CHAPTER IV

VACATION WORK WITH NATURE’S MATERIAL

Here is a piece of advice for you, girls; possibly it may not be appreciated, but it is good advice, nevertheless: While you are away for your summer holidays, keep out of sight the fancy work you do at home.

When we drop the work or study that has employed us during the long winter and spring months and go off in the summer to be refreshed and invigorated, do we not say we go for recreation? If you will stop to think about it you will see that recreation means literally re-creating, being created anew; it means the laying aside of our ordinary habits and thoughts and adopting entire new ones, for the time being at least. It is this refreshing change of thought and occupation as well as change of air that proves so beneficial; therefore, don’t keep the one little portion of your brain which you devote to fancy work busy all summer long in the old routine, but let it have recreation as well as the rest of your mind and body.

By this I do not mean that the faculty ordinarily exercised in the interest of fancy work should not be used in any way, or that the hands which take so kindly to needle and thread should be always idle. Not at all; but there are other forms of work for quiet hours, distinctively summer work, which with their entire or comparative novelty refresh the mind and give added deftness to the hands.

The rainy day comes occasionally and you cannot be out of doors; then is the time to look over the store of treasures which you have gathered in your walks through wood and field and try to devise some means of preserving them or making them of use. To begin with, there are your pine cones, and no doubt you have gathered a great number of them; everyone does. Sort the cones and select several of the largest, most open ones to use as hanging-baskets in your window next winter, and if you have an open fire devote the remaining cones to creating a cheery blaze, to help disperse the gloom that a northeast storm in summer is apt to throw over one.

If you are impatient to try the experiment of making a

=Cone Hanging-basket,=

you need not wait until winter, for, being in the country, your materials are all close at hand, and there is no reason why you should not start one immediately. Having selected your cone, shake out the seeds, if any remain in it, and tie a cord around at about the middle, leaving a loop on the top by which to hang it, as in the illustration. Fill the interstices with lightly sifted earth, scatter a handful of wheat or oats over it, and thoroughly dampen the whole. Hang the cone in your window, keep it damp, and shortly the grain will sprout and the cone will become a mass of vivid green.

Of course the beauty of the cone hanging-basket does not last a great while, but a new one can be so quickly and easily prepared that, with a store of half a dozen cones, you may have one fresh and green in your window all winter. Almost any kind of small cereal will sprout if treated in this way, and each time you can plant different seeds.

If you happen to have sweet grass in your collection, make it into

=Sweet-grass Mats=

to put in the linen closet or bureau-drawers. These mats, placed between sheets or clothing, impart such a sweet, country perfume you will be surprised and delighted with the result. Take seven or eight stalks of the sweet grass, cut off the flower-heads, bunch the stalks together, and with a long, strong blade of the grass, wrap tightly into a rope, as in Fig. 121. Make several of these ropes before beginning your mat. Then coil one in an oblong, and sew it together, as shown in the diagram, Fig. 122. [Illustration: Fig. 122.] When the first rope is nearly used up, wrap the free end securely to the end of another rope and continue to coil as before. When finished, the longest diameter of the mat should measure about seven inches. You will notice in [Illustration: Fig. 123.] Fig. 123, which shows the sweet-grass mat completed, that the last end is tucked in neatly under the coil next to it, where it is fastened tightly with needle and thread.

With all the other treasures, I hardly think it has occurred to you to collect corn-husks, and yet many pretty things can be made of them. For instance, there is the

=Corn-husk Basket,=

strong, durable, and useful. For making one of these baskets select the fine, inner husks, and wrap them in a [Illustration: Fig. 124.] damp cloth, let them remain two hours, and then cut into strips about one inch wide. Take six of these strips and tie them together at one end with a strong thread; separate the strips into three strands, two strips to a [Illustration: Fig. 125.] strand, and braid as in Fig. 124. In the beginning do not choose strips all of the same length, as they will have to be pieced out to make the braid the required length, and the piecing should not be all done at the same place. When you have nearly reached the end of your shortest strip, open it out flat, lay the end of a new strip over it as in Fig. 125, and fold together as in Fig. 126. In this way the piecing goes on as the braid grows in length. When you have about a yard of the braid, dampen and begin to coil it as in Fig. 127, fastening the edges together with needle and strong, waxed thread. It will require the whole yard of braid for the bottom of the basket, which should measure about five inches in diameter. Before you have coiled quite all of it, piece the strips again and make a yard or so more of braid. Dampen the new part and begin to coil once more, this time turning the braid up on its edge, and running it around horizontally to form the sides of the basket, widening the sides a little with each row. Four inches is a good depth for a basket of this kind. Finish the top of the basket by sewing another row of braid around the outer edge. For the handle make a braid twelve inches long, then divide the strands and at the end of the large braid make two small ones six inches long. Fasten the ends of the small braids and cut off neatly close to the wrapping. Remove the thread which holds the other end of the large braid together and separate the strips far enough up to make two small braids at that end the length of those you have just finished. Sew the handle on the outside of the basket in the position shown in the illustration, tucking the ends between the bottom and next to the bottom row of braids, and fastening them neatly on the inside.

