Part 3

How much quicker we seem to get on with scissors than with a needle and cotton, don’t we? It is such quick work to cut a hole, but quite slow work to mend one! Well, you are going to do some “scissors work” now, but you will have to do it carefully, and make sure first just which threads you are going to cut. I want you to notice one important thing. Always cut across the ends of your stitches, never along the sides of them. Isn’t this quite clear? Well, look at the little diagram for cutting, Fig. 5. You cut the 3 threads between A and B, and between A and C, and between C and J, and between D and E, and between G and H, but never those between J and I, or between I and D. You see what I mean now, don’t you? Then be careful always not to cut too far, that is to say, never cut beyond the satin stitches, only cut the threads enclosed by them.

Pull out the threads you have cut, and you will have a little corner, like that shown in Fig. 4.

Weaving Work.

Now you have to do the weaving, and this is very easy, and nice work to do. Only remember not to drag the threads too tightly, but you must not have them loose—just firm and even. Bring your needle up from underneath, in the middle of one of the groups of 4 threads, take it over 2 threads on one side up into the middle again, and over 2 threads on the other side. Look at Fig. 4 again. Repeat this until you have 5 stitches on each side. Bring your needle up between another set of threads, and repeat. When you have finished all the weaving, fasten off neatly at the back of the canvas, and your corner is done. Work the other 3 corners in the same way.

Putting on the Ribbon.

Take your ribbon and cut off two pieces, each 8 inches long. These are for the bow. Divide the remainder into four equal lengths, and mark each little division with a small pin. This is so that you will use just the same length on each of the four sides of your square. With a needle, draw out three or four threads running through the middle of the ribbon, and pull these gently to draw the ribbon up. It is not enough to pull on one thread or two, because, although it is easier to draw, it may snap before you get very far. Draw up the ribbon until it is exactly the size to go round your square; then pin the gathered ribbon round the sides, taking care to get one of the divisions marked by the pin on each side of the square.

Thread a needle with pink sewing silk, and sew the ribbon on, through the centre, taking a very tiny stitch on top, and a longer one underneath. Make a back-stitch every now and then, by putting the needle back instead of forward. This makes it a little more secure. Allow a little extra fulness at the corners, so as to turn these carefully and evenly, and here you will need one or two little backstitches. When you get round to the corner from which you started, turn in the end of your ribbon, and join it neatly to your starting end. Take out the pins.

Lining the Sachet.

Take the square of white silk, and turn in once all round about a quarter-inch, and tack it. Lay it on your square of canvas, so that the turned-in sides of canvas and silk come together. Pin these together all round. With the white sewing silk, hem the silk to the canvas carefully, so that each stitch catches up a thread of the canvas, but does not come through the gathered ribbon. At the second corner, slip in one end of one of your lengths of ribbon between the silk and canvas, and when you come to that, hem it in with the silk to the canvas. When the hemming is finished, the tacking stitches can be taken out of the silk.

Folding and Finishing.

You have now got a silk-lined canvas square, with a little end of ribbon attached to one corner. You must now fold your square so that all the worked corners meet, as you see in the picture on page 34. We will call your square A, B, C, D, as the corners are marked in the diagram, Fig. 6. Divide each side in half (just put a tiny pin in to mark the division), and call these points E, F, G, and H. Now fold along the lines E to F, F to G, G to H, and H to E. This will bring your corners A, B, C and D all together in the middle if you have done your measuring quite carefully. (See Fig. 7). Let us call D the point that has the ribbon end. Now A, B and C have all to be joined together, but D is not sewn to them. D’s little ribbon end is only tied to the centre, so that the sachet can be opened and closed. Catch A F and B F and A E and C E together with just a few tiny stitches under the ribbon, sew the points A, B, C neatly together. And here is where you attach your last little bit of ribbon having turned in one end neatly. While you are sewing on this centre you had better keep your left fingers inside the sachet, and your thumb outside. Then you will be quite sure that you are not sewing right through the sachet, because it would be serious if when Mother came to put her handkerchiefs in, she couldn’t get them down because it was sewn through, wouldn’t it? You have now only to tie your two ends of ribbon in a nice bow, and Mother’s handkerchief sachet is complete.

Of course, you will want to make some more of these sachets, and you can work them in other colours, or line them with coloured silk. It would look pretty, for instance, to have a deep cream canvas, worked with Ardern’s “Star Sylko” No. 734, Size 5, which is a lovely cream shade. Then have for the lining, forget-me-not blue, and blue ribbon to match. Or you could work the satin-stitch in dark green, No. 753, and the weaving in a paler green, No. 751, and have a white silk lining and pale green ribbon. And I am sure you will think of lots of other pretty colours you can use.

