MENDING.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2238, 4 June 1881, Page 4

MENDING.

[“ Queen.”J In my last paper I recommended the devoting of Monday morning to the mending of soiled linen. If properly looked over, you will find an odd variety of things to mend ; and if you will spare your little and big girls from the schoolroom to help to mend whatever comes first out of the handle, that very

variety will give them a deal of experience and practice. Shirts that want buttons, all the remains of the worn out or lost buttons to be carefully removed before sewing on a now pearl one ; to remember not to break the point of the needle against the mother o’ pearl; and if the last button has left a hole, how to darn the hole first with the finest darning cotton, and then on each side put a neat patch of tape before sowing on the new button, and when sewed on with strong cotton, three or four windings round of the cotton to prevent the buttonhole cutting the threads. In sewing on linen buttous, it is a good way to see that the way of the linen on the button is straight. Do not sew them on haphazard, but by the thread, and a cross is rnuoh bettor than any stars or stitchi iga round. A great matter to teach in sewing buttons on is to sew the button firmly pressed against the material, and to draw your thread tight, so that you cannot pull &the button away and see tbe threads after it is done. A few windings round of thread are necessary to prove nt the cutting of the threads by the pulling of the button-hole.

Sometimes day shirts are frayed out at tho edge of tho cuffs and tho breast, and the only remedy finally is, to mend them with new ones ; but for some time buttonholing the edges with as fine a cotton os you would nee for pocket handkerchief hemming, looks very nest, and shows very little when washed and ironed, and, even if it does show, one need never be ashamed of neat mending. Another thing to look for in shirts is the coiners of the button holes, and by mending them with very fine cotton, and going over some of tho good part, you need not show where you begin, or where you leave off—one of tho secrets of good mending. When shirts really require now fronts and wristbands, the only way is to send them to tho shirt maker, as there is no true economy in doing them at homo; and this part of a woman’s work has passed away like shirt making at home, and instead of thanks from our men kind, one’s only reward is a powerful request not to touch their shirts again. So, on Monday morning throw into cold water such shirts as require sending away, and after two or three hours’ soaking, have them washed out roughly, without any soda; dry them, aud put them in a parcel. Night shirts last a long time if made of twilled longclotfa, and if men will only buy six at once. These really can be made at homo, when we are allowed to do so; and new neck bands and collars and cuffs are easily put on when they wear. As education, if rightly interpreted, means an equable and well-balanced development of all our powers, according to our sex, 1 strongly urge upon mothers that some consecutive hours, two or three at a time, should be devoted to needlework by girls in the school room, and on Monday they would not be wanted until ten o’clock to help with the mending, and therefore some brain work might be done before that hour ; and then, while they are helping their mother and maid or needlewoman, their governess cou’d read aloud to them.

The variety that mending affords in the many different articles, each requiring a different needle and kind of cotton, is an education in itself in needlework, and in delicate manipulation, and the “reason why” for things. For instance, a delicate habit shirt is picked up out of the mending bundle by one child, and she has to bo taught perhaps to pick the torn lace off the neck, and sew some more on, and to use a No. 9 needle and suitable cotton, and the way to hold the lace and how to hem the ends neatly. Perhaps this is all the habit shirt needs, and when it is done and put aside as finished, she must be taught to stick her nine-sized needle with the thread in it in her pincushion, as it will come in again for some other article of the same quality as the habit shirt. Perhaps the next thing may be a vest, with the corners torn at the neck, and she must be taught to draw it together, and darn it with darning cotton, then put her darning needle with the cotton in it in her pincushion, and take an eight-sized needle and suitable cotton, and sew a tape on neatly at the edge. When this is finished, she will have a store of three needles and cotton. Perhaps the next thing may be a table napkin, and then is required a fine darning needle, and fine flax thread. The next thing may be a chemise, which may require a button, and then one of the needles and thread comes in. All this teaches her method.

Sheets may bear darning in the centre for a time, but it is a pity to go on too long with mere darning, for they want to be turned when it comes to that. Now a child can easily be taught to turn a sheet; but when, on Monday morning, yon find sheets need turning they ought to go to the wash first, and be turned when they are cl tan.