Lace as an Extender

I'm not much of a sewing person. Whenever I tried, perhaps three times in seven decades, to use a sewing machine, I made crooked stitches. What little sewing I do is by hand. Sewing buttons on my crocheted toppers for dish towels. Sewing the armpit seam that splits often on one jacket. An occasional hem. That's about it.

I've inherited lots of lace scraps of different lengths and different widths. I suddenly realized I might be able to use some of the wider widths, a yard or two, maybe, to lengthen about half a dozen cotton knit tee-type, dorm-shirt-type nightgowns. These silly things, when dried in the dryer the seven-hundredth time, do not shrink "around" as I would expect, but vertically. They all started out hanging below my knees by about an inch. They are all now about two inches above my knees, and my bottom half resents the current chill-factor that results. They are still loose on the rest of my bod, and my weight has not changed much, unfortunately, in the past two years. Neither has my height. But those silly nightgowns have shrunk, hem-wise.

So, I'm seriously thinking of taking some of that lace and plopping it on the bottom of those gowns. The lace won't give me any add'l warmth. But it will give me the "feel" of fake-warmth. I will "think" the gowns are longer, and that will help. Plus, it will pretty them up a tad - these poor gowns are a few years old, but they are still the same weight as when first bought. They have not thinned as some fabrics do, becoming almost transparent with repeated washings. I still love the prints, though - yellow duckies on a pink background, kitties on a purple background, cows jumping over slivers of a moon on a blue background, etc.

If I get the courage to tackle this, I'll try before and after photos of the hemlines of one of them, to show you how they look. I know, I know, I've promised photos in the past and didn't follow through. I should go back through my posts and search on "photo" and see how many times I did promise and see whether I can follow through on any of them.

Meanwhile, my old eyes can barely see the needle's eye these days, and because I hand-sew, I must dig out my trusty wire-thingie needle threaders. This should be interesting.