Beautiful Needlework

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 107, 11 July 1941, Page 5

Beautiful Needlework

T is in the Convents of France, that much of the beautiful hand-made lingerie is produced, which finds its way into the expensive trousseaux for the wealthy brides all over the world. Many brides, too, send their house linen, perhaps the finest that Belfast can produce, to France to have the monograms embroidered upon it. Every sheet and towel and pillow-

slip-everything is marked with the same device. This tradition of needlecraft still belongs to the French Convents, or to some of them, which specialise in such work, and they train girls to become skilled needlewomen. I remember once when I was staying in the country in England there was a sale of household goods at the local manor house. The bwner had died, and there

was no direct heir, so much of the furniture and equipment was being offered for sale, The friends I was staying with took me with them. I have never seen such beautiful linen, as fine and smooth as satin, and every piece had a coronet and monogram embroidered on it. There was a huge crowd there, ‘and I found the keenest competition for the embroidered line. And rich Americans were among the most eager to buy, and they were paying very high prices for it .. . not by the dozen or half-dozen, but per piece,"Many people were content to buy one pillowslip. It was almost like a high-priced souvenir hunt.-(" Shoes and Ships and Sealing-wax," by Miss Nelle Scanlan, 1YA, June 24.)