Hints and Suggestions.

Otago Witness, Issue 3330, 9 January 1918, Page 52

Hints and Suggestions.

To free ...a hands from disagreeable odours, such as that of onions, cod-liver oil, etc., mix a little ground dry mustard with warm water, and wash the hands well with it. The saucers of scales or vessels used in cookir can .be freed from odours by the same method. To clean white felt hats successfully, buy a penny packet of powdered magnesia, and with a clean piece of white rag iub this on the hat in a circular direction until it is perfectly white and clean. Shake the hat gently before wearing. This can be done again and again with excellent results.

To take spots off serges and similar fabrics, put a tablespoonful of quillai bark into a pint of boiling water, and let it stand till next day. Pour off, strain, and bottle. A little of this applied with a clean rag to tweeds and serges acts like magic.

-When boiling clothes, cut a thick slice from a peeled onion, and drop it into the water with the clothes. Leave it there while the clothes boil, and you will find it will remove any stains, and make the clothes beautifully white. This is much more effective than using chemicals, and does not harm the clothes in the least.

Be sure to dry the rollers of the mangle directly it is finished with, or the wood will rot. Also be sure and unscrew them so that there is at least half an inch between. It is a good plan to make flannel coverings for the two rollers, that can be tied on with tapes. Mangles are expensive, and should be well treated. When not in use, the whole of the mangle should be covered, and at least onco a fortnight the wheels should be greased.

Cooking Hints.—Allow one level teaspoonful of salt to flavour a quart of soup, sauce, or water in which vegetables aro to be cooked. Rice absorbs three times its measure of water, milk, or stock. Use a teaspoonful of baking powder to a cupful of flour for raising purposes. When weighing treacle for cooking purposes, well flour the scales, and the'treacle will run off quite without leaving any stickiness behind. When using spoons for measuring dry ingredients, take as much above the bowl of the spoon as vou have in it. This constitutes a spoonful. Never leave stock to cool in a saucepan. Stock should be bof'ed up every day and put into a clean bowl.

Blanket-Washing.—The best way of washing blankets is to use cold water and ammonia, and thus save fuel, time, and strength. Shake the blankets thoroughly before soaking them for 15 minutes in

'■ cold water to which you have added one tablespoonful of household ammonia. Lift . them into another tub of cold water with J two table&poonfuls of ammonia, and J double that quantity of soap jelly. Rub | the blankets well, or use a dolly peg. ' Give them a second and similar water, | but without the soap jelly. Rinse in clean, I cold water, and let them lie in it for half lan hour. Wring, shake well, and hang ' them to diy, keeping the hem five or six I inches over the line. Brush them when | almost dry with a small whi.sk, not too j hard, and in one direction, to raise the : nap. Air in front of the fire before putI ting on the beds, or laying aside. AnJ other easy method is to hang the blankets ! in the usual way, attach strips of tape to r the lower edge, and tie these to pegs in I the "ground. Drench well with water from i a hose-pipe, soak well all dirty marks and I stains, drench again, and leave them to [ drip and dry. New blankets should be | shaken, and soaked in cold water overnight, to take out the sulphur dressing, I and make them more easily Washed. Badly- | washed blankets may be restored by waslii ing in hot, soft water with borax or ! ammonia, put through another water, and I rinsing in hot water.