And as if by magic...

aka, at the advanced age of 39 (I'm going to be 40 in September! where did the time go?!!) I have fallen in love with cotton voile.

Contemporary cotton lawn, let me tell you, is bobbins. Doubtless will be very useful for shirts, petticoats, and all thinks slightly dazzlingly white, but for the soft, filmy look of the cotton lawn shirts and baby bonnets of the 19th century - forget it. It simply doesn't work.

I'm making a little embroidered bonnet at the moment (I'm not holding out on anything, honest... I just like making tiny baby clothes.. despite not having a tiny baby any more, but a thumping big toddler whose handle of Small is singularly inappropriate...)
http://vintagetextile.com/new_page_529.htm
This little bonnet!

The original is cotton muslin with hand-embroidered net inserts. Well, let me tell you! The trouble I have had tracking down cotton net! So yesterday I bit the bullet and sloped into my local fabric emporium - I try to avoid the place, as I inevitably come out having spent serious money*
*although I resisted the pull of a delicious white embroidered cotton - congratulations, please, to the usual address

- only to come out net-less. Pah. The best I can manage to replicate this, is a fairly open-textured Cluny lace with a central motif. Close, but slightly heavier than the original, so I'm having to fudge the number of panels a bit to make it look as delicate as the original.

It's a funny little bonnet, is this one, being 3 1/2 inches wide by 3 1/2 inches tall. I can't imagine the size of a little 'un who would have worn this. Mine certainly never would, not even as a newborn!! My version is somewhat bigger - 5 1/2 by 5 1/2 inches - as it's part of an ongoing project. (More on which at a later date as I'm sure I've bored sufficiently for the one day.)