FEMININE REFLECTIONS

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 295, 5 March 1928, Page 5

FEMININE REFLECTIONS

EVERYDAY ECONOMIES THE WITS-END CLUB A n«w novel may be selected by j the winner each week as a p/ize for the most original household hint or ! recipe that has been tested and found | to save time, labour or money. Many l folk might be glad to have the benefit of your experience, so send in your suggestions, addressed to The Homecrafts Editor, Women's Faae. THE SUN. Auckland. This week the prize has been given to Mrs. L. Butcher, Parnell, for the following suggestion: YOUR KETTLE HANDLE If the handle becomes unbearably hot when used on a gas stove it is a good plan to bind it round and round with string. This should be fairly thick if you wish to make a neat job of it. Start by making a tie at one end of the handle—the knot must be underneath, of course—and leave free about eight inches of the short end of the string. Bind the long end of the string round and round, finally tying the two free ends with the knot underneath once more. L.B. CONCERNING WOODWORK White paint is the housewife’s bugbear. If burdened with such, the be.% means to speedy cleansing is a few tablespoons full of paraffin to a pail of nice, hot water, used with a soft cloth and some good household soap. This will wash the woodwork clean; when dry, goeover the paint with a soft, dry rag to give a finished surface. BITES AND STINGS How often a river picnic or tea party in the garden is entirely spoilt by gnats and other insects. A little oil of bergamot or lavender added to the morning bath will help to ward off the attentions of these insects, and if the ankles and wrists are dabbed with aromatic oil—lavender. cloves. bergamot, etc. —bites can often be prevented. Once bitten, ammonia and dabbing with the blue-bag are good for stopping the irritation. In the case of bee and wasp stings, first remove the sting, and then treat with vinegar, ammonia or the juice of an onion. TO MAKE HARD SOAP For 101 b. of soap take s£lb. of clean, unsalted grease. Lard and tallow make an excellent combination. or either used separately is good. Melt the grease in a saucepan, and cool it until it is only lukewarm. While the grease cools, dissolve a lib. tin of lye in 3 h pints of cold water, and heat it lukewarm in an earthen or iron vessel. A good test for the grease is to have it just warm to the hand. Then pour the lukewarm lye into the grease (not the grease into the lye) and stir car*» fully until the two are thoroughly combined. If you stir them too long they will separate. The mixture is put into a wooden box, lined with paper or calico, and set in a warm place for a day or two. Cut it into oblong cakes with a string or fine wire. HINTS ON STAINING FLOORS Before starting to stain a floor, go over it with a pair of pincers, pulling out any old nails. Remove paint marks with turpentine, and grease with anV monia. Then scrub the boards with hot water and soap, being careful scrub with the grain of the wood. Open all windows, prop open the door to create a draught, and leave to dry thoroughly.

