My first Mrs Sandby cap was far too respectable.
I mean, no-one would go wooing a young maiden one morning in may in a cap like that. She might flirt coyly around her lappets, but her virtue is clearly linen-clad - and that is like iron-clad and only slightly more elastic.
No-one, if you follow my meaning, would be stealing this milk-maid’s cheese. No indeed - lappet caps are inherently silly, and I have made that my hill on which to gather.
So I did. I recut the Mrs Sandby cap in
white cotton voile, and then I gathered, and then I added lace, and then I
gathered MORE, and only when it looked like a lacy nightmare in a boudoir, did
i stop.
The tight u-bend around the lappet point took a few goes to get right. Adding the lace to the edge of the ruffle extended its depth juuust enough that the regular gathering ration wasn’t quite enough - the ruffle spread out and turned inward like a concave cup.
I ended up sacrificing the gathers in the flat butt of the lappet, but in the end i got the u-bend to lie flat. JUST.
And I gathered and I gathered,
until suddenly, well, golly gee - here’s an exuberant lappet cap hanging up to dry
after the marking pen has been washed out! Gosh it looks pretty like that.
There is no universe in which this look has any dignity.
I look like a hydrangea bush.
I look like a pram in a paper-mâchié pantomime.
I look like a dissipated grandma sheep.
It is PERFECT.
