Mystery Stole & Crotchless Knickers

I signed up for the third Mystery Stole Knitalong; Melanie of Pink Lemon Twist designs these gorgeous, pain-in-the-ass-to-knit lace stoles...eh, I'll spare you the details (if you're really curious you can click on the link in the sidebar), but it's a challenge I'm looking forward to (as if everything I knit isn't some sort of challenge - ha!). Being poor (something few knitting bloggers seem to be), I'm using some lace-weight baby alpaca yarn I've got - in black, of course - but I'm using size 2 needles, so it will, at the very least, be narrower than the original design. Fine with me - I did the test swatch, and it suited me okay. Hopefully, the test swatch really is a good way to judge what the final product will look like (in terms of guage, openness of lacework, etc.).

I also found a pattern today for Victorian crotchless knickers. The author/poster of the pattern relates how drawers came to be used by women; during the era of crinolines, if a woman took a fall, say, exiting a carriage, she'd be rolling on the ground with this cage-like structure attached to her from the waist down, flashing beaver and mooning whomever happened to be nearby. So those clever, repressed Victorians came up with women's knickers to preserve their modesty should they prove clutzy as hell (like me). Heh, what an image...the crotchless design was to accommodate those nasty crinolines in the water closet; probably not the easiest outfit in which to reach up and pull down one's drawers. I don't know how truthful this tale is, but it's certainly amusing, especially if you have a visual imagination. {I will leave it to the reader to come up with their own much naughtier images relating to crotchless Victorian underwear....}

{July 6, 2007 - Arse biscuits! Someone's have trouble with the knickers link, so here is the address copied directly from the page:

http://www.esmereldajones.com.au/tillydrawers.htm

The link doesn't seem to be working right now, although it was earlier today ...I suggest you keep trying, it may just be a temporary glitch on the other side of the world. If you find you're desperate, however, I did print up a copy of this article, so it's not necessarily lost forever - if it doesn't start working in the next couple of days, I'll try to contact her and see if I can post the piece here.}