The Test of a Good Housekeeper - How to Keep Linen in Good Repair - Three Kinds of Darns Precautions and Hints - Damask Darning

The condition in which household linen is kept is one great test of good or bad household management.

Every good housekeeper should take pains to prevent linen from falling into rags ore the utmost possible wear has been extracted from it, and she should consider it a disgrace if anything is allowed to wear out from lack of attention and carelessness.

Mending, like all other arts, must be learnt, and it is only after it has been practised until a certain amount of perfection has been gained that it can give pleasure and satisfaction to the worker.

Linen requires attention within a very short time of its being put into use, and then the mending must be done weekly or fortnightly throughout the year, If possible, the day after the clothes come from the laundry should be chosen for this. All holes and thin places that require darning, broken buttonholes, undone seams, etc., should be attended to, patches added where necessary, and missing buttons and tapes replaced before the things are put back on the shelves of the linen cupboard.

Although not a very pleasant occupation, certain amount of mending should be done before the articles are washed. Rents and tears should at least be run together, or the friction of washing will only make them worse.

Table linen should be mended thoroughly before washing, as not only is it softer and easier to work on, but its appearance would be very much spoiled were the mending delayed until after washing and ironing.

Darning

The aim in darning should be to mend in such a way as to hide, so far as possible, the fact that the material has required mending.

The thread used should, therefore, be as like the material to be darned, both in colour and texture, as it is possible to get it. It should be soft and yielding and rather loosely twisted, and for some darns it should be rather finer than the threads of the material.

The needle should be long, as several stitches will be taken on it at one time, and no coarser than is necessary to take in the thread.

Darning should, as far as possible, imitate the weaving of the material being mended, new threads supplying the place of those that are torn or worn out.

All woven materials consist of two sets of threads - the warp threads, which run the entire length of the material, and which, in process of manufacture, are stretched tightly on the loom, and the weft, or woof threads, which cross the warp threads at right angles and are woven into them.

It will be noticed that the weft threads take up a few of the warp threads, and miss a few alternately, and in this way various designs are formed.

Darning in its simplest form consists in making a plain lattice-work of threads over a hole; in its more elaborate form it resembles hand weaving, and the pattern of the weaving is imitated.

Care must be taken that the mending threads do not in any way strain or pucker the material, and to avoid this the thumb should be placed on the thread as it is drawn through, and a small loop left to allow of any shrinkage in washing. These loops should be equal in length, and may be cut if liked.

Darning may be employed to repair:

A thin place caused by wear,

A small hole,

A cross cut caused by the careless use of a knife or by machinery.

To Strengthen a Thin Place

One of the first principles to be taught in mending is not to wait till the hole is made. Actual holes may often be prevented from coming if thin places are strengthened as soon as they appear. A great deal of time and labour will thus be saved and more satisfactory results obtained.

The threads used for this kind of darning should be rather thinner than those of the material, as the old threads are not cut away.

As thin parts generally occur in places where there is considerable strain upon the material, the object of darning must be to impart strength, and for this reason a somewhat larger surface than may at first appear necessary should be covered with the stitch.

Examine the weak place carefully and commence at the left-hand side, well below the first thin thread. Take up one or two threads on the needle, according to the thickness of the material, and miss one or two alternately, until the outermost edge of the thin part is reached. Then work the needle back in the same way, this time picking up the threads that were missed in the previous row and missing those that were raised.

It is not necessary to cross this darning, as the old threads remain, and rows of cross stitches would render the part too thick.

The darn should not have a straight edge, but may be either slanting or diamond shaped. This prevents all the strain of the new threads from being borne by one row of threads, which would probably cause another weak place to appear before long. To be continued.

By Lydia Chatterton, F.r.h.s.

By Lydia Chatterton, F.r.h.s.

How to Gather Wild Flowers - Keeping Them until Required - Suitable Receptacles for Different Species of Flowers - Home-made Table Flower Baskets - A Pretty Wild-flower Scheme - A Bluebell

Woodland Scene

It is indeed a truism that the things we obtain without trouble we value lightly, and certainly this seems to apply more to flowers than to anything else.

Yet it is by no means the most beautiful hothouse flowers that produce the most pleasing results. On the contrary, really delightful table decorations can be obtained from a few handfuls of wild flowers manipulated by clever fingers.

When you sally forth to gather wild flowers, arm yourself with a basket as well as a pair of scissors, and if you can line your basket with damp moss, so much the better. As you cull each blossom, place it lightly in the basket. It is fatal to carry wild flowers; they will fade quickly, and will be a long time reviving, if indeed they do revive.