the fire.  Would you like a cup of tea?  I’ve just made a fresh pot.

@Nelliegrace the cold is really piercing.  I feel sorry for the staff in your local Aldi’s, particularly that security guard.  I hope they gave him lots of hot drinks.

- Pip

laura_lau

kiwisavings said:

It had a an eclectic range of projects - from the sensible hot water bottle covers and slippers to a pattern for a Barbapapa   

Omg I loved Barbapapa when I was little! I had the Barbamamma (this is how she was called in Italian, it was the mum, she was black I think with a crown of flowers around her head) doll and I played with her so much, she lost all her shine! 

*I am only now catching up with the last week's worth of posts, as I am at my mum's house, I've actually been packing up my entire room and am helping my mum decluttering other spaces, as my mum will be moving to a new house in a couple of months. We will be decluttering the basement a bit before I fly back on Sunday, I'm pretty sure the Barbamamma is there, if I find her I will post a picture. And yes, obviously I will attempt to make a knitted Barbapapa now!

laura_lau

PipneyJane said:

Laura_Elsewhere said:

@PipneyJane - sorry, can't help you there, as I refuse to take the extra coupons for unrecyclable throwaway nylons! I mean, if there were extra coupons for mendable, darnable, knitted long stockings, or for enough 4-ply wool to knit them, I might be interested...! But I do this challenge to try to reduce the amount of non-recyclable plastic I get through, so I've always been baffled by the extra coupons being for the one item of clothing that is least-sustainable! 

You could spend a coupon on a pair of woollen tights or stockings - that would count.  I just don’t know where you can buy them.  (The last pair I bought was in Australia 35+ years ago.  Only issue was that they were brown, not black.  The legs were fully fashioned.  Wonder what on earth happened to them.) 

Silk stockings would count too, but they’re also impossible to find.

- Pip. (If anyone has a supplier, please share.)

I don't know about silk stockings, but I bought a very nice pair of merino tights in M&s a couple of years ago, and they've been aging very well. 
I also bought 2 pairs of cashmere and wool tights many years ago in Calzedonia, but I don't think they still sell them. The merino ones are lasting way longer, although they are slightly less soft, but still quite nice to wear. 

Nelliegrace

I have an unopened pair of Snag merino wool tights which DD said she would like for her birthday. I must have been feeling low in mood when I bought some in a colour called Red Velvet Cake a few years ago. Perhaps I was thinking of warm, red flannel petticoats. We shared an order to get the best bulk discount and free delivery, “stocking up,” before clothes rationing, and I have them still. They have 3 for 2 sale on warm tights today, so I have sent her money and she will have to use her own clothing coupons. She is starting work at one of the Land Girl training centres soon, and I think it might be cold.

laura_lau

All of this talk about bedding and eiderdowns is so interesting! It was a bit different in Italy, as traditionally (especially in the North) the bedding always varied a lot from Winter to Summer. I've asked my mum how it was when she was growing up in the fifties and sixties: they had a heavy featherbed on top of the mattress, then the mattress bedsheet, then a bedsheet that would be tucked under and folder over the covers. then they had (in the coldest months) a "trapunta" which is some sort of quilted cover, she said it was quilted with unspun wool and it was very thick and hard and very heavy. then they had 1 or 2 woolen blankets. The bedspread was used to make the bed, and to make the bed look nice during the day. They would remove layers when the weather got warmer. In Winter they didn't have any heating in the bedrooms, and they would wake up with ice inside the windows in the coldest months.

From what she knows, wealthy people probably had "trapunte" filled with eiderdown instead of wool, but we didn't have any in our family. She said she was one of the first to have the modern duvet in our town, as she worked in Milan at the time (which was a big thing) and she bought all duvets (polyester filled ones) in the late seventies, when she got married, and my siblings and I grew up using duvets in Winter. In Spring, Summer and Autumn, the bedding is still more traditional, as, still now, we use the traditional rectangular bedsheets that fold over the cover, and we have blankets and quilts of various degrees of warmth.

Reading what you all have written reminds me of the bedding in Mary Poppins, where the Banks siblings go to bed and they had those covers very similar to the picture I saw just above, and, as a child, I always wondered why they wouldn't fall on the side of the bed, but just covered the top part of the mattress, 

I also have seen a documentary on life in Victorian times, where the historian visited a house (probably a museum now) which still had all original furniture and bedding, and the historian and the museum curator tried to make the bed as they would have done back then. It took them most part of a morning to undo the bed and then make it up again, as they had to remove every single layer, all the way down to the mattress to air the mattress and the under-mattress layer, which were super heavy as they were all wool. They explained that they had to repeat those steps every day, as the thick layers would trap lots of moisture overnight and the airing process was extremely important. I think the curator mentioned they would let them air 1-2 hours. I found it very fascinating.