MAKE YOUR OWN HANDKERCHIEFS

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12549, 11 September 1926, Page 19

MAKE YOUR OWN HANDKERCHIEFS

Great store is set nowadays by bandmade handkerchiefs, and they make a delightful personal gift, which never fails to please. About 10 inches square is the usual size for handkerchiefs, and, of course, nothing is nicer than sheer linen for their material, although crepe de Chine is still used sometimes tor those fluffy wisps which go by the name of handkerchiefs. Everybody seems to like the coloured embroideries cnosen to trim many of the new handkerchiefs. Cross-stitch embroidery is fashionable, and is often used now for finishing off a plain handkerchief. A formal motil in one corner is usually chosen, and it is worked in two or three different colours, while the predominating note i» repeated in the edging of fine cross-stitch which keept. the rolled hem in place. uno of t.ho prettiest ways of trimming handkerchiefs is to give them lines of coloured thread running through the linen. Any pattern may be chosen, of course, but it should be a simple one, and the usual thing is to run a coloured thread along each side, about one inch from the edge, making an inner square, whose sides cross at each corner, to make another tiny squaro. This looks very professional when finished, but it is really quite easy to achieve. Firßt of all, mark the place where your line is to be, then along it draw out a thread of the linen, lengthwise. Now take the next thread, and draw it out just a litle way. To this end you join the coloured thread, but it is the other end you pull out, gently, so that it brings along the coloured thread with it, and pulls it through the linen. Miniature wreaths look very pretty if they are embroidered on to a honclkmchief in coloured silks, but they should bo worked in one corner only, ns too much embroidery spoils the whole effect. Initials are still a favourite form of

adornment for handkerchiefs, but these are always worked in white. If you want to make your handkerchief a little out of the ordinary, the idea of giving it a pocket can ho copied, and in this a powder puff can be concealed. The pocket is made simply from a very 6mall squaro of the material, and this is made exactly like an envelope, with three of its sides turned over so that they are joined to a point in tno centre, while the fourth side is left free and provides the flap, and this is fastened down with a tiny button and buttonhole. Sill newer are the handkerchiefs which’ have a figure stencilled in one corner, and this figure is dressed in a frock of narrow frills, which in their turn conceal a miniature puff.