A Set of Tea-Napkins.
There hardly could be a nicer gift for a girl to make for her mother or married sister than a set of tea-napkins, with a large initial letter in white, or white and red, embroidered on each. The doily should be folded in four, and the letter out-lined in lead pencil in the corner of one of the quarters. If inked very black on paper, and held dry to the window behind the linen, the initial is easily traced. The pattern is then run and "stuffed" with heavy working-cotton, and the letter embroidered in finer cotton. Another nice gift is a long fringed towel, with three very large letters in white, or blue, or crimson, worked half-way between the middle and the side edge. Folded over lengthwise, it is a convenient thing to lay on a bureau-top or the front of a sideboard, and the large colored letters make it ornamental as well. Patterns of initials can be bought in any fancy shop. If desired, they can be bought already worked, requiring only to be transferred to the napkin.
Napkin-Bands.
Any of you who have mastered cross-stitch, and learned to follow a pattern, will find these bands easy enough to make. Their use is to fasten a napkin round a child's neck at dinner, and take the place of that disobliging "pin," which is never at hand when wanted. You must cut a strip of Java canvas, two inches wide by a foot long; overcast the edges, and work on it some easy little vine in worsted, or a Grecian pattern, or, if you like, a short motto, such as "More haste, worse speed." Line the strip with silk, turn in the edges, overhand them, and finish the ends with two of those gilt clasps which are used to loop up ladies' dresses.
A Rustic Vase.
It is very easy to get the material out of which this vase is made. You need only go to your wood-pile, or, if you have none, to the wood-pile of a neighbor. Choose a round stick four inches in diameter and eight or ten inches long, with a smooth bark. If you find the stick, and it is too long, you can easily saw off an end. Now comes the difficult part of the work: The inside of the stick must be scooped out to within four inches of the bottom. The easiest way of accomplishing this will be to send it to a turning-mill if there is one at hand; if not, patience and a jack-knife will in the end prevail. Next, with a little oil-color, paint a pretty design on the bark, if you can,—trailing-arbutus, partridge berry, sprays of linnea,—any wood thing which can be supposed to cluster naturally round a stump. Set the stump in a flower-pot saucer, filled with earth, and planted with mosses and tiny ferns; fit a footless wine or champagne glass, or a plain cup, into the hollow end, and, with a bunch of grasses and wild flowers, or autumn leaves, you have a really exquisite vase, prettier than any formal article bought in a shop,[page 49] and costing little more than time and patience, with a touch of that rare thing—taste! which, after all, is not so very rare as some people imagine. Any friend will prize such a vase of your own making.
A Table-Cover.
A really charming cover for a small table can be made in this way: Cut a square—or oblong, as the case may be—of that loosely woven linen which is used for glass-towels, making it about four inches larger all round than the table it is meant to fit. Pale yellow or brown is the best color to select. Ravel the edges into a fringe two inches deep; then, beginning two inches within the edge, draw the linen threads all round in a band an inch and three-quarters wide. Lace the plain space thus left with dark-red ribbon of the same width, woven in and out in regular spaces, and at each corner tie the ribbon in a graceful knot with drooping ends.
Another Table-Cover.
This cover is made of pale-brown Turkish toweling. Cut a piece of the size to suit your table, and baste all round it, first a row of scarlet worsted braid, then of olive, then of yellow, leaving spaces each an inch and a half wide between the rows. Cat-stitch the braids down on both edges with saddlers' silk, and feather-stitch between them in silks, choosing colors which harmonize, and turning the whole into a wide stripe brilliant and soft at the same time. The choice and placing of the colors will be excellent practice for your eye, and after a little while you will be able to tell, as soon as a couple of inches are done, if you are putting the right tint into the right place. It is infinitely more interesting to feel your way thus through a piece of work than to follow any set pattern, however pretty, and it is far more cultivating to the taste.