Decorative Stitches for Children’s Clothes.
How to decorate the simple garments made at home is a question one frequently meets.
SOME PRETTY EFFECTS IN TACKING STITCH
Children’s overalls and frocks, little boys’ tunics, and blouses for the elder girls, usually need some trimming or decoration, and it is often difficult to find just the right kind. This is especially the case with coloured garments, and those for which lace is unsuitable. Many people like a little embroidery, but it is not always easy to get an entirely suitable pattern. Some require more time than the home worker is able to give, and some are more elaborate than is desirable for the garment.
A simple kind of stitchery is usually resorted to, and very often meets the case, and one may see little frocks and tunics of inexpensive materials, with quite a note of distinction given by the pretty stitching on the hems and bands.
The favourite and most frequently seen among the stitches so used, are the French knot, stem stitch and feather stitch. It is with the idea of suggesting other stitches and arrangements, that these diagrams and illustrations are given, and with attention to a very few simple directions, the most diffident worker may be sure of a good result.
One feature of decorative stitchery of this kind, is that it may also be constructional, that is, that where a hem is to be decorated, it need not first be stitched with the machine, the decoration does the work of the machine. This point is not always realised by the home worker, who usually makes the garment with the sewing machine, and then proceeds to decorate it, adding French knots and perhaps stem stitch to hide the machining.
Some machining is often necessary, but much can be dispensed with, without detriment to the garment, and this makes it possible to do, at any rate, part of the home dressmaking, away from the noise and busy atmosphere almost inseparable from a room dominated by a sewing machine.
EFFECTIVE BORDERS FOR CHILDREN’S FROCKS.
In making a little magyar overall, like that illustrated, for instance, the side seams and opening may be sewn with a machine, the hems and neck prepared as if for machining, and then the decoration applied. The home worker, whose husband has a rooted objection to having a sewing machine at work when he comes home in the evening, cuts out and machines part of her work during the day, and has only the pleasant part to do by hand in the evening, while she is free to talk, or listen to the day’s news.
The Belt and Sleeves.
HOW THE HEM AND SLEEVES ARE FINISHED.
The value of the simple tacking stitch as a trimming is not fully realised. On another page are shown some very distinctive effects in this stitch, and in the frock illustrated the stitch is used in conjunction with the Y stitch which is shown and described.
The worker who has not yet used the tacking stitch as a decorative stitch must be careful on a few points, however. The stitch must not be too long, and the length and spacing must be as even as possible.
A novice might make an experiment on a little garment of brown calico, holland or écru-coloured casement cloth.
THE STITCHES USED FOR THE BELT OF THE CHILD’S FROCK.
Turn up the hems on the right side of the garment, and with turkey-red embroidery cotton of medium thickness, make the first row of tacking about where the hem would be machined. The first row is the most important and needs the most care.
THE STITCH THAT IS COMBINED WITH TACKING STITCH ON THE FROCK BELOW.
As a general rule no tacking stitch used as a decoration should be more than half-an-inch in length, and the space between proportionately less. The space between may be equal to the stitch, or may be half or a quarter its length, but neither stitch or space should be longer than half-an-inch, or the result may be a series of long threads, apt to become loops if suddenly caught.
For the experiment, make the stitches about one-third of an inch, and the space between either the same or very small—about one-tenth of an inch. An inch measure at hand to test the first few stitches will quickly help the eye to guess the correct length of the remainder without effort. After the first row, the most difficult part is over, as the second and succeeding rows will be exactly the same length.
A CHILD’S FROCK DECORATED WITH TACKING STITCH AND Y STITCH.
Three rows of stitching close together will result in a pattern of red oblongs, with regular spaces between them. These may become squares if more rows are added.
All the illustrations on [pages 61] and [62] are based on the tacking stitch, and may be applied to the decoration of a hem, or the border of belt or neck.
Pretty Fancy Stitches.
An illustration on [page 63] shows the treatment of the two-inch hem on the child’s frock. The vertical bar repeated at regular intervals round the hem is filled with a variation of the Y stitch, the working of which is shown in diagrams A, B and C on [page 64].
The pattern should be arranged on the sleeves, neck and belt, as shown in the sketch.
The position of each vertical bar should be accurately measured, and marked with a pencil, and a line drawn down the centre of each bar will help to keep the stitch equal on each side.
SOME VARIATIONS OF THE Y STITCH.
The working of this stitch is shown on [page 70].