2025 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

Nelliegrace

Unmarried women are still described sometimes as, “Spinsters of the Parish,” when the marriage banns are read in Church, though it was replaced by “Single,” in legal documents in 2005. 
Spinning was from dawn to dark labour, and young children were put to work at home and later in the new, industrial linen mills.

There is always more to learn about the handkerchief industry. I found these worrying, the British linen and cotton industries were regulated eventually. 

https://conway-mill.ie/manifesto/


I bought some more needlepoint embroidery handkerchiefs which I think are 1930s.


DH bought a pair of shorts, some necessary underpants in the sale, and a uniform zipped cardigan in synthetic fabric for bowls coaching. He has been unusually restrained in his clothing purchases, but forgets, amongst other things, that we are trying not to buy any new clothes this year. I have prized a few items from his grasp for the rag man. A rainbow shirt went to the Red Cross shop, he thought it was just a colourful item. 

PipneyJane

Hi Everyone

Sounds like you all had great VE Days.  I spent the evening at the Royal Albert Hall, attending a VE Day In Concert which was put on by Classic FM.  It was a great evening but, well before the end of it, I got very fed up with the repetition of the names of the sponsors.  It seemed to happen every 10 minutes. To quote Dan Walker (who was hosting):  "Welcome back to... with Classic FM, sponsored by the Daily..[Wail].., in association with SSAFA".

While I was queuing to buy my program, I stood behind a girl in a classic, 1940's, woollen coat.  The cut was to die for and the fabric was in excellent condition.

Had my quarterly hospital appointment yesterday.  All good news.  I was reminded that it's a year this month, since I finished my treatment chemotherapy.  (I had prophylactic chemo afterwards.)  My consultant was very impressed that I've started running again.

On the knitting front, I'm still faffing around trying to decide what to knit next. I'm procrastinating. I want to knit a cricket sweater, but we rearranged the spare room so that I could work up here and now it's a major exercise to get to where the yarn is stashed.

Hmmm....

- Pip



PS:  @Nelliegrace, I concur with your suspicions re the Chinese workforce hand embroidering linen.  They're probably woefully underpaid.

Cherryfudge

All those hankies are beautiful, @Nelliegrace. I'd forgotten about 'Spinsters of the Parish'.

@PipneyJane, congratulations on a year of good health and getting back to running! And to think that coat must have been around 85 years old and still good - wow.

FB read my mind and directed me to one of the linen groups and it's taken me further down the rabbit hole, looking at photos of modern flax harvesting machines in China and Egypt. I'm glad it's not all manual labour anymore, though I don't know how the later parts of the process are handled.

CapricornLass

Sympathise with your spare room conundrum, PipneyJane.  That's the sort of thing I would do.

5 coupon spend to declare on a new t-shirt.

Gem-gem

@PipneyJane, Pleased to hear that your recovery is going well. Finger's crossed that it continues. 

No new spends. Total still 26 coupons. 

kiwisavings

@PipneyJane, glad to hear that you had excellent health news 

PipneyJane

Thanks everyone for your good wishes.  

In other news, I returned the dress I purchased to M&S.  It was skin tight around my midriff.  Looked beautiful but I’d be far too worried about blowing a seam or a button if I did anything that required a bit more clearance.  (Or put on weight.).  Since online sales are suspended, obtaining a replacement will be difficult unless I happen to stumble across one in store.   Only a handful of stores stock that brand - our nearest are Ealing and Watford.  Fortunately, I’ll be in Ealing today but chances are they won’t have the dress in my size, because they didn’t previously and that’s why I had to order one off the website.

Now to work out how to return the cash to my bank account, from my credit card, since I never carry a balance on my credit card.  (Whenever I make a purchase, I’ll pay it off within 24 hours.)

- Pip

Gem-gem

Pip, I am the same as you, when I make a credit card purchase I always pay it off as soon as it clears into the account. 

Have sorted out some summer clothes to sell. 

No new spends for me. 

kiwisavings

PipneyJane said:

Thanks everyone for your good wishes.  

In other news, I returned the dress I purchased to M&S.  It was skin tight around my midriff.  Looked beautiful but I’d be far too worried about blowing a seam or a button if I did anything that required a bit more clearance.  (Or put on weight.).  Since online sales are suspended, obtaining a replacement will be difficult unless I happen to stumble across one in store.   Only a handful of stores stock that brand - our nearest are Ealing and Watford.  Fortunately, I’ll be in Ealing today but chances are they won’t have the dress in my size, because they didn’t previously and that’s why I had to order one off the website.

Now to work out how to return the cash to my bank account, from my credit card, since I never carry a balance on my credit card.  (Whenever I make a purchase, I’ll pay it off within 24 hours.)

- Pip

Hi Pip
Just thinking, could you buy some groceries or other shop bought items with your credit card? It might take a little while to get back to zero with your credit card balance but could be a work around for you 

kiwisavings

Hello everyone,
I was looking for some information around quantities of clothes coupons issued during the 1940s and came across a one pound per month subscription to The Times that allowed access to old newspapers from 1785!
So I did a bit of hunting and have put the information that I found  in a chart