WOMAN’S WORLD.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5492, 25 October 1929, Page 1

WOMAN’S WORLD.

By ANTOINETTE for the “ Hauraki Plains Gazette.” COLOURED LEATHER. The popularity of tennis grows apace, and the modern girl is not satisfied with an ordinary coat and hat. She seeks something practical, but which has some difference, raising it from the commonplace. After the game is finished a coat is required, perhaps, and very few players can resist the temptation of wearing garments which, although eminently sportsmanlike, are also becoming. The idea of utilising coloured leather as a trimming for this purpose is quite original, but could be carried out at home.

First we will consider the hat.. It is a simple matter to find a pretty little white felt hat with sufficient brim to shade the eyes. The leather trimming may be arranged to fit any type. Choose the colours you like, but very bright colours, such as orange, mole, purple, and jade green make an original yet most effective scheme. Cut strips of leather any pattern you wish and paste them on to calico. The best adhesive to use is a mixture of white gum paste or photo mountant, with a little metal glue. When you have finished the gumming, cover with clean white paper, lay the decoration on a hard surface, and roll until quite smooth, using a rolling pin or bottle. If you have a hat that does not lend itself to this type of trimming, paint the same idea on it, using barbola or poster colours to match the leathers you have chosen. When the leather is thoroughly stuck together and quite flat, go round the edge with a stiletto and prick holes at 3-16 in apart. Then with a straight stitch sew the trimming to the hat. A metal thread either gold or silver gives the whole an effective finish.

The trimming for the coat is prepared in quite the same manner and stitched on in the same way wherever you wish, but just a little on the cuffs and collar is usually sufficient. z A sports coat can never look too plain.

NOVEL WALL DECORATIONS. Are we not too much inclined to regard the picture, neatly framed and glazed, as the only possible method of wall decoration ? Actually, there are quite a number of ways by which colour and pattern may relieve the blank spaces with which we are often confronted on account of our modern predilection for plain wallpapers, without recourse to the acquisition of prints or paintings. If we hang pictures, let it be because we enjoy looking at them, not from any supposed necessity to do so. Regarded merely as furnishing accessories, we use pictures to give colour and variety or to balance the weight of the upper with the lower portion of our walls, or hang a mirror - or an oil-painting over a low cabinet to balance a high bookcase and become a pendant to it. Artistic merit is not always the most vital factor ; any picture of the right size and colouring is more effective here than a masterpiece that is too light in colour or too square in shape. It is not difficult to find”reproductions of considerable artistic merit, maps, posters, drawings, flower-pieces, fine lettering, and so on, which, even without glazing or framing, can be used on the walls of the not-too-stereotyped house to give the right touch of colour, and at the same time bring individuality to a room which the kind of picture the majority of us can afford to buy most certainly would not. A fine piece of needlework, a pair of bell-pulls in cross-stitch, a length of richly-coloured Genoa velvet strain*ed on a lath, or a piece of fine silk brocade hung above a mantelpiece, are full of decorative suggestion. In simpler surroundings one may try a brilliant modern design in red or purple, printed on heavy linen. The “Reaper” is the theme or “Longchamps” a design where racehorses and amusing jockey's repeat themselves ; or, where modernity would be out of place, some treasured piece of old “toile de Jony” or English chintz (now growing hard to find) patterned with admirablydrawn flowers in their natural colourings. A painted Indian bedspread, one of the least expensive of textiles, may be hung on a high wall behind a bed or divan with a very decorative effect, and will furnish a rather bare bedroom wall in astonishingly satisfactory fashion. Old cashmere or Paisley shawls of brilliant colouring have a varied part to play in wall decoration, and, given the right setting, will add not merely pattern and colour, but a sensation of comfort and richness as well. A fine Paisley shawl covering the wall bf a recess will make a good background for the display of shining brass or china of Oriental colouring. Old lacquer trays, no matter if their gilt is tarnished and painted designs partly obliterated, have decorative value, too, and may well take the place of some water-colour in a trivial frame. Posters and other advertising matter are a comparatively new form of wall decoration now available for anyone who caree to exercise a certain amount of ingenuity in their use. They may be simply pasted on a sheet of cardboard or plywood and varnished, pinned with drawing pins to the wall or pasted' to the wall itself in rooms where painted walls or simple distemper offer a favourable background. The smaller posters may be framed in passepartout fashion with a brightly-col- ‘ oured binding.