2026 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

weenancyinAmerica

I would recommend St. Jude Thaddeus as the patron saint of lost causes.

Laura_Elsewhere

Nelliegrace said:

e were longing to ask her about it. Second hand sounds thrifty, @spikeyhedgehog, are there sewing patterns for clerical tops? I was thinking of blackout fabric. 

Ooh jings, don't use blackout material for anything other than blackout- you will be prosecuted, fined and even imprisoned. 

It's viewed very seriously...

Nice to meet our two vicars! I am an unbeliever, but I support Sts Dorcas & Catherine's because it's an important part of Much Mending on the Borrow. I did a year of Theology at university and found it very interesting.

thriftwizard

Squeaking in horror - have I missed signing up for '26? I've been a bit busy lately, feeding a mere 13 at one point over Christmas and with 10 people staying in the house; I only caught up with washing all the bedding yesterday! But I've always tended to drift in & out a bit, due to my top-secret war work as well as fabric falling off the backs of lorries...

@SpikyHedgehog and @keepcalmandcraft, I will have a quick look in my Reverend mother's wardrobe (she was one of the first ordained priest, the week after it was allowed; she'd been a deaconess for many years before that, and only retired at the age of 83) and see whether there's anything you might be able to use, although I suspect it all went when she gave up her license whilst caring for my dying stepfather.

Cherryfudge

weenancyinAmerica said:

I would recommend St. Jude Thaddeus as the patron saint of lost causes.

I think St Jude's was the Manor Chapel originally, which is why it's so small, but that drunken Squire chappy in the seventeenth century gambled away a large part of the original estate including the lovely avenue leading to St Jude's. I seem to remember there was a young clergyman there who went off to be an Army Chaplain, but I don't recall the details. Typically for St Jude's it's never seemed to keep a vicar long since they gave up on putting younger sons in the clergy.

I expect he will come into his own for us, though - Tabby and Cat are relative strangers to UFOs but he will be right at home.

PipneyJane

Two vicars!  We are honoured.  Fortunately, we have two churches, so you each get a living.

The Norman church, in the centre of Much Mending On The Borrow, is the Church of St Dorcas and St Catherine (aka St Tabby’s and St Cat’s).  It was part of a medieval abbey and borders one side of the village green.  The village hall, where we meet, is on the other side of the green, with the cricket club downstairs.

Since the “big house” was commandeered for the war effort, St Jude’s now finds itself beside a USAF air base.

thriftwizard said:

Squeaking in horror - have I missed signing up for '26? I've been a bit busy lately, feeding a mere 13 at one point over Christmas and with 10 people staying in the house; I only caught up with washing all the bedding yesterday! But I've always tended to drift in & out a bit, due to my top-secret war work as well as fabric falling off the backs of lorries...

@SpikyHedgehog and @keepcalmandcraft, I will have a quick look in my Reverend mother's wardrobe (she was one of the first ordained priest, the week after it was allowed; she'd been a deaconess for many years before that, and only retired at the age of 83) and see whether there's anything you might be able to use, although I suspect it all went when she gave up her license whilst caring for my dying stepfather.

No, of course, you haven’t missed signing up @thriftwizard.  13 over Christmas?  You always were a wizard with the rations!

It’s very sweet of you to check through your mum’s things.  She must have been quite a lady.

- Pip




PS:  I’m still trying to figure out how you get from being called Tabit-ha - there’s no “th” in Hebrew, Aramaic or Arabic - to Dorcas.  It can only be that “Dorcas” meant something similar to her family’s trade and she was labelled it in Greek.

ShelivesintheShire

I am frustratingly typing this for the third time as I keep losing the post.
Hello from a newbie who wants to join. I am a knitter( mainly of socks) and a sewers and hoarder of yarn, fabric and Guthrie and Ghani kits, so plenty to occupy myself.
I think the only thing I may need in the next few months is a new bra ( would love to make one)

The kit from Ewe and Ply is fab. I am so fortunate that they are my local yarn shop and I did a nending course there last year.

PipneyJane

PipneyJane said:

Happy New Year everyone!  

We had a very quiet NYE.  Spent most of yesterday at iKEA with a friend, who was shopping for furniture for her mum’s new home.  (She’s downsizing into a workman’s cottage and most of her existing furniture is too large.)

