I knit these socks for my niece’s stepdaughter who’s studying biomedical engineering at university. She wears a size 9 shoe – people always think it odd when I ask their shoe size – but that’s how I know how long to make the foot of a sock. I checked my sock stash and I did have a couple of pairs of socks that would have fit her, but they were rather dull, more suitable for a man (men generally prefer sedate socks rather than bright ones – except for one of my brothers-in-law who has a collection of quite wild socks – two drawers worth, I understand, although I’ve never seen them except when he’s wearing a pair). So I looked through my sock yarn, chose what looked like a bright yarn and started knitting.
I finished the socks three days ago. Put them in the mail straight away. They should arrive by the middle of next week.
Is it a week ago? Two weeks? I can’t remember, exactly. I took a drive on a sunny Sunday toward “the valley” with a friend. We moseyed our way along until we reached Wolfville. We browsed in some shops, Marie bought some summer tops in one. I came across a Talbot’s embroidered white shirt (size M) in a second hand shop that shouted “heritage nightgown” so I bought it (hoping size M would actually fit across my chest – holding it against my body it looked as if it would).
Without trying the shirt on first, (how silly was that) I cut off the ruffled neck and replaced it with a binding, cut the sleeves shorter and hemmed them, then trimmed away the bottom of the shirt intending to add a long “skirt” to complete the nightgown.
Finished Heritage Gown
I finished the nightgown yesterday. My reconstruction was focused on salvaging the entire embroidery. A mistake. The shirt had bust darts which pointed toward the flower in the middle of the embroidery. In my attempt to keep the embroidery intact I cut below the darts. I should have bitten the bullet, cut above the darts and across the embroidery – the finished garment would have fit better.
As it is, I wore the nightgown last night and it’s reasonably comfortable even though the embroidered “yoke” comes too low and hits the fullness of my bosom rather than sitting at underarm depth. Given the density of the embroidery I’m not sure how I would actually have cut it – no easy way to fussy cut across it and have it make any sense.
The gown is not a write-off. I’ve added it to my collection and will wear it in rotation with the others in the drawer. And it cost me $28 rather than the $120 at one of the clothing stores we visited which had some April Cornell nightgowns for sale.
jmn 