RUSTIC HATS. [From " The Queen."]

Waikato Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2107, 9 January 1886, Page 2 (Supplement)

RUSTIC HATS. [From " The Queen."]

Queen."] Most people know the story of the poor, but high born and lovely damsel who was staying in a great house when a masquerade was proposed, and had only a shilling in her pocket wherewith to purchase suit able attire for the occasion. She rode off to the Dearest town and exchanged that coin for a coarse straw hat, but would have been in a dilemma about the trimming had she not observed on her way a carpenter, who, as he planed a piece of wood, took off shavings striped with two or three colours. Some of these she begged, and, on her return, trimmed the hat with them. In the evening she appeared as a rustic maid or shepherdess in a clean white muslin dress, with her very inexpensive but picturesque hat, was universally acknowledged as the belle of the room, and make the conquest which raised her to tha highest rank of the peerage. This experience is icarcely likely to be repeated, but- girls can, if they choose, make themselves pretty and suitable hats for fetes, river, garden or tennis parties

at little cost, and what is quite as dcsir-al-le, may have them ever fresh and new. Take one of the common basket-work hats, that may be bought almost anywhere for a few pence, but never are bought by servants or work girU, who despise them as not smart enough. Such a hat only requires a bunch of real flowers, which should, by preference, bo wild ones, to be quite suitable for their pnrpose, but the wearer will bo wise if she procures a homely common cabbage leaf and puts it inside the crown as a protection from the sun. With a white or tussore dress it is perfection, or with a cream flannel, but it should not be worn with anything more pretentious. An improvement on the basket-work hat, however, is a brown or white willow, or a coarse green straw, the straw being dipped of the colour that Robbie Burns mii3t have had in his mind's eye whon he sang " Green grow the rashes, O !" Eithpr the straws or willow, or both, may be bought, and for those who are fond of work plaiting them is rather a pretty employment. What is called pearl plait, which children are often taught to make with strips of paper in the nursery, looks very well for this purpose, but it takes a good many yards. A wider plait can be made with seven straws or strips, the plaiter'a formula of work being " under one and over two.'' This may easily be nnderHtood by undoing a little bit of coarse plait, and doing it up again, but it requires practice to keep il flat and regular. Of course it in proferable to be shown by an adept, but the accomplishmpnt is not very common outside Bucks and Bedfordshire. Straw must be kept damp, or it will be brittle and snap in the process of plaiting ; but willow is not subject to this disadvantage, and is more easily worked. Honeysuckle, which is in bloom in the hedges from June to September, make* a charming trimming 1 , and so does wild roses, white and pink. A little later on in the summer oats and a few scarlet poppies, or first the blossoms and then the fluffy seedi of the wild clematis, or traveller* joy, relieved by poppies, looks remarkably well, or for a nut- brown maid a lijrht brown willow hat with a few clusters of hazel leaves and nuts, the latter flushed with brown as they are about September, would be both pretty and suggestive. The sewinif together of the plait is a simple operation, and it is stiff enough to keep whatever shape may be preferred. A wide brim, however, requires a fine wire of thp sime tint as the plait to be sewn round with long stitches just outside.