Some other Pretty Corners.

Perhaps you would rather work another kind of corner. Six others are shown, any of which you would be able to manage, I am sure. For four of them, you do not have to cut any threads. The one with the cross in the middle, Fig. 8, would be very quickly worked. The outer part of this is worked almost like the corner on the sachet, only there are no straight blocks in a row here, and you take 5 stitches over 5 threads for each block. Then you work 5 stitches over 5 threads each way into one hole in the middle for the centre cross.

Fig. 9 is another little corner, just like the one on the sachet, only instead of cutting any threads, you fill up alternate squares with satin-stitch blocks.

Then the star pattern, Fig. 10, is pretty and easy. You start by taking a stitch over 8 threads, then take one over 7, over 6, over 5, over 4, over 3, over 2. Now over 2 again, and so on, up to 8. Then start another row at right angles to the first, and two more rows in the same way. The long stitches in the middle are taken into the holes from which the short stitches were taken.

Another easy little design shows two straight rows of satin-stitch crossing two in opposite ways (Fig. 11).

Sometimes a few rows of blocks outside a design will improve it, and make it look bolder. This is the case with the open-work square, Fig. 12. A second row of blocks has been added outside the first, working the stitches the other way.

In the last open-work corner, Fig. 13, 4 stitches are taken over 4 threads, and 5 over 8 threads, then 4 over 5 threads again, and so on. All the threads are then cut away, except the 4 in the middle of each side, and these are woven as usual.

Now set to work and see what you can do. After a little practice, you will probably be able to make up some corners for yourself, but until you are quite sure of the work, it is better to practise those I have shown you.

Pale Blue and Heliotrope.

You don’t know what to make for Auntie? Why not make her a pretty bag to keep her work in? The one on this page is in pale blue, and looks ever so pretty. Too difficult? Oh no, everything is easy when you know the way, and you are going to have a little lesson in Hairpin Work to-day. No, the work isn’t exactly done on a hairpin, but on a staple. This is similar in shape, only larger.

For this bag you will want your staple—get one about 2 inches in width—and a No. 1 steel crochet hook. You will also want a ball of Strutt’s Macramè Thread No. 512, Size 10. Then, if you want to line your bag, you will need something pretty for this. The bag you see here is lined with a heliotrope sateen, which peeps very prettily through the pale blue. One more thing—a few little white bone rings for the drawing-up strings to go through.

All About Loops.

Commence by making a loop in your thread, you will want this loop to be as long as half the distance between the two prongs of your staple, so that when you hang it over one side the knot comes just in the middle. So do not tighten it until you see that it will come just here. Put this loop over the left side of the staple. Put the thread across the front, and over the right prong of the staple. Now take your crochet hook, put it in the loop, and catch the thread that you have put over the right prong from front to back. This makes the first loop on the right. Slip the hook over the right prong *, turn the staple over towards you, wrapping the thread round the left prong, as you do so. By turning, you now make the left prong the right one, you have now one loop on your crochet hook. Put the hook under the loop which is now on the left side of the staple, draw the thread through this. This gives you two loops on your hook. Put the thread over the crochet hook, and draw it through the two loops. Slip the hook over the right prong, and repeat from *. The picture shows the thread being drawn through the loop.

You must keep on making these loops until you have 90 on each side of the staple. Then finish off in this way. When you have made the 90th loop, don’t turn the staple, but make two or three chain stitches, cut the thread from the ball about 3 inches from your hook, and draw it through the loop on your hook. This finishes the strip.

Take the strip off the staple. Don’t be afraid—it won’t come undone. Make 6 strips the same length. These strips are twice as long as the bag is deep. In making the strips, don’t pull the loops round the staple too tightly. After a little practice the work will come quite easy, and you will get along quickly with it.

Joining the Strips.

Having finished your strips you have to join them. One of the pictures shows this being done. Take two strips and lay them side by side on the table, with the commencing ends of each towards you. Take up on your crochet hook three loops from the strip on the left, then three loops from the strip on the right. As the six loops lie on the hook—three from each side—draw the three from the right through the three from the left, with the help of your left thumb and first finger. (If you look at the picture you will see that these loops usually lie twisted. They should be taken on to the hook in this way, and if one is not twisted, turn it over with your finger and thumb).

You have now three loops on your hook, which were picked up on the right hand strip. Take up three more from the left, and so on, for the length of the strip. When you get to the end of the strip (your last loop will have been taken from the right as you started on the left), stick the hook with the loops on into the middle of the strip on the left, and drawing through the length of thread which was left at the end of the strip, fasten off securely.

