SOME DRESSMAKING HINTS

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 310, 22 March 1928, Page 5

SOME DRESSMAKING HINTS

Here are some useful hints that may help the home dressmaker to achieve better results:

1. Be careful to use only the best steel pins when pinning your material to the paper pattern. Coarse, clumsy pins tear fine fabrics and leave marks that cannot afterwards b© removed. 2. In preparing a fabric for hemstitching, do all the tacking in a silk that exactly matches the material. It will be practically impossible to withdraw the whole of the tackings and a contrasting colour is bound to show up badly. 3. On the return of a length of skirt material from the pleaters, be sure to machine-stitch the top edge firmly before withdrawing it from its paper wrapping. Only thus will you secure a neat, even effect in the finished skirt. 4. When you have cut out your jumper, run a stout thread all round the neck before trying it on so that you will not be likely to stretch it out of shape. Tie the ends of the thread to the size that you wish the neck to be. 5. When working on tweed or other thick material, do not attempt to stitch up the hem without having first machined a silk Prussian binding to the edge. The other side of the binding can then be felled invisibly and with loose stitches. 6. When taking a seam from the sewing machine, leave sufficient ends of cotton to allow for tying. Each tuck also should be securely tied at the back to avoid risk of becoming loose at the ends. 7. When several lines of gathers have to be made, better effects can be secured by using a low tension on yowr machine than if the work is done by hand. S.L. Crumble a soda biscuit into your saucepan of scrambled eggs. They will go further and the biscuit absorbs the surplus moisture and generally improves the dish. When castors in old pieces of furniture fall out, turn the furniture upside down, pour melted paraffin in the hole, insert the castor and let the wax harden.