MAKE VOUR OWN STAIN While the floor is drying, prepare your stain. Permanganate of potash makes a good, inexpensive stain; so does Vandyke brown. Do not mix varnish with your stain; this will only peel off and give you infinite trouble. Stain first, then polish with a good floor polish. This is the most successful way of proceeding. To make permanganate stain, buy half a pound of the cheapest quality of permanganate crystals and dissolve these in hot water, using about three parts of a pailful. Mix in an old pail, for the stain will spoil a new vessel. Apply while hot with a brush. Do not leave the brush in the stain when finished with, or it will lose every hair. The quantity of stain given will cover a fair-sized floor. If you need if to be very dark, repeat the process For Vandyke brown stain, buy some Vandyke .brown pigment from the oil and colour shop, mix it to a paste with ammonia and then add water till you have the shade of brown you require. Apply to the boards with a brush and leave till quite dry. A GOOD POLISH Be sure your stained floor is quite dry before you commence to polish it. Then go over it once with boi.'ed linseed oil, applied with a brush. Again leave to dry before the final polishing. A good recipe for floor polish is the following: Shred 1 ounce of Castile soap and 1§ ounces of beeswax, and dissolve them in two gills of turpentine. Keep them from light and fire, as the turpentine is inflammable. THINGS WORTH REMEMBERING Stains on baking dishes can be easily removed by rubbing with flannel dipped in whiting. Never allow food to become cold in a metal utensil, however clean, an unpleasant flavour will result. To clean the silver in everyday use, rub with a damp cloth dipped in baking soda; polish with chamois skin. A pinch of salt on the tongue, followed by a drink of cold water ten minutes after, will often cure a headache. A small rug for the sewing machine, made to fit the treadles, will keep the feet warm when using the machine in cold weather. Vinegar will remove rust, and if a few drops are burnt on a hot plate a room filled with smoke from cooking is quickly cleared. To remove the odour of perspiration, place about two tablespoonfuls of ammonia in a basin of warm water, and apply to the affected part. A short hatpin is useful at the sewing machine, as with it one can guide and place the work. Keep the hatpin in the sewing machine drawer. For cleaning jewellery there is nothing better than ammonia and water. If dull and divty, rub a little soap on a soft brush, and brush the pieces in this wash. Rinse in clear water and polish with chamois skin. NOVEL ACCESSORIES Here is the very latest from Hollywood —fur garters. First worn in Paris at a fashionable ball, the fad has been brought to Hollywood by one of Paramount’s actresses. The particular set worn by Chariot Bird was made of 38 ermine tails, but almost any fur could be used. These garters are specially suited for the lass who takes her dancing seriously, incidentally offer a really worth-while idea for those on the look-out for novelty birthday gift®.

Mundane Musings The Girl in the Garage “How proud i was of my little daughter. Never had there been such blue eyes, such golden curls—of that I was convinced. Nothing was too good for her. She must have the best of everything. “How proud 1 was when she was old enough to accompany me on my walks, sure that all passers-by were admiring her as much as 1 did. “I counted the years until she should be grown up, planned the parties I would give for her, imagined how she would look in her first long dress, the excitement of “taking her hair up”; though of her pretty, coaxing ways when she wanted a little extra, and had outrun her allowance, and knew that her ‘petit papa” would satisfy all the little vanities that man loves to bestow on woman—with the logs burning brightly, and my pretty grownup daughter in her soft muslin evening frock and ribbons, sitting at the piano playing my favourite tunes the winter evenings would fly. On her twenty-first birthday I should give her a nice, simple, girlish string of -eads.” But it did not happen. There was no excitement of going into long frocks, no hair to put up. The slim, boyish-looking creature who saunters occasionally into my study to take my cigarettes, with a long cigarette holder in her mouth, or “bee,” as she calls it, does not sit on my knee and coax little vanities out of me——oh, dear me, no! She offers me special terms if I like to garage my car at the place round the corner, where, as she lightly informs me, she has apprenticed herself. I go there, and my daughter in a greasy overall, big boots, and begrimed face, jerks up the pump and fills my tank. “I groan inwardly as a picture of the girl at the piano, with the firelight dancing on her curls, rises before me. “She does play the piano, with a force and energy that is amazing—jazz, jazz, jazz. 1 am driven to hide in my study away from it, and if I ask for a gentle, tuneful melody, ‘Play me a little “Traviata,” my dear,’ I am met by a joyous peal of laughter: “Oh, pops, you are the most old-fashioned old darling—as if 1 can play that sentimental tosh.’ “The evenings do not pass quickly, for I dare not sleep until in the early hours I hear her cheery ‘Good-night, and thanks awfully,' a taxi rattle away, the front door bang, leaping feet upstairs, another door, and I know she is in. Then I sleep. “She says if it is all the same to me she will not have pearls for her birthday—imitation are just as good, and she’d like a partnership in the garage. It is by no means all the same to me but what can I do? I must not be old-fashioned, lam told. The modern girl, with her work and her sport and her independence, is a more healthy creature than the feminine creature of the last generation. Perhaps so, and of course if I want her society I can always have one of her taxis for an hour or two, but then — one must not talk to the man at the wheel, and so I wonder if it is any use learning to dance?”