3. The Scotch or Melton finish.
4. The bare face finish, which has the nap completely sheared off.
While the finish may differ, the general treatment of the cloth is practically the same. The first step is called pulling, when the cloth is soaked in hot water and pulled by a pulling machine. It is soaked, pulled and beaten until it is only half its original length and breadth. It is then rinsed and stretched on a frame where it will dry without a wrinkle. At this time the nap is raised by beating the cloth with the spike head of the teasel plant or its substitute. The pile or nap is then trimmed so as to present a uniform surface, when it is wound tightly around a huge drum and immersed in hot water. Finally it is pressed in a hydraulic press, during which time steam is forced through it. This is to give solidity and smoothness to the cloth and also to add luster to the finished fabric.
CHAPTER IX.
DRESS, AND ITS RELATION TO ART.
Art education should bring to every girl a greater appreciation of beauty and a sufficient knowledge to enable her to beautify her home and to dress herself becomingly. This is the real "applied art" or "applied design" of which we have heard much but seen little.
The power and skill necessary to originate an intricate and artistic design, and a technical knowledge of color-blending are worth something to the individual, but the ability to apply this knowledge later to the decoration of her home and to the selection of her own wardrobe is of vastly greater importance.
An artist who paints the human figure, draws and erases and draws again, and yet again, that the contour of the form he creates may be right in proportion and graceful in line. He studies his coloring, he compares, rejects and blends for a particular shade or tint that makes for complete harmony. No discordant note of color nor turn of line that detracts from the beauty of the whole is allowed. And there are artistic makers-of-garments who put into the costumes they create the same thought and care that the artist spends upon his canvas, but the prices of both are within the reach of very few. Nearly every woman must plan her own wardrobe and choose the furnishings for her home and this is what "Art" and "Domestic Art" in the public schools should train the girl of to-day—the woman of the future—to do.