Evening Star Newspaper, March 17, 1929, Page 57

THE SUNDAY STAR. WASHINGTON., D. €. MARCH 17. 1929—PART S0 Couturiers Find Appropriate Chair for Background BY MARY MARSHALL. i ¥ T is not enough to count noses of the | guests you expect and then estimate | the seating capacity of vour draw. ing rooms or living room—it is not | even enough to see that there are mmr:fimhle upholstered, reposeful seats } for all. The up-to-date hostess must have seats | and chairs of shape and proportion compatiable with the style in which her | salon is furnished—so that she can provide a suitable and convenient back- ground for every type of frock that is worn by her guests, | There must be one-armed chairs and | divans, both of the right-hand and the Jeft-hand type, for the benefit of the | girl who comes in & frock that puffs | out enormously at one side. There must | be tabourets or other backless chairs | for the girl in one of the new 1880 frocks with a bustle at the back: there | must be upholstered chairs with solid arms for the woman with hips that are 2 trifle broad and who wisely wears a slenderly draped frock: and there | should be chairs with open arms or with no arms at all for those who wear pouffes or peplums that call for room | on both sides. | Not only must the thoughtful hostess have seats of those various sorts, but | she must with the greatest tact she can | command see to it that the slender | young flappers with short. straight | skirts who might very well contrive to | sit on almost any sort of chair do not | take possession of the divans, sofas.| pouffes and one-armed chairs needed | for guests who come late wearing | period gowns. | A type of seat that is to be found | occasionallr in rooms of the modernistic | sort is & very large, rather low pouffe— | a circular divan, if you will. And this, | unlike almost all other types of chairs and lounges, has no prototype in fur-| niture of former days. It is purely a| product of the twentieth century. This type of seat, I have been told. | was first devised by one of the famous | French dressmakers whose bouffant pe- | riod gowns have been justly celebrated. | ‘Though fully 50 inches in diameter a pouffe of this sort is designed only for one. With a seat of this sort at her | disposal the girl in the bouffant tulle | frock has no fear of crushing her | pretty ruffies because—if she has been | nroperly instructed—she knows that as | she sits down she should spread her | A CHAIR OF THE “BERGERE” TYPE PROVIDES A BE. COMING BACK- GROUND FOR THE MATRON WITH LESS SLENDER HIPS—WHO WISE- LY CHOOSES A FROCK OF THE DRAPED SORT. THIS IS OF MAUVE LACE_OVER PUR- PLE. WITH MAUVE FLOWERS AT THE SHOULDER. decidedly short, choose a high chair mnn v;lll lte.!l\vefl ynm'u feet dangling ches from the floor. you are round :“'::““;“‘Cgf‘l' . g:fr"‘]‘i’::fl“'m ff;";‘:“:‘f | shouldered don't choose & backless chair riety of new-fangled chairs and seats in | pasit (o win ThaT yith & really high the Mving o Arkwing: sooms | back that will hide your shortcoming, you frequent—even then you should try | I your hips are broad—don't choose rather narrow chair with open sides. to bear in mind the importance of |2 Chooting & background (Hat becomes | A chair with high sides will be yery Fou. | much more becoming. If you are short Don't if you are verging on six feet | above the waist and long legged don't in height pop yourself down on a low | sit upright on a low divan. chair or divan. And don't if you are | (Copsright, 1929.) ruffies all around her—back, front and | sides. | Even if you don't wear frocks of the | Your Baby and Mine BY MYRTLE MEYER ELDRED. “Oh, the poor, poor baby.” says the|element toward which some children sympathetic observer, for there are few | are markedly intolerant. #pectacles more distressing to look at| Protein is a common irritant. The | and more miserably irritating to a|child who drinks quantities of whole | baby than the rash and scabs of eczema. | milk, and gets in addition many foods | It is & matter of both experienced containing protein, such as eggs, or | and inexperienced observation that the | cereals, may be struggling under a load baby with eczema is almost always ro- | of proteins that is just too much for | | him. Formulas that are all out of pr mother is probably large and ;portlon to the baby's body needs m weighty also, and if a bottle baby his |send his weight curve upward admirably | previous gains in weight will have been | before he begins to suffer for his dietary | enormous. All of which should point |indiscretions. There are good reasons | out to the world at