Now take the third strip and lay it on the right of the second strip; start by taking up three loops from the third. In joining, see that you always commence on the odd strip, that is to say, on 1, 3, 5, 7, etc., so that whether you are joining strips 2 to 3, or 3 to 4, you commence on strip 3, and whether you are joining 4 to 5, or 5 to 6, you commence on strip 5.

Getting it into Shape.

You must now fold in half your long piece of work, and join up the sides to make it into a bag. The sides are joined just the same as the other part, taking first 3 loops from one side and 3 from the other until you get to the bottom. With a little piece of thread, fasten off very neatly on the wrong side, sticking the hook in the middle of one of the strips before finishing off, to make it quite firm.

To finish the top of the bag make a loop in the thread, draw this through the top of one of the strips, make 5 chain stitches, then 1 double crochet into the joined loops, 5 chain, 1 d c into middle of next strip. Do this all round the top of the bag, and fasten off.

For the cord, make a chain of 36 inches. Sew 10 little white rings at even distances round the bag, about 2 inches from the top. Run the cord through these rings twice, and when you get back the second time to the ring you started from, join the cord neatly with a needle and cotton. Now you see it will pull up quite nicely each side, and Auntie can hang the bag on her arm.

We have not talked about lining the bag. Perhaps you don’t want to line it, but if you do, make a bag of silk or sateen (like the one described on page 11), the same size as the macramè bag, and slip it into it, just catching it at the corners with a few tiny stitches, so that the lining does not slip out of the bag. This lining should have a nice deep hem at the top, which could peep over the top of the macramè bag. Your bag is now finished, and if Auntie is not delighted with it, I shall be very much surprised.

The Amiable Pussy Cats.

Doesn’t your pussy cat always like to be near at hand when the table is laid for tea, on the chance of perhaps getting a saucer of milk? Of course, you never let pussy himself sit on the table, but it would be rather uncommon, wouldn’t it, to have a cosy on the table with two dear little pussies worked on it like the one in the picture? I think Mother would like it, too, don’t you?

The cosy cover in our picture was made of white Hardanger canvas, and is not fastened to the tea cosy itself, but is made loose, so that it can be taken off and washed. Red “Bright-eye” thread was used for working the cats.

You will want to make it the right size for Mother’s tea cosy, won’t you? Well, you will be able to get it exactly the size, if you first take a piece of paper, lay the cosy on it, and draw round the cosy with a pencil, then cut the paper out on the pencil line.

This gives you the shape of the side of the cosy, but the material will need to be cut larger than this to allow for a seam and a hem across the bottom, so take another piece of paper, and using the piece you have already cut as a pattern, cut the side out again, this time allowing an extra quarter of an inch all round the curved edge for the seam, and an inch along the straight edge for the hem.

Now that you have a pattern, cut out two pieces of canvas exactly this shape, and you can commence to make up your cosy cover.

The hems at the bottom of the cosy have to be hem-stitched, so you had better pull the threads out for this first. Measure each side up 1¾ inches from the straight edge and draw out four threads.

Directions for the simple hemstitching used are given on page 30, but before you do this part you must work your cats and join the two sides together, so that you can turn up your hem all along both sides evenly, and not have to join the hem after they are turned up.

Work your cats in cross-stitch. This stitch was described on page 25, so that if you don’t know how to do it, just turn to this page and see how it is done.

You will be able to count the crosses from the drawing you have of the two cats. The lowest cross of the tail of the cat sitting down should come six threads above the open threads for your hem; this will help you in starting to work the design. Work two cats on each side of the cosy.

When you have finished the pussy cats, place the two sides together, with the right sides facing one another, and sew round the curved edges with a run and back-stitch, then oversew along the cut edges to make them neat.

Now turn up your hem and hemstitch it, then turn the cosy on the right side, and sew a piece of red cord over the seam of the cosy, making three little loops in the centre at the top. You must use red cotton to sew on the cord, and take tiny hemming stitches that will not show too much.

If you don’t want to make your cosy cover of canvas, but would like to use linen or some other material, you can work the cats on Penelope canvas, tacked over the material, as you learnt to do when making the Feeder.

What a Contrast!

Lazy Lizzie uses pins When she sees a tear! Her buttons lie upon the floor, The lace is off her pinafore; And don’t the people stare!

Hilda is industrious, Nothing ever tires her; She simply gets her sewing-box, And quickly mends her pretty frocks; And everyone admires her!

F. K.

The Orchid Flower Bag.

