The Pleasant Valley girls will make middy blouses and so complete their gymnasium suits. Will you not wish to complete your suits too ?

The girls have found their bloomers and skirts very useful, and are glad to make the middy blouse too. They will use the same material as for the skirt.

By this time the Pleasant Valley girls are so expert that they make no mistakes in laying on their patterns or in cutting out garments. They are very particular to have the long line of single perforations indicating the length lying exactly on the warp threads of the cloth. Jane Smith says she can tell exactly which pieces must be cut double on a fold of the goods. Can you? The girls sent for patterns for 34 bust measure and for 38. Some of the girls are quite large for their age - Jane Andrews and Barbara both are large and will need the 38 size.

Miss James opened a pattern and held up all the pieces. She pinned them to the dress form so as to show the relationship of each piece to the figure. Can you do this, too, before you begin to cut, and so learn which pieces are to be cut on a fold? Then lay the pattern on your cloth most carefully and pin ready for cutting. Do not cut until your teacher says you may. Learn to use a tracing wheel and trace your seams, so all will match in putting the middy together. This garment will be made entirely by machine, except the hand processes of basting and gathering. Hems and facings should be carefully basted before being stitched. Good, perfect stitching improves all such tailored garments. Poor stitching spoils the effect.

How to make a middy blouse. After the pattern has been carefully laid on, and the material cut out, this is the way to make and finish a middy blouse :

1. Baste, with the seams on the outside, shoulder, and underarm seams. Try on. If necessary in order to fit more smoothly across the chest, let the front drop; if extra fullness across the chest is desired, let out under the arms. The shoulder seams will be finished, but not the underarm. Mark with tracing or pencil the new seam for underarm if you must change it.

Make a flat fell seam at the shoulder, 1/2 inch wide finished. You have all learned how.

2. The sleeves, which are in one piece, are put in next, before the sleeves or underarms are seamed. Match the notches, gather the sleeves if there is any fullness at armhole, and baste in the sleeves so that the seam is on the right side. Make flat fells, basting the turn which falls over the sleeves so that it will lie very flat.

3. Baste seams of sleeve and underarm all in one long seam on right side. Match at armhole. Make flat fell, turning the fell towards the front (see page 216).

4. Hem the bottom of the middy with one inch hem.

5. Finish the neck next. Prepare the collar with its facing according to the notches of the pattern and directions. Sew; turn to right side. If the collar is to be decorated with finishing braid, this decorating should be done before the collar and facing are sewed together. Attach collar to middy, right of center collar to right of the center back of middy. The seam will then fall on the inside towards the neck and will be concealed by the facing which should be turned in and sewed over the seam. Patterns for middies vary, and other methods of attaching collar may be suggested. A loose ribbon or scarf of silk can be tied under the collar to form a sailor's knot.

6. Then finish the sleeve. The sleeve may be finished with a half inch hem and rolled as many are worn, or a cuff can be attached which will be of the same width as the sleeve or just to fit the wrist. In the latter case, the fullness of the sleeve must be gathered to fit.

The girls of Pleasant Valley School made sleeves of three quarter length, and attached a turned-up cuff of same width as sleeve. This cuff was made double : the two pieces sewed together, turned, and attached to the sleeve with the seam, on the outside of sleeve. The facing, then, concealed the seam and, when the cuff was turned up, was entirely concealed. This makes a very neat finish inside the sleeve.

Fig. 140. - Eyelets were made by some girls, in the front of their middy waists.

Some of the girls, those who worked rapidly, made eyelets at the front of the middy and laced the middy. Eyelets are punched with a stiletto or sharp point, and are worked like a buttonhole, only perfectly round.

The girls of Pleasant Valley will give an entertainment of calisthenic exercises as soon as their middy suits are entirely completed. The boys will also give some exercises with the dumbbells and join in the folk dancing. "The Pleasant Valley News" has already announced this entertainment at the Town Hall. Every body in Pleasant Valley is going The money will be used to pay for some of the furnishings of the Ellen H. Richards House.

Exercises And Problems

1. Draw a sketch of your middy blouse. How will yours differ from the one in the picture?

2. Try to make another middy at home.