large that one way | why mothers are warned that gains of | to deal with this annoying ailment is |8 and 10 ounces weekly are not admira- | generally to cut down the amount of ible and usually fraught with future | food, and especially foods rich in fats | danger. Good foods can become-poisons | or_proteins. when they exceed proper limits. Overfeeding continued for a long! Many mothers have been curious period may so disable a child's.diges- tive abilities that good foods become poison to him. = The present day - wor- ship of the weight chart; the desire to have a fat baby whose rate of gain exceeds all the neighbors’ and rela- tives' children is quite enough in most cases to account for overfeeding. Let us try to round up the usual cul- Pprits in this miserable ailment and keep in mind that no short treatise can cover all the possible causes but only touch upon the generajly accepted points. ‘The rash itself is caused by the elimi- nation through skin of undigested cheek after the child has been cut in the wénd._r;‘vr. lffir' he hn‘anu'en and napped. evidence points strongl. to & diet overloaded with proteins. Th: usual rashes which appear on the child’s face and head and defy all treatments, or which heal up and reap- pear shortly, with or without the watery surface and scabbing, are the most common manifestations of eczema. Starches and sugars are capable of acting formula contains large guantities of as villains, too, and when the sugar, and the baby is eating in addi- W | the attics of their oldest relatives, un- about the phenomena of one bright red | g0 proteins or free fats which have failed to go through the norma) process of digestion owing to the crippling of that process by overwork. These undigested elements are irritating and result in the characteristic rash. There are extemal factors, such as wool or other nappy or feathery objects, that may be causa- tive, but we are trying to “stick” to the subject of food. The plump nursing baby is more than likely imbibing a milk that is very rich in cream, large and weighty mothers having a special fondness for rich and fatty foods. In consequence the baby may be overfed, and the tion large portions of cereal and vege- tables, one can profitably cut down on ! these elements when he has developed |a rash. - ¥ | Perhaps it might be wise to say here | that any rash of any other origin be- | sides food would be accompanied by |signs of illness and of fever, while !eczema might not; also such other rashes will disappear, while eczema | goes on, seemingly, forever. | The diet, then, demands the closest serutiny in an effort to determine what | can be altered and corrected with bene- Easte:Ribbon Is Gay With Bunnies ‘There’s a new ribbon for every use. First and foremost are the Easter ribbons, to be tied around Easter gifts of candy and flowers, toys and books. They have little bunnies in all the accepted gayety of Easter coloring woven A LOW STOOL OR TAB- OURET IS CHOSEN BY THE GIRL WHO WEARS ONE OF THE NEW BUS- TLE FROCKS. THE MOD- EL SHOWN IS OF PRINT- ED TAFFETA. dnto their length, and are bound to attract as much attention as the gift they bind. And then there are card party ribbons—white ribbon showing the dif- ferent pips of the four suits, hearts, diamonds, spades and clubs—as dec- orations. These, needless to say, are to tie up card party prizes. There are birthday ribbons, too, with little lighted-candle cakes for decor: tion. Sometimes they are white, some- times pink, sometimes blue — light, dainty shades, with the candles burning glowingly in orange or rose. These ribbons are so pretty that they make the parcels that tie doubly inter- esting. The birthday ribbons would add much to a birthday Jack Horner pie, for the gifts within the pie could be tied a be carried from the ple to the different plates, where they could be attached to iittle individual candlesticks with lighted | candles, watch! there is an important principle in- | volved. When we give children presents, | j¢_ do sald presents belong to them or | take o us? | Ideas About Child’s Gifts sessing one of his father's small knives. “Oh, mother, Uncle Ben gave me a|His father, believing rather firmly in the doctrine that children must learn It makes a good joke, but, seriously, | by experiente, sald one day after | long siege of coaxing, “Yes, son, take BY OLIVE ROBERTS BARTON. ‘Where’s the screwdriver?” Naturally, we don't want them to " | dissect 50-dollar watches, but don't we | veek. Ve litt] 'as S | make as big a fuss if a boy dismembers 1:,‘{;,“'8?