Like the sweet-grass mats the

=Lavender Sticks=

are for perfuming clothing and household linen. They are pretty little trifles, and make most acceptable birthday and Christmas gifts.

Gather your lavender stalks (each one having a blossomed top) while they are fresh and green, and use them as soon as possible after cutting, as they grow brittle when dry. It will take about twenty-five stalks for a large lavender stick, less for a small one, but in both cases there must be an uneven number. You will need, also, some narrow lavender ribbon. It is best to buy the ribbon by the piece, or roll, as it is not easy to calculate the exact amount required for the sticks. Bunch your lavender stalks together, with the heads at the top, and tie securely just below the blossoms (Fig. 128) with linen thread. Bend the stems over carefully, bringing them down over the blossoms (Fig. 129). A little raw cotton may be used to fill out the bulb or, if you have them, extra lavender blossoms. Pin one end of your ribbon at the top of the bulb, where the stalks are tied together, pushing the pin through the ribbon down into the bulb, then begin to weave it under and over the stalks as in Fig. 129. Weave about two inches, widening all the time, then draw the ribbon a little tighter, bring the stalks closer together, and narrow the bulb gradually. When the stalks are bunched again, stop weaving and begin to wrap, lapping the edges of the ribbon as in the illustration. Have the wrapping tight and firm and, when about an inch or two from the ends of the stalks, fasten with needle and thread, then tie the ribbon in a bow of many loops. Finish the top with a bow also, making it quite full.

=Braiding Palm-grasses and Corn-husks=

Away down in Florida, where the palms and palmettos are as common as are the most ordinary trees and shrubs in the North, most of the children wear hats made of the strong and durable leaves of these beautiful trees; and all the children know how to braid the palm in a number of ways. Indeed, it was a little girl not more than eight years old who taught me just what I am going to try to teach you. She was “keeping house” with a number of other children on one of the fine, shady streets of Daytona, Fla., and, stopping to watch them at their play, we were made welcome in their “house,” and one little hostess gave me the lesson I asked for then and there.

You all know how a palm-leaf grows, tall and straight, and closed tightly like a fan until it is time for it to open, [Illustration: Fig. 130.] when it slowly separates and spreads its fingers wide. It was the unopened leaf of the cabbage-palm which was chosen for the braid, and very pretty the tender leaf is; white, soft, and pliable, and edged with light green. It is beautifully adapted to braiding, and the fingers of my little teacher flew deftly, as the braid lengthened in her hands, and my mind sped along almost as swiftly, as I tried to adapt the process to materials to be found in the North, so that Northern, as well as Southern, girls might share with me this little piece of handicraft.

I am sure wide, flat grasses can be braided in this way, and corn-husks and—well, a number of other things which you will find if you keep your eyes open; but I must return to the palm and tell you just how I was taught to braid that.

First I tore the leaf into strips about one-quarter of an inch wide, then taking two strips, I folded one end of each as in Fig. 130, and lapped the folded ends as in Fig. 131. Bending the right-hand strip (A), I pushed it through the loop formed by the other (B) as in Fig. 132, and pulled B down tightly (Fig. 133). Bending B, I pushed that through the loop A had formed, and drawing A tightly, left a loop of B at the top (Fig. 134). Each time a loop was formed I pushed another loop through it and drew the first down snugly, and so braided a strip like Fig. 135.

My little teacher forgot to show me how to piece the strips, and I was obliged to work out the problem for myself and for you. When one of the strips had dwindled down and grown too narrow, I cut it off, leaving a little over an inch below the loop. I then inserted another strip over B, pushing it under A, as in Fig. 136, bringing it over the B loop and again under A on the other side, pulling it down until the two short ends were even. After that I continued to braid as before, the first two B loops being double, of course.

It is not well to have the piecing of both strips come together, therefore one should be longer than the other at the start, and the strips should be always of the same width in order to make the braid uniform and even.

This is regular hat braid you have learned to make, and perhaps having done so much you will feel inspired to continue the work and make a hat, if not a large one, at least one for your own or your younger sister’s doll. Or you can make it into a basket by sewing the braid together, lapping one edge over the other.

The braid should be back-stitched for both hats and baskets.

Most materials require damping before they are braided, for even when soft and pliable they are apt to separate when dry, unless they have first been soaked for a while in water.