I'm still here, although taking a nice long break from sewing--I still enjoy reading the list, though!
I've been away from my computer a lot lately (I also recently moved, from a 180 yr old house in Vermont to a 1 yr old apartment in TX; quite the change) so the threads of the list have sort of criss-crossed for me; I'm not sure if I've actually managed to read all of the posts related to this topic. My first thought was that it was historical fiction, but not necessarily modern historical fiction, if that makes sense. It could have been written say in the middle of the 20th century, when this practice might possibly have occurred to someone--or it could be a result of the earlier pulp fiction years, and possibly written by a male (who wouldn't know this didn't sound quite right) under a female pen name. My second thought was that from what I'm thinking is the original post, by Carol, I couldn't really tell what era this was supposed to be, or what class the young woman/women were supposed to belong to. Surely there would be a class divide between those who are socially expected to do 'pretty' work to show off their accomplishments, and those who would feel they were impressing the people they wanted to impress more by showing off their usefulness...? A middle-upper class family's daughter in say, 1880s NYC would certainly sew different things when a guest was there than a farming family's daughter in Ohio in the 1940s would. I still find the idea of cutting a hole in NEW stocking a bit of a stretch, but if it were a plot point in an Isn't-Our-Heroine-Just-Too-Angelic-For-Words type of 1910s young adult pulp, I wouldn't be at all surprised to find myself reading about it; it sounds like the kind of story meant to show off someone's virtue. -E House On Fri, Dec 18, 2015 at 6:32 PM, Marjorie Wilser <the3t...@gmail.com> wrote: > I vote for fiction. It seems wrong on so many levels. You don’t “cut a > hole" in a (new!) stocking to darn. You cut a thread and let it ravel a > little. In that day, I suspect making ANY kind of hole would never have > happened. You wouldn’t destroy new goods for any reason, much less to make > busy work. > > However, the very idea of them darning stockings in a social setting is > suspect. It just wouldn’t be done in polite circles. Wish I could help on > the reference. > > ==Marjorie Wilser > > @..@ @..@ @..@ > Three Toad Press > http://3toad.blogspot.com/ > > > > On Dec 18, 2015, at 2:05 PM, aqua...@patriot.net wrote: > > > > A young woman is visiting a household with other young women, and they > are > > darning some stockings. It would not be proper to give her one of the > > family's stockings to mend, so they cut a hole in a new stocking for her > > to darn. > > > > The whole idea seems silly to me, because it seems that there would be > > some new clothing to be made or something for her to do that would not > > require making busy work. That's why it sounds more like historical > > fiction. > > > > Does it sound familiar to anyone? > > > > Thanks! > > -Carol > > > _______________________________________________ > h-costume mailing list > h-costume@mail.indra.com > http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume > _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
