How to amuse yourself and others

by Lina Beard; Adelia B. Beard

The third illustration shows a fan made in the shape of a daisy. Diagram on [page 183] shows a section of the pattern.

Daisy Fan.

White paper should be used, and it must be laid in thirty-four plaits, which will give the flower fifteen whole and two half petals, the half petals being at each end.

The tinted part of pattern indicates where it is painted yellow to form the centre of the daisy.

For a plain round fan no pattern is needed. It is made simply of a strip of paper, of the width used for the other fans, and has about thirty plaits. When fans of this kind are made of colored paper in solid tints they are very pretty. Pieces of bright, figured wall-paper left from papering a room can be utilized, and quite effective fans be made of them to use for decoration.

Pattern for Daisy Fan.

Another style of fan is represented in our last illustration. It is made of twenty slats of cardboard cut after pattern Fig. 126. These slats are joined together at the top and centre with narrow ribbon passed through the slits cut for it, as shown in Fig. 127. Over the ribbon where it passes through the top slits, on the wrong side of the fan, square pieces of paper are pasted, which hold the ribbon down securely at these points. The paper is pasted only at each end of the ribbon in the middle row. It is best to leave one end of this ribbon loose until the fan is joined at the bottom; then opening the fan, and drawing the ribbon until it fits the fan smoothly, it can be cut the right length and the loose end fastened down. A ribbon is also used to hold the slats together at the bottom; a bow at each side keeps them in place (see Fig. 128). When a large fan for decoration is desired, the slats should be about eighteen inches long, two and a half inches wide at the top, and one and a half inch wide at the bottom. The fan may be larger still, in which case it can be used as a screen to set before an empty fire-place. For this purpose the slats have to be two feet long, four inches wide at the top, and two and a half inches wide at the bottom.