Knickers etc!!

On the odd occasion when I cannot sleep I make mental lists of things we will need. Clothes are preoccupying my mind at the moment, primarily underwear.

I watched the episode of Edwardian Farm again this morning when you see Ruth getting dressed which is really useful. I need to make (probably...ha ha, I cannot make clothes to save my life!) some drawers. Apparently they were often crotchless to make going to the loo easier under layers of petticoats....hmmmm. I can't quite get my head round the concept of crotchless knickers outside of an Anne Summers context! And do I get Hannah to wear crotchless knickers as well???? That just seems so wrong, making crotchless drawers for a small child! In fact when I googled Edwardian children's underwear on my work pc (it *is* for an educational project) it came up blocked as pornography...oops!

Once we sort that out, at least for Hannah it is fairly straight forward, vest, stockings, petticoat, all of which should be easy to make or acquire.

But I need to find a corset somewhere, somehow! It would probably help if I could lose some weight between now and then, whenever then is. If I lost enough, the basque I had for my wedding would fit and although it isn't authentic, it would do, although it needs to fit over a chemise, which women wore under corsets because chemises were easy to wash and corsets were not.

Some intensive googling turned up this site www.cornucopiacostume.com and I have ordered Hannah a girl's underwear set consisting of drawers, chemise and petticoat. I could really use at least 2 of each so I can have one on and one in the wash, but if I have one pair I may be able to get a friend with a sewing machine to run up a couple of extra pairs of drawers. The site also sells chemise and drawers in my size but at £60 the set I am hoping to be able to work something out cheaper. I am sure that a pattern must exist somewhere for drawers and I am planning to ask on our local Freegle site for any old cotton sheets etc and scour charity shops for fabrics. But if we get to the last days and I need stuff, at least this would provide me with undies and a blouse. I have one skirt in my own wardrobe which would work and a petticoat would be easy enough to make.

I have a friend who knits socks so am hoping to commission her to knit us each a pair or more of woollen stockings.

And finally, not at all to do with underwear, but useful, Next have a pair of boots in this season's range which looks exactly like an Edwardian child's lace up boot! Yay. Think I am off to spend the money I have saved so far in Next! Oh I also have hats as the two hats I have bought for weddings over the years, worn once and stuffed in the wardrobe are very Edwardian in style so may as well earn their keep. i can add feathers, fabric and possibly stuffed birds as necessary!