&_ e ey I e 50-cent toy to see how it is made? with them, and the ribbons could then | gifts we make to children, figuratively, | of course, but as real as the twine by knew at once that something had gone very much wrong. He looked the boy which they pull them about. One time a certain doctor's son be- |over. came obsessed with the idea of pos-|he had destroyed something in the | having punishment added. yours.” |ful. and. after all, that was the big We are too apt to tie strings to the |lesson he needed to learn. | house. Whatever it was, it would come |out. His son was always frank and | truthful. At dinner the boy said, “Daddy, I| broke that knife. I don't know what e ? What do What is there to do about “But—it's broken! I thought you'd be very angry.” “Angry! Why? It isn't my knife. I I have another one like it. Now gave it to you. When I give you any- it to your room. The knife's t};l:g “lt's yours. Now let's forget | | about it.” Of course, we're not all giving our children surgical knives, but we're giv- |ing them dolls and airplanes and | | tricycles and all sorts of things that | can be broken. Also we're giving them | scoldings and whippings if they are broken. | Why we do it is a complete mystery. | They usually feel badly enough without (ou mean? (14 ‘The boy cut himself once or twice in He learned to be very care- But one day his father, coming in, No bandages! Then very likely BY BETSY CALLISTER. HILE half the women I know are under the spell of the new interest in modernistic tendencies in furnishing and designing, going about from one exhibition to another and from one shop to the next getting ideas and in- iration for modernistic dining rooms, living rooms, bedrooms, kitchens and figuring out how they can afford to have at least one room of their house done over in the new manner—the other half are poking through second-hand and antique shops, rummaging among packing old trunks, and touring through backwoods sections of the country—so intent are they on adorning their homes with rugs, furniture, bric-a-brac, quilts, samplers and prints that smack not of this century but of the days that have gone before, Interestingly enough, at a time when interest has at last been aroused in this country in the newer style of furnish- ing and decoration, there has come a tremendous wave of popular enthusiasm | for old-fashioned furnishings of - all rts. “ Especially keen at the present time is interest in old patch or piece work quilts and with the increase of appre- ciation of this old-time handicraft has come a desire on the part of many women to revive the old art and make patchwork which, though new in date of achievement, follows old-time pat- terns both as to print of cotton mate- rials chosen and as to the actual de- sign of the “pleces.” While plecework and patchwork are used for quilts and bed covers and old-time quilts are being displayed proudly on beds in many well furnished rooms, new uses have been found for this sort of hafdicraft. Cushions large and small are covered with patches and duly quilted. One clever woman I know is making quaint pieced designs to use on the Summer slip covers for her living | room furniture. There are on sale in some of the shops genuine old pieced or patched quilts that bring prices that would have staggered the women who made them years ago. Some of these were made by American women two or three generations ago—and some of the | | { |8t to baby. |” "Bables suffer tortures from their quantities of food may be too rich to |itching skins, and no water should be | be_digestible |used while the rash is present, just| The bottle-fed baby may be receiving™ olls to clean it, and soothing salves laid | Jersey or Guernsey milk, a milk far too |on thickly and held in place by soft, | Tich for the average child, or he may |cotton cloths. The salves may heai | be unable to take care of even an ordi- | the rash temporarily, but unless some | nary milk, containing just -the usual |thange is made in the diet the cure is | percentage of cream. For cream is an 'seldom permanent. | quilts come from France, Belgium, Hol- land or England, but they show designs that are thoroughly familiar to the women conversant with the traditions of patchwork in this country. A T5-year-old pleced quilt from Nor- mandy that I saw the other day looked as if it might have come from some New England attic—only that the quilt- Blond Beauty Formula For some reason or other blondness 15 a very perishable quality. Gorgeous in thei ildhood and young girlhood, there are very few blonds who retain their striking beauty throughout middle age. Thus it behooves the fair-skinned girl to take exceptionally