Laura_Elsewhere said:

PipneyJane said:

Also, DH has requested more pairs of hand knit socks, since he has killed yet another pair, so my handbag knitting will be focused on making pairs for him.  It may also include several pairs of fingerless mitts for friends and colleagues who have cold hands, plus several more one-skein shawls.

- Pip

Do you 'run' your DH's socks before he wears them, Pip? It sounds to me like it would be worth doing! 

I have just knitted myself Fair Isle fingerless mitts, in a startling four days over Xmas, making them as "wearable toile" pieces to make sure I really have the tension nailed for this wool and these needles and these FI motifs, so that I can knit the Bestway 1940s slipover, which I have bought as a kit from Ewe&Ply with their brilliant Shropshire Ply wool, and I bought extra so I can make my much larger size of it...

https://eweandply.co.uk/products/bestway-1632-fair-isle-sleeveless-pulllover?srsltid=AfmBOooZq5o-m8Ltoy6YVmRxFfBpgOnyQPyorbN6JCu7_MrfnRNQkAMk

And my practice-piece fingerless mitts, finished one in background. 

Those a beautiful gloves @Laura_Elsewhere and the sweater will be lovely.  Can’t wait to see you wearing it.

I don’t “run” the soles of DH’s socks before he wears them.  (It hadn’t occurred to me, but I may try.)  It’s the balls of his feet that destroy things.  One of my tasks today is to knit on patches onto the latest holed pair.  I’ll take before and after photos, so that you can see them.

I’ve started swatching for my first cardigan of 2026. It should be the Lightly Tailored Cardigan from a 1949 edition of Sydney’s Sunday Herald newspaper.  Only problem is that the French navy blue that I’m using doesn’t show up the lovely chevrons in the pattern.  (Best seen in this project on Ravelry.). I’m debating making something else with this yarn. Something lacy would show up well.  Time to browse my queue on Ravelry…Hmmm…..

- Pip

As you can see, even in the bright light of flash photography, the chevrons don’t show up:



However, knitting the pattern is quite soothing with its repetitions of K4 P4, so I think I will knit it (almost) as written.  My only changes will be a) to knit it to fit me (not some mythical 36 inch busted model), and to change the neckline to a rounded neck instead of v-neck.

- Pip

PipneyJane

ShelivesintheShire said:

I am frustratingly typing this for the third time as I keep losing the post.
Hello from a newbie who wants to join. I am a knitter( mainly of socks) and a sewers and hoarder of yarn, fabric and Guthrie and Ghani kits, so plenty to occupy myself.
I think the only thing I may need in the next few months is a new bra ( would love to make one)

The kit from Ewe and Ply is fab. I am so fortunate that they are my local yarn shop and I did a mending course there last year.

Welcome @ShelivesintheShire.  Cup of tea?  I’ve just made a fresh pot.

Are you typing on your phone or on a tablet? For a while, I had a similar issue on my iPad, where every time I flipped to another program - say to check my numbers for the grocery challenge - it would reload the browser page when I went back.  I now religiously tap the “Save Draft” button, every time I type something, although that issue no longer happens.  (The “Save Draft” feature is amazing.  You can go back to a thread several days later and still see your draft post.)

- Pip

Cherryfudge

PipneyJane said:

PS:  I’m still trying to figure out how you get from being called Tabit-ha - there’s no “th” in Hebrew, Aramaic or Arabic - to Dorcas.  It can only be that “Dorcas” meant something similar to her family’s trade and she was labelled it in Greek.

From memory, they both mean 'Gazelle'. Dorcas is the Greek version (she lived in an area where the Greek language was probably used a lot) and Tabitha was from the Aramaic, which was more like 'Tabita'.

PipneyJane

Cherryfudge said:

PipneyJane said:

PS:  I’m still trying to figure out how you get from being called Tabit-ha - there’s no “th” in Hebrew, Aramaic or Arabic - to Dorcas.  It can only be that “Dorcas” meant something similar to her family’s trade and she was labelled it in Greek.

From memory, they both mean 'Gazelle'. Dorcas is the Greek version (she lived in an area where the Greek language was probably used a lot) and Tabitha was from the Aramaic, which was more like 'Tabita'.

D’oh!  Yes.  I read it in the Wikipedia article and promptly forgot…

- Pip