”China metal?” Margo asked. “What on earth is that?”
”Ordinary nickel-silver,” Malcolm grinned. “Not any silver in it, even. It’s a base-metal alloy similar to German silver. It’s used in cheap costume jewelry, junk trays and candlesticks, that sort of thing.”
”Yes,” Kit chuckled, “but in colonial Williamsburg it was worth as much as gold.” His eyes twinkled. “Much like Connie’s gowns.”
Connie grinned. “Speaking of which … This gown has seven-hundred eleven inches of seams alone, never mind hems for both skirts and the sleeves or the decorative stitching visible from the surface. I can do an average of ten inches of seam an hour by hand, against a few seconds by machine. If I fudge and set the computers to simulate the slight variations in hand stitching, I can assemble a whole gown in a few hours-except for decorative stitching, any quilting the customer wants, and so on. I can’t do that by machine. Someone down time would notice. Fashion has always been closely studied, both by practitioners and by poorer folk who want to ape the newest styles in cheaper versions. So some of it can’t be fudged.
”Now, with your Palmyrene costume, I can’t fudge anything. It’ll take hours and hours of work to complete. I won’t have to hand spin or weave, but the embroidery alone will be murder. I’ll have to pull a couple of assistants off other jobs to finish it in time.”
”Which is expensive,” Margo sighed. “I guess,” she said, giving Kit and Malcolm a hang-dog look, “I’d better not get it dirty, huh?”