good care of Ine beauty nature has given her. It goes without saying that she should never expose her complexion to the ravages of the sun or cold or wind, for all roughening or tanning leaves an imprint that is practically ineradicable. To expose a sensitive blond com- plexion to & stinging wind is compara- | ble to brushing a rose petal with acid and 1o expose it to the direct rays of the hot Summer sun is not uniike searing it with & blow torch Of course, there are ways of healin the damaged epidermis, way to repair the damage is to avoid it in the first place. Creams and oint- ments can’t take the place of foresight. | The darkening of the hair is what blonds fear most. To prevent this, in- finite care must be taken in washing the golden strands. None but the best grade of toilet soap should be used— jmported castile is the safest—and the hair should be thoroughly rinsed after shampooing with castile soap and warm xater. ) To keep blond hair light without bands or buttoned front clow but the best ing though very fine seemed to have been done with rather heavier thread, the material used seemed a bit heavier. unnaturally bleaching it, the final rinse should contain two teaspoonfuls of hydrogen of peroxide and two tea- spoonfuls of ammonia water to four quarts of water. Another method is to rinse with a basin of water in which two teaspoon- fuls of salts of potash (carbonate of potash) has been dissolved. Blond hair should be washed often and, preferably, dried in the sun. Oil, natural or artificlal, is darkening to | blond hair and should be kept out of | the hair by frequent washings in borax water. Diagonal Lines Are in Picture The diagonal of fashion is important | when t] | There e the same small old-time | ecalico prints and the same designs | {achieved in the piecing. I asked the | dealer for what purpose such a quilt would be employed. “It may be used for a bedspread— pernaps by some decorator who is fur- nishing a room in French provincial furniture, or it may be cut up to be| used for upholstery on chairs and day beds—though that would be a pity. | Sometimes such quilts are hung against a wall—possibly as the background for a quaint old bed.” | And what, one asks, is the difference | between patchwork and piecework— two terms used in connection with ‘old- time quilts. Popularly speaking patchwork is used to apply to any sort of quilt cover {in which bits of cloth are used to work fout a design. But strictly speaking— and as understood by experts—patch- work -gpnu only to this sort of thing e pieces are appliqued. Many —and is achieved in many different [of the most elaborate of the old quilts | were done in this way. Piecework ap- plies to quilt covers in which the spe- | cially shaped pieces are sewn together | in nairow seams to form the design. Some of the old quilts show combi- nations of these two methods. While | more elaborate and more graceful ef-| fects may be obtained in the patch- work—-in which petals and leaves are sewn on in the form of “patches,” the | elaborate plecework aquilt called for more exact cutting and sewing. It was ways. Many of the new evening frocks have | diagonal flounces, often diagonal hem- lines, and sometimes flounce and hem- | ine diagonals run in different directions, the flounce dropping to the left, the hemline dropping to the right Some of the new sport frocks show trimming diagonal lines of stitching. Old Patterns Used in ABOVE ARE SHOWN THREE INTERESTING QUILTS—ONE MADE FROM BIG BANDANAS PIECED TOGETHER AND THEN QUILTED, AND THE OTHER TWO MADE WITH OLD PATCH- ED DESIGNS. a more precise art, calling for a sort of ingenuity that was not required for “patchin The girl who nowadays | would have specialized in geometry and | draftsmanship in college would in the old days have chosen piecework, while the girl with a flare for designing and freehand drawing would have chosen patchwork designs instead. Plecing or. patching was pick-up work, and I suppose many an other- wise interminable Winter's day was| made interesting and profitable by girls | and women who were working on their | quilt covers. Little girls learned first lessons in needlework on some of the coarser blocks of quilt covers. Mothers | kept a plece or two at hand to work | over when rocking baby to sleep an | old women sitting by the fire—when | they grew tired of knitting—felt that they were still useful members of the household so long as they could take a hand with the quilt making. The actual quiltng was a more So- ciable proposition. This was done after the last stitch of the plecing or patching was finished and the