Have you been trying very hard to think of something else that you can make for Mother? I wonder if she has a Stocking Bag? If not, you could easily make her one of these, couldn’t you, and I know she would like to have one, especially if she has several little boys and girls to mend stockings for. If you make her a lovely big bag like the one in the picture, she will be able to keep all the stockings that need mending together, and will know exactly where to find them when mending day comes round.

It will be best to make the bag of a material that will wash nicely. A good strong Holland or Crash would be very suitable. You will want a strip of material about a yard long and fifteen inches wide to make a good-sized bag.

The pretty little flowers across the bag are worked in cross-stitch, and you have an enlarged diagram of the design which you will be able to count the crosses from.

Use “Bright-eye” embroidery thread for working the flowers. A purple thread would look pretty, but perhaps you know another colour that Mother is very fond of, and would like to use that.

You must work the designs before you make up the bag. Fold the strip of material in half and tack a strip of Penelope Canvas across about four inches up from the fold. Directions for working cross-stitch over Penelope Canvas are given on page 27, in case you want to know how this is done.

How to make up a bag, too, was described on page 11, and you can make this one in exactly the same way. You will notice that this one has a cord threaded through rings outside of the bag instead of through a runner at the top though, and if you like this way better you can sew twelve white bone rings at equal distances apart round the outside of the bag just at the bottom of the hem, and put the cord through these. You will want about two yards of coloured cord, in the same shade as the thread you used for working the flowers. Thread the cord twice round the bag through the rings, join it together, and your bag is complete.

An Alphabet that can be copied in Cross-stitch.

More Letters for Cross-stitch.

Furnishings for Dolly’s Cottage.

For Dolly’s Bed.

One of the most enjoyable times of the day spent with dolly is the time when you can undress and put her to bed, just as mother does baby.

And how much nicer, too, if you can feel that you have made all the bedclothes yourself. You may perhaps think that you could never manage that, but just look at these pretty little pictures of the things and see how simple they all are. I am sure then that you will want to try and copy them for your own dear dolly.

Before starting to make the outfit for the doll’s bed, get your materials together. Perhaps someone gave you a bedstead on your last birthday? If not, buy one the right size for your favourite doll. The one in the picture is a metal one with a wire mattress.

For the mattress, try to get a material something like that generally used for mattresses, but not so thick; a striped print would do quite nicely. The mattress illustrated and the pillows are made of grey, and white striped material, bound with red ribbon.

The cover for the wire mattress is made of white calico, the blankets of cream flannel, the sheets and pillow-cases of white linen; the bedspread and nightdress case of canvas worked with “Brighteye” thread.

The Mattress.

Cut out two pieces of material a little larger than the bedstead, and another long narrow piece the depth of the mattress. Sew one side of the narrow piece around the sides of one of the large pieces (running stitch will do quite well for this part of the work), leaving the edges of the seam on the outside. Then join the other side of the narrow strip to three of the sides of the other piece you have cut, leaving one side open to put the filling in. This mattress is filled with horse-hair; but cotton wool, small pieces of rag, or paper could be used instead.

When the mattress is filled, sew up the fourth side and bind all the seams with narrow ribbon. Red ribbon is used on the mattress illustrated, and a little specimen is illustrated, showing how to put it on. The ribbon is held over the seam edges with the left hand and back-stitched along, taking your stitches right through the seam edges and both edges of the ribbon each time.

Now you will need to stab the mattress in places, as in the picture, to make it look just like the one on your own bed.

Take a long needle threaded with coarse thread the same colour as the binding, put the needle through the mattress, leaving a long end, make two more stitches through the mattress in the same place, pulling the thread tightly, finish at the same side as you began, tie a knot with the thread used and the long end left at the beginning and cut the threads, leaving small ends of threads beyond the knot.

Look at the illustration to see the positions in which you must put these stitches and knots.

The Wire Mattress Cover.

Cut the material a little larger than the wire mattress to allow for a quarter-inch hem; hem the piece around, and sew two narrow pieces of tape (or coarse thread will do) at each corner of the cover: the cover is tied to the wire mattress with these pieces of tape.

The Blankets.

Cut the flannel out large enough to cover the top and sides of mattress and allow for tucking up.

Turn down about a quarter of an inch single turning at each end of the blanket on the wrong side, then work in blanket stitch across both ends. You will see that a little specimen of work is illustrated, showing how to make this stitch. It is worked from left to right. The turned-in edge of your blanket must be held along the first finger of your left hand, and the needle placed in your work downwards towards you, the thread always being held under your thumb as you make a stitch, so that when you pull your needle you have a knot right at the edge of the work.

The Sheets.