A Peek Into Knickers

If we take a peek into knickers we find amazingly that, before the Victorian era, we didn't wear them. Up until that time we were well swathed in petticoats and skirts and pants were considered a gentleman's article of clothing - a most immodest undergarment for a woman.

With the crinoline came some nasty tumbling from carriage steps, landing leg ups in a birdcage. The benefits of a private covering was readily seen. These first modesties had separate legs attached to a waistband in a crotchless style. This was necessary for a ladies toilette - crinolines and chamber pots are a difficult sport to manage. It is hard to imagine all those elegant ladies having social conversations with a cup of tea when you know that underneath it all they are quite crotchless.

When life became more active for ladies, skirts shortened and dresses were no longer wired or padded so the leg seams of drawers were graciously sewn up. Then began the changes from linen buttons to tapes and strings, then rubber elastic, then boilable elastic, and now the lightest lingerie elastic. Embellished pantaloons became bloomers, which became drawers, then knickers, then panties, which became.....well, only a g-string separates us from our beginning.

LADIES' OPEN DRAWERS 6 oz pink (or any colour that may be preferred) 4-ply A. A. Peacock yarn, 4 wood knitting- needles, double pointed, size 7 2 steel knitting-needles, size 1 3 3 yards of 1 inch ribbon to match the Yarn With No. 13 needles commence the lace, cast on thirteen stitches, one row plain. Ist Row of Pattern: Knit three, thread forward, two together, knit three, one lump-stitch (the lump-stitch is made by casting on three and cast off the same three stitches), knit four. 2nd Row: Plain knitting. 3rd Row: Knit three, thread forward, *two together, knit two, *, one lump-stitch, knit one repeat from * twice, thread twice round the needle, knit two together. 4th Row: Knit two, purl one, knit eleven. 5th Row: Knit three * thread forward, two together, knit three, one lump-stitch, knit three, thread twice round the needle, knit two together. 6th Row: Knit two, purl one, knit twelve. 7th Row: Knit three, thread forward, two together, knit two, thread twice round the needle, slip one, knit two together, pass slipped-stitch over, knit five. 8th Row: Cast off two, knit four, purl one, knit rest plain. Knit twenty-six patterns of lace, and cast off. With the same needles pick up one stitch on each ridge of the insertion side of the lace (on the right side of the knitting). There will be 106 stitches.

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