various | blocks had finally beef,sewn together. | Strips of material for ‘the backing of Patchwork 33 N2 Tula the quilt, having been sewn together, ent-day bridge parties. For the coarser were arranged on the quilting frames, |SOrt of every-day quilts one invited younger girls—and women who might then came & layer of wadding and then | YOUNECr girismand vomen who might | face upward t!.» more or less elaborate | precise stitches. When the more elab- quilt cover. And then the quilting |orate quilt was on the frames one in- began. . |vited only the most deft—just s one And quilting parties at which one's|takes care nowadays not to invite the friends assembled to help make light}punglers with the exverts when one THIS MODERNISTIC. ONE-ARMED MADE EXPRESSLY FOR THE GIR ONLY ON ONE SIDE. Our Pa Back to ancient Egypt one must go to get the material for the first chapter | of the history of patch work—or s that is out of the question to a museum where examples of the arts of ancient | Egypt are shown in glass cases. In| the tombs of the ancient kings and queens of Egypt interesting examples of this centuries-old handcraft are to| be found. In some of the stores today you can buy panels suitable for wall hangings, table covers, etc., showing bits of modern patch work from Egypt that are amazingly similar to the work done by the needlewomen of the pha- roahs so many hundreds of years ago.| ‘This is all, as you will notice, patch | work—that is applique work. It is done on coarse, unbleached cotton ma- terial with coarsely appliqued pieces representing the conventional Egyptian figures—slender brown figures about | household tasks, standing rowing their | shallow boats, lotus flowers, Egyptian | animals. In our own country the gentle art of plecing and p-umng was_intro- | duced by the Dutch and the English | ~—not by the French. True piecing and | and patching was done in France, but French settlements in this country were | usually in colder sections where a plen- tiful supply of skins and furs served the purpose of bed covers in Winter | and where with the greater hardships | of a more rigorous climate the women | had all too little time to devote to | the more tedious forms of hand work. | As one might suppose the traditions | BY MISSIS PHYLLIS. A sour-faced shelter-house philoso- pher was heard to say no longer ago than yesterday: “Women read? Women don’t read. They just the society and scand newspapers and devour novels and sloppy, love stories. Women don't read!™ - 8o, rise, up, ye women, and defend your sex 80 sweeping a state- ment! One woman has taken the trouble to find out when her woman friends did their reading. She found that: | Nine did it in the even after all | the work was done. Of these nine, seven went to sleep within one hour, Four did it in the afiernoon after luncheon. (These were childiess wom- en.) Seventeen did it on the street cars. (These were working women.) Two did it in the morning. (These were married women living with their parents.) One did it during the baby's nap. ‘The seven poor dears who went to sleep over their books in the evening were mothers of young children. “It's the only time we have, my dear.” said they. “What with taking the chil- dren out for an alring and giving them | ce | of women to another without the aid | England. CHAIR SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN L WHOSE FROCK IS TRIMMED Inspiration in Egypt for tchwork Quilts tterns of plecing and patching and anded down from one generation were of written or printed directions. In Colonial times women meeting other ‘women from other settlements or colo- nies exchanged patterns for. pleces or - patches. © Sometimes these were cut from paper—oftener they consisted of & ~ sample “piece” that might form the nucleus of the new quilt. If husbands journeyed afar, wives gave them sam- ple pleces ‘«‘) take with them to give as tokens of their remembrance to friends and relatives whose hospitality they expected to receive. And so the cul-- . ture of quilt making spread from one settlement and from one colony to an- other and English colonists made quilts - from patterns that had come from Hol- - iand and Dutch settlers of New Nether- uqn~ |lands covered their beds with quilts patterned after designs that had been ;i originally brought to this country from Some of the better known patterns—bearing slight differences and ,-n different names—were to be found among the traditions of widely sep- .wz arated colonies—showing that originally .