THE HOME.

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXI, Issue 4955, 13 February 1937, Page 3

THE HOME.

MODERN BLANKETS. The modern bedroom has in its character something of the simplicity and serenity of a wood in spring. Harmony of line and contour is there in the dressing-table of polished or unpolished wood, the round or oval glass unprisoned by any frame. A pair of tall coloured candlesticks, a ;ade statuette, or a few pieces of glass and silver of your dressing-table set, serve to enhance the beauty of shining mirror and exquisite grain. The restful colours of a wood in spring are there also in the plain,, walls, adorned probably with a single picture, the carpet, the hangings, the silk bedspread and eiderdown, all of some harmonious pastel shade. How different from the fussy bedroom of our childhood’s memory, with the rose grown walls, the brass be-knobbed bed, the lace curtains, the d’oyleys and the little mats, and all the hundred and one details to distract the weary eye and mind. I was staying in the home of a friend, a short while ago. The bedroom she gave me had wide windows, and it was furnished in tranquil shades of blue. Blue is the colour of peace, arid the memory of that room rests in my mind as a memory of peace. When, at night, the cover came to be folded back from the bed, and the sheet was turned invitingly down, I shall never forget the delicious sense of surprise I had; the same shade ox pastel blue greeted me in the blankets. I had never looked for blue in blankets before; they had always seemed to me strictly utilitarian articles. There was something strangely welcoming about their soft shade of blue beneath the turned-back linen sheet. That bed was more than a place to lie in; it was a place to rest in, a place to be happy in. Once upon a time blankets were intended solely for the'purpose of keeping the sleeper warm at night. So far were they from being part of the room’s furnishings that in the daytime it was necessary to cover them over with a bedspread. Nowadays blankets need not only cover a bed, they may furnish and adorn it; they should be a part of the colour scheme. One thousand well-to-do housewives were asked to vote for what they wanted most in blankets. Their votes went.first for a blanket that is odourless when new; secondly for one that is moth-proof; thirdly for blankets in modern pastel colours, and equal fourth for blankets which were unshrinkable, one-hundred per cent, pure lambs’ wool, and sold ready wrapped in cellophane. The test of a good blanket is not in the fluff but in the weave. When you are buying a blanket, hold it up to the light and see how closely it is woven.

Many a fluffy blanket becomes thin after its first wash. The proof of the blanket is, indeed, in the washing!