HEM-STITCHED HESSIAN

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22934, 12 January 1938, Page 5

HEM-STITCHED HESSIAN

PATTERNS IN COTTAGE STYLE BRIGHT AND DECORATIVE Most attractive and unusual residts may he obtained by working hemstitching on coarse fabrics, such as hessian, and using brightly coloured wools instead of thread for the sewing. The work goes very quickly, is pleasant to do, and is rapidly becoming popular. Casement curtains for cottage-style living rooms are charmingly done in oat-meal-tinted hessian and adorned with bands of hemstitching, about 3in apart, worked as a border to each. Mixed wools look most effective —first, perhaps, a band of red stitchery, then an emerald, then a roval blue one and so on.

Having worked one row of hemstitching along the drawn-thread line, you turn the work and do a second row, so that there is stitchery along the top and bottom of every set of

drawn-threads. Curtains of this type look their best if hung from narrow wooden pelinet-boards, enamelled in one of the shades of wool —emerald, cherry, or royal blue—whichever accords best with the furnishing scheme. A hessian coverlet for a simple wooden bed may be trimmed with crisscross bands of hemstitching, worked as described above, but all in one shade, which will depend 011 the bedroom appointments. Flower-posies may be embroidered in alternate squares and the hemstitched curtains may be decorated with similar floral conceits. Attractive curtains and ( bedspread may be made by hemstitching 011 course fabrics, such as hessian. Table mats and runners can be carried out in the same way, and will look particularly delightful in seasido bungalows and country cottages, where gav and simple accessories are always in good taste.