- the patterns for these pieces had come from the same source. Many of the names of these pisces show the effect of Bible reading—Star of the East, Tree of Paradise, Jacob's Ladder, Solomon’s Temple, for instance. Others have a more homely sound—Tea - Leaves, Puss in the Corner, Wild Goose Chase. Log Cabin and Drunker's Path as examples. And if she can't discuss funny inci- dents met with during a day out in the busy streets, she can discuss funny inci- dents come upon in the pages of an interesting book. To find time to read, the mother of little children may have to get up ear- ler in the momln{: she may have to slide over her work a bit faster; she may have to painst ly plan 8 bet- ter working schedule. But it will be worth all the. trouble in the end. ‘What did these various women read> The majority read fiction with a slight smattering of magazine articles and “recommended” books in the libraries A few read biographies and essays along with a smattering of the best in fiction. One or two read poetry. ‘Two read a great deal of present-day problem books and history. A All read the newspapers, some with care. So it appears that the shelter-house philosopher was a tiny bit right about the fiction. However, “The Scarlet Let- % ter” and “Caspar Hauser” are fiction— | but you surely wouldn't call it & waste of time to read them. A married woman who has & hus- their baths and naps and dinners and suppers, we don't have time for a thing else during the day, except our house work. And then the pity of it is tha by night we are so tired we can't enjo; band who reads a good deal may find t a pleasure to discover how many of he same books they read. Tha fun i 8 thing.-not even fiction, to say nothing | 4150 in the discussion of the, books—a of anything deeper.” | man's point of view and a woman's i magazine seems the end of a rainbow, | most. | age. Can't you just hear the shelter-house philosopher chortle at that confession? | Asked why they didn’t read when the | baby took his nap, they cried out, one and all, “Mercy! That's the only time | we have to get the work done up. How ! could we?>" | Well, it's like this. We all use our time for the things that seem most im- portant. If washing dishes and run- ning the vacuum over the living room rug seems to us to be breathlessly wait- ing for attention, we wash and we run If reading the continued story in a | we read. If perusing a treatise on wom- an's part in the late war or the prob- lem of self-government in the Philip- pines seems to be the gravest duty of the moment, we peruse. ‘Taken all in all—just which is the important? Dishes must b¢ washed, We can't live in a house thick with dust—at least not live to a ripe old But if a woman's life is bound by dishes, vacuum cleaners and babies’ meals, of what interest is she going to be to her husband? . And how impor- tant is it that she be of interest to the man with whom she elected to live? ‘That last is easy. It is so important that it is the difference between a happy home (though mortgaged) and an unhappy one (though paid for). If a woman can't get out among peo- ple much because the' children are Joung, she can at least get out among ks. If she can't t she can do the next best thin v | work of this last phase of quilt making | makes up lists for one’s bridge parties. were every bit as entertaining as pres- ‘cowmnt, 1929.) other people and other places by what people in the know have written. may be so very far apart and so com- paratively interesting. So, sisters, lay aside the dust mop and the iroping board once in a while and get out a new book. Money and time spent on a good book are seldom wasted. SELRIBEUNI bonn 02 2208 4, Rainl;(;“: : N;pki r{s In Many Colors A new idea in table linen was shown the other day at a luncheon. The round table was covered with a white lace cloth. But it might just as effectively have been of linen or damask. Any white and lovely cloth would have done. At each place there was a folded napkin of handkerchief linen—and no two of the nine on the table were of the same shade. There were peach and apricot and rose, pale lemon, light lav- ender, violet of a darker shade, light blue and deep blue and green. One could easily make up a rainbow of shades that would number twelve, for handkerchief " linens come in so many lovely colors. The napkins were finished with hand hemstitched hems half an inch wide. They would be equally effective edged with tiny edging of lace. The same idea for a bridge-table set could be used. Four napkins, pink, blue, yellow and green, with a white cover. That would make a lovely. Easter z“t‘z‘e or an equally desirable card-party prize, 3 R B AR LY AP AP DA BB B I AF A NGR R OP Vovem e -