The Joy of Eccentric Nightwear

It is a fact fairly widely acknowledged, that those who wear quite sober clothes (whether for professional reasons or otherwise) often make an exception for novelty socks. Others, even more covertly, wear brightly patterned underwear (generally a secret unless you get hit by a bus). I myself go in for lively nightwear.

“What could be more fun than a prim floor-length nightie covered in rocket-ships, say, or jelly-beans?” So I wrote back in 2018, and I have not had cause to revise my opinion, barring a minor alteration to ankle-length. It did, however, take some time for my psyche to recover from the epic battle which was the Stripy Nightie of 2018, but time is a great healer (and Covid a great eraser of memory) and here we are.

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Flannel Petticoat II: It Came from the Mending Basket

I recently discovered a fabulous way of reducing the pile of things forming archaeological layers – or possibly new civilizations – in the mending basket. Bin? Absolutely not. Forced labour? Also no. The trick, it turns out, is to shift the goal posts.

The mending basket has got a bit out of hand…

For a ridiculously long time, I have had a flannel nightie in my mending basket, waiting for a mend. Button-bereft garments come and go, elastic waistbands stretch and are replaced, tears are darned or patched, but this was beyond me. The worn-through yoke needed replacing. Did I know how to replace a yoke? No. So I left the nightie in the basket until such time as enlightenment descended.

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Wardrobe Architect 7: Exploring Solids and Prints

“Deborah in a pattern? We don’t know what to think!” Such was the cry of my fellow university student some years ago, on seeing me wearing a cardigan with, yes, a pattern knitted into it.

Does this look OTT to you?

This gives you a fairly good idea of how large a part prints play in my wardrobe, i.e. not much.

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