Denier Nylon Tights from circa 1950s, a photo by billyrosendale on Flickr.
Very cute vintage tights packaging, I thought, though I'm not sure what purpose the cat serves...
I mentioned yesterday that I had been in town looking for a dress to wear to a wedding reception tomorrow night. The pickings were slim - New Look had got rid of their entire maternity section (the only one in Glasgow's city centre with more than three items to choose from) and everywhere else seemed to have nothing but jeans and big woolly jumpers. In the end, I found something in Dorothy Perkins. Their maternity section was actually larger than expected and they had a whole five dresses to choose from. Unfortunately, none of them really grabbed me, so I thought the best thing to do was to try them all on. Four of them looked like flabby old flour sacks and one looked much nicer on than it did on the hanger, so I bought it. Looking at it on their website now, I think maybe I bought it a size too small, but c'est la vie. So after buying the dress, I went to get a pair of maternity tights, but the dress is decidedly navy and apparently maternity tights only come in black. Nooooo! So today's challenge is to convert a normal pair of navy tights from my drawer into a pair of maternity tights by inserting some sort of panel. While lying awake for 90 of last night (that's now three consecutive nights without sleep - zzzzzzzzzz) I spent my time thinking about how best to tackle this and came to the conclusion that I really don't know what I'm doing. Initially I had thought about using stretchy material for the panel, but I worry this will make the tights liable to fall down. The dress is quite short, so any falling down leaves me in peril of showing off my gusset - always a totally classy look! So now I'm thinking a non-stretchy panel in the hope that the stretch from the tights will do the job of providing flexibility and comfort, although it would be nice if the tights would grow with me over the coming months, something I'm not sure they'll do with a non-stretchy panel. Then there is the question of what shape and size to make the panel and whether to have one big panel at the front or maybe two V-shaped panels at the sides... Never having seen a pair of maternity tights out of their packaging, I am kind of clueless as to how they work. The most important factors (my design brief!) are that I should be comfortable and that I should have no unsightly bulges... apart from the baby bump, obviously. Oh, it's a challenge all right! I will let you know how it goes.
ps I'm not sure why Blogger won't let me change the size of this font. I hope you are not suffering from eye strain now. Sorry.
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If you can't make them work then try somewhere like Evans for a bigger size pair of tights and make them do - I did it a few times when I was pregnant.
ReplyDeleteThat had been my original plan, but I was put off by the price of tights that were anything over about 5 denier, not wanting to pay over the odds for giant tights that might make me look like wrinkly ankled Nora Batty! However... while trying on my regular tights to make my adjustment plans, I discovered that they are actually OK just as they are. I can pull them up right over my bump and they don't squash me too much. So I cancelled my tights manhandling plans and challenged myself to do the pile of dirty dishes instead :)
ReplyDeleteCan't you chop a hole where your bump is and zigazg it or something like that? :-)
ReplyDeleteoops disregard hole in tights idea - sounds like you sorted it :-D
ReplyDeleteYes, the tights are fine for now, but I will bear your idea in mind for Christmas! Thanks :)
ReplyDelete