The Baby Stuff - Story Telling Sunday - June

It's the first Sunday of the month and that means Story Telling Sunday over at FromHighinTheSky with Sian. This year the theme is "My Precious, where we tell the story of something we have kept as a reminder of a special time.
Why not take a look at her story and then use the links on her page to visit all the other storytellers - but don't do that until after you have read my story.

This time the "precious" is a group of baby clothes. A little hand knitted "matinee jacket" (this is a tiny cardigan for a new baby. No I don't know why they were called matinee jackets, this was the 1960s when old names were still used),  a lace covered dress and one tiny hand knitted bootee. My grandmother knitted the jacket and the matching bootees for my first baby. She knitted it in the fabulous new-fangled nylon wool that was now available in the shops. It was supposed to last longer than boring old wool and to stay white. Well it seems to have done both those things, however, it feels dreadful! so stiff and unyeilding and it has a greyish hue. There is no way I would put that anywhere near the delicate new skin of a baby. The complicated pattern shows me how accomplished my beloved Granny was with her knitting needles. I never saw her use a pattern and yet there is a "picot" edge around the neckline and around the top of the little bootee.
The lace covered dress is also made of nylon - oh come on! this was 1965 when my daughter was born. Everything was nylon or crimplene - synthetic was the new everything!
My daughter was baptised in that dress, the plan being that any new baby after her would also be baptised in the dress and I would keep it for grandchildren. This never happened because my daughter was an average size baby but her brothers were bigger, a lot bigger and even as new-borns would not have fitted into the dress. In fact my youngest son was not baptised until he was nearly a year old so it wouldn't have gone around his left leg as he was nine and a half pounds when he was born. By the time the grandchildren came along nylon was A Bad Thing and the dress was fortunately too small and to out of fashion. I keep it because, well because I can. It lay wrapped in old tissue paper in a biscuit tin for thirty years or more until I received my box. The lace has not kept its whiteness and it feels quite brittle, though it will probably outlast me. I wrap it in new, acid-free tissue paper and replace it in my treasure box with all the other stuff.

Something for my children to worry over.