2025 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

Nelliegrace

I bought a large vintage brooch to brighten up an old outfit. I think they were very popular once, perhaps they were sold in a kit to embroider the flowers or bird transfer on the fabric? I have seen several with the same design. Mine has a small, woven silk picture from a cigarette packet from 1934.



I have been having a holiday at home this week. There was a Ministry of Food leaflet in August 1944.
I have done salads and sandwiches, using a tin of corned beef, and hard boiled eggs, and we had a small portion of fish and chips one evening. The cook has been on strike rather than rush to prepare meals at odd times to suit his bowls matches, as well as getting his uniform laundered. I am not his housekeeper!

Sarahspangles

Nelliegrace said:

I have been having a holiday at home this week. There was a Ministry of Food leaflet in August 1944. I have done salads and sandwiches, using a tin of corned beef, and hard boiled eggs, and we had a small portion of fish and chips one evening. The cook has been on strike rather than rush to prepare meals at odd times to suit his bowls matches, as well as getting his uniform laundered. I am not his housekeeper!

I decided that I was making a rod for my own back by baking so often, when OH just wolfs cake after his cycle trips. So I made a batch of parkin which gets better with keeping. I’m intrigued what was being baked on Sunday and Thursday evening in the leaflet - was this bread while the oven was hot, or daintier things?

PipneyJane

Ohhh, good question @Sarahspangles.  I’m also intrigued by the assumption that one could actually buy a joint of meat for Sunday given the small meat rations.  How large did they assume this household was???

I need some advice, please.  My lovely Australian friend sent me a care parcel of 6 skeins of sock yarn from the Bendigo Woollen Mills:



Her favourite is the bright pink one on the top right. Colourway “Warm Sunset”.

Now my question: even before I looked at Ravelry, I could see that this yarn was a gradient yarn with long colour gradiations, which would not work well on socks.  (The entry on Ravelry just confirmed it.).  When I first I looked at the skeins my immediate thought was “make her a wrap”.  Each skein is 100g and 400m in length.  Can anyone recommend a pattern for a 4-ply, single skein crochet or knit shawl/wrap/scarf? 

Many thanks,

Pip

Laura_Elsewhere

@PipneyJane I was given some Noro with a long colour change, and was inspired by others’ projects to use two balls to make stripes- it worked far better than just one- I would experiment with two-row stripes, and see what ethink.

whether striped or one ball, I would just use a very simple open-stitch to make the most of it.

what about that trusty 1930s string-bag stitch? Only two rows in the repeat, and one is simply knitting!

a) wrap the yarn three times round the needle for each stitch
b) knit only the first loop and drop the rest.
You end up with one side smooth and one side with attractive purl ridges- you may prefer to purl row ‘b’ - I always knit it in the round using knit for ‘b’ and then turn it inside-out to have the ridges outside, but if knitting flat then the ridges would be neither inside nor outside, just on one side

 think it was @Cherryfudge who found the bag pattern- thankyou, I am still making them!!


edit to add; Pip, if you cast on your required number of stitches and then on every second row you k2tog on the 2/3rd stitch and m1 on the second-last, then you turn a plain rectangle into a lovely parallelogram- I could see a really nice wrap using one ball of this wool, doing that simple open stitch and working the decr/incr on the ‘a’ rows…

Laura_Elsewhere

I think roasting joints were possible during the war only where you had a household’s worth of ration-books to use together. The servings of meat would be smaller than we are used to, as well, filling up on potatoes or Yorkshire pudding. And of course the joint would go on to provide other meals, as cold sliced meat, chopped meat, as spiced meat in kedgeree or curry, as all kinds of meat-stretching meals before the bones and bits finally ended as soup, perhaps four or five days later!

Nelliegrace

The leaflet I found online isn’t complete, @Sarahspangles, and it relies on the precious store of tinned fish which took a lot of ration points.

Sarahspangles

Thankyou @Nelliegrace

So on Sunday you would make a fatless sponge and flapjacks, and on Thursday Cornish pasties and a fatless ginger cake. You can see where all the golden syrup went! On Sunday the oven would be hot from the roast, and on Thursday you’re making a Russian pie, baked potatoes and custard tart so would have pastry for the pasties.

Odd that pilchard and cabbage spread didn’t ’catch on’!

PipneyJane

Laura_Elsewhere said:

@PipneyJane I was given some Noro with a long colour change, and was inspired by others’ projects to use two balls to make stripes- it worked far better than just one- I would experiment with two-row stripes, and see what ethink.

whether striped or one ball, I would just use a very simple open-stitch to make the most of it.

what about that trusty 1930s string-bag stitch? Only two rows in the repeat, and one is simply knitting!

a) wrap the yarn three times round the needle for each stitch
b) knit only the first loop and drop the rest.
You end up with one side smooth and one side with attractive purl ridges- you may prefer to purl row ‘b’ - I always knit it in the round using knit for ‘b’ and then turn it inside-out to have the ridges outside, but if knitting flat then the ridges would be neither inside nor outside, just on one side

 think it was @Cherryfudge who found the bag pattern- thankyou, I am still making them!!


edit to add; Pip, if you cast on your required number of stitches and then on every second row you k2tog on the 2/3rd stitch and m1 on the second-last, then you turn a plain rectangle into a lovely parallelogram- I could see a really nice wrap using one ball of this wool, doing that simple open stitch and working the decr/incr on the ‘a’ rows…

The parallelogram sounds perfect, @Laura_Elsewhere.  Thank you for your instructions.  What sized needle and how many stitches would you recommend?

- Pip

Laura_Elsewhere

@PipneyJane - ah, good question  

I think it’s up to you… I don’t know what size wrap you want to make, nor how loopy you want the loops  

you could use one of the other skeins to make a practice piece, changing needle size every five pairs of rows, and then deciding (and don’t worry about the loops looking weird when newly-knitted; as you go onwards it settles itself down!). 

Not terribly helpful, but I don’t make wraps, so I don’t really know! 

Definitely a needle size a bit bigger than usual, but not gigantic as you want light and airy rather than a fishing net

PollyWollyDoodle

Thank you for posting that leaflet @Nelliegrace, that’s fascinating.  I’m trying to imagine Cabbage and Pilchard spread sandwiches - I love tinned fish, but that might be a step too far!   I noticed that although ‘mother’ gets the day off by having a picnic lunch she still has to bake twice a week, and cook the evening meal each day.  

Any idea what ‘Russian Pie’ was?  I’m hazarding a guess that it included cabbage again.