COMFORTS IN BED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 58, 9 March 1935, Page 3 (Supplement)

COMFORTS IN BED.

CONVALESCENCE.

: While drawing-rooms and living-rooms are attracting much attention, as regards ! both luxury and comfort, the domain of • bed continues to receive singularly little attention. Of beds much might be said, i but this is to talk of a whole country in \ which one dwells, and since the minority *=— i of English do not know what a goud bed

is, the subject may bo left to its own vastness. But the electric pad is a marvellous addition to the land of counterpane with its capacity for remaining hot and for being turned off when not needed. Further, the wedge-shaped pillow with springs is a help for sitting up in bed. Rubber pillows are now on the market, which work almost as well. In any case, for people eitting up in bed three pillows are necessary; the first large and rather hard, next a softer pillow which is slightly smaller, and thirdly a down pillow which lends itself to filling up the cracks. For sitting up in bed a ring cushion is also frequently comfortable, especially for those who have been there a long time. The great point about it is that it should not be blown up too tightly.

The ideal bed jacket has perhaps yet to be made. Some of the most comfortahle are the high-necked knitted jackets. They can be made in two-ply wool, knitted loosely, and then used double—that is to say, one jacket is lined with another. Bed-jackets of unyielding material like crepe de chine should never be made with set-in sleeves. The shoulders need to remain entirely loose, and the kimono shape is the best for this. Also, they should never be trimmed with 6wansdown, which pricks in bed —a fact that might be remembered with regard to babies, who long suffered under this decoration. Where it can be put on easily a white sweater is as good as anything in bed, topped with a loose wool wrap.

Where patients suffer from cold feet, socks or stockings may be made on the same lines as the double bed-jacket. A tube may be knitted with big needles and two-ply wool and sewn up at one end, which is slightly shaped. Another tube pulled over ttiis inakee a warm mixture. For bed for any length of time a housewife is a boon which contains jn different compartments comb, powder, nail scissore, ordinary sewing materials, pen, writing-block, stamps—all those things, in fact, which it is so tiresome to be without and yet for which